Criteria for Marriage the right spouse

Something / a story for our children to read about marriage.... Last night, we went out for dinner to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. We had a great time (Alt Pizza FTW! SO GOOD) So much has happened not just in our lives but in our family's lives as well in just the last three years. Every time I get a chance to talk to younger people about how to pick the right person to marry, I tell them to put aside questions like "Is there such thing as The One?" and "What if we don't share the same love languages?"etc. The questions are not worthless or unfounded, i just find they are not going to be the most useful to building a marriage that lasts. These are the underrated questions I think are most important to settle. 1) Does this person share similar big picture, end-of-life, "by the time I die" goals as me? 2) Will marrying this person multiply or divide, add to or subtract from my ability to impact the issues I care most deeply for? 3) What is the impact of this person on my family? 4) What character does this person demonstrate in the face of challenge and suffering? 5) Can we talk about difficult things together? In this picture, what you see is how my father "gave away the bride" by putting my hand in my husband's on my wedding day. In another picture that you won't see, is how 2.5 years later, my husband would be the one who put his hands on my father's, to pray with him in his last days in the hospital. In the early hours of New Year's Eve morning, it would also be my husband's hands who felt my dad's, to check if he had indeed passed on. He had offered to sit up for first watch while the rest of us slept around the hospice. I am grateful to have married a man who showed such support and love to not just me, my newborn but also to my family during some really rough months. Trust me, in those kind of testing times, you aren't thinking of whether he's The One. You just care about whether he's the one that is choosing not to walk away, choosing to lean in, choosing to be kind and choosing to bring some light. If you hope for a truly sustainable, enjoyable marriage, marry the one that - guns for a similar big picture end-of-life goal as you - multiplies the impact you want to create - helps you love your family better - has been tested by challenge and shown resilience in suffering - is always willing to talk with you even about the not so wonderful parts of life It sounds like a tall order, but it matters. And it works. If you have to get married, want to get married, then put in the due diligence to marry well.