You meet someone you like. You enjoy spending time together, get along well, and believe they are generally suitable. But there is that one thing that continues to bother you.
Now you’re faced with a dilemma: Should you accept this imperfection, or should you walk away and look for someone else?
You know this trait is unlikely to disappear. If you marry this person, you will probably be living with it for the rest of your life. On the other hand, the qualities you admire and appreciate will also be there for the rest of your life.
This is a common dilemma. Even thoughtful, mature adults can find these decisions surprisingly difficult.
When faced with this question, the single most important thing to ask yourself is:
“How will this affect my marriage?”
Remember your goal. You happen to be dating, but you are dating for marriage. The objective is not to have the most enjoyable dating experience possible—even though that would be rather nice. The objective is to choose the right marriage partner.
The qualities that make someone enjoyable to date are not always the same qualities that make them an excellent husband or wife.
Dating and marriage are very different experiences.
Dating is largely about getting to know each other. Marriage is about building a life together. Dating involves relatively few responsibilities. Marriage involves countless practical, emotional, financial, and family responsibilities.
Many of the activities that occupy dating—sitting in hotel lobbies, going out for coffee, or doing fun activities—play only a small role in married life.
By contrast, the central features of marriage—making decisions together, running a home, raising children, managing finances, and building a shared future—aren’t present while dating.
Charisma, humor, and banter, are far more valuable when entering into a relationship than they are when participating in a long-term union.
Certain features may dent your enthusiasm during dating, but they may have zero impact on your married life. Your dating will come to an end (either way), and married life is what you’ll be left with.
That is why it is so important to ask not merely, “Does this bother me now?” but, “How much will this matter twenty years into marriage?”
The question to ask is not merely, “Does this bother me now?” but, “How much will this matter twenty years into marriage?”
Some qualities that make dating exciting become less important over time. Other qualities, such as emotional stability, integrity, kindness, reliability, and the ability to work through challenges together, pay dividends every single day for decades.
If something about the other person troubles you so deeply that you cannot imagine living with it, then that deserves serious attention.
But if it is an imperfection you could reasonably live with, don’t allow it to eclipse the qualities that are likely to have the greatest impact on the quality of your marriage.
When choosing a spouse, don’t judge the relationship primarily by how it affects your dating. Judge it by how it is likely to affect your marriage.
