Roadblock #8: “Marriage is such a big commitment.”
Action: Yes it is. Be sure you can make it.
In our research for our book The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, one factor jumped out as an essential pivot point for creating a happy, lifelong marriage. It wasn’t whether the couple “knew everything about one another before they got married.” It wasn’t whether the couple was financially stable. It wasn’t the couple’s age.
It was whether the couple went into marriage thinking there was no eject button.
In the end, every question we’ve been exploring comes down to this: If you and your significant other are indeed equally yoked, other-focused, and all the rest, are you ready and willing to make a lifelong commitment? It has been so clear in our research that when someone goes into marriage to “give it a try” without a rock-solid commitment there is nothing to hold them when times get tough. But when both partners say “this is for life, no matter what,” it is amazing how much that ensures they have to work things through.
As one long-married couple put it in our interviews. “What changes everything is going into the marriage knowing, first, that it is under God. That you’re equally yoked. But second, that it is forever. Knowing there’s no way and no reason for divorce and ensuring that that topic never even comes up in arguments. Sometimes the good feelings aren’t there. But with that ‘until death do us part’ commitment then it doesn’t matter. You stick with it. And what usually happens is that the good feelings follow. It’s the way God works.”
So, to wrap things up, the question we’ve tackled in this series is: Should we get married young? The answer to that question ultimately lies in the answer to a different question: Are you ready to make that big lifetime commitment?
There will be challenges no matter who you marry. So don’t cue off of rom-coms or let fear tell you that you’ll end up as a (false) divorce statistic. Marriage is a step of faith, no matter when you take the plunge. Make sure that you are being wise about the person, about the factors that matter, whether you share the same faith, and whether you’ve had enough time to talk things through. But then, be bold. Be willing to take that step of faith with full commitment. And enjoy the lifetime of companionship and delight that comes with it.
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