He’ll be our Mr Right – and one day, our path will cross. Perhaps they already did. And you can’t believe you found him and you’re even more surprised he actually exists. So, despite all these years dreaming if he’d ever come around, the question isn’t if you’ll find Mr Right anymore – it’s more like: is this the right time to get married? The question we all wonder – can we really have a healthy marriage and career?
Savoring Freedom
Before becoming engaged to her husband, Joy Schoffler, from Austin, Texas, took a trip to Thailand for seven weeks. She wanted to test the waters on her own before accepting a proposal. “Knowing that I could be completely independent, and have the freedom to do as I chose, gave me confidence to make a commitment.” she said.
She also wanted to pay off the debt she had acquired in her last year in college: “I firmly believe that finances are one of the most sensitive areas of marriage and can cause resentment.” she said.
Even now, post-marriage and children, asserting individual identity plays a part in being content too. For example, says Joy “by having happy hours with my girlfriends and little things like pedicures and massages.”. And to keep their marriage loving and romantic, Joy and her husband never go without date nights or spending time together without the kids when they can.
Communication is Key
Dr Christina Schlachter approves Joy’s decision. While Schlachter doesn’t believe there is necessary a “right” time to get married, there are right reasons for marrying the right person. But, before any of those matter, it’s important to really know yourself, she says.
Before deciding if it’s the right time to get married, experts like Schlachter and Jessica LeRoy, the founder and clinical director for the Center for Psychology of women, suggest that you and your fiancé ask each other the following questions:
1- Expectations: Do you and your partner have the same outlook on what marriage means and what it entails?
2- Outlook: Do you and your partner share the same life vision, like work schedules, time off, vacations, and friendships?
3- Compromise: Are you ready to give up certain aspects of your single life, such as not having sex with other people, merging finances, having to check in with someone, and an overall shrinkage of independence and personal freedom?
4- Commitment: Can you imagine sitting on a porch with this person in a nursing home or changing his/her clothes if he/she can not do it for themselves?
5- Friendship: Do your friends get along and do they like your fiancé?
6- Sacrifice: If you had to give up your favorite activity for this person, are you willing to do it?
If you can honestly answer “yes” to all of these questions, you may found the right person and you may be feeling the marrying-bug for right reasons. But, once you say “I do”, how can you make sure to maintain that “I can do it” mantra you’ve lived by?
Priorities, priorities
Schlachter says it’s less about balance and more about negotiating. “You need to be honest with yourself about what you are willing to give and willing to take.” she says. “Sometimes, you give 1001 percent to your career, sometimes 1001 percent to your family, but you can only give 100 percent, so something has to bend.”
Negotiating the Fit
By negotiating your needs and making terms for your marriage, before your cascade down the aisle toward your joint futures, you should prepare your relationship for complications that may arrive. If you’re open and honest with yourself about what you need, what you’re willing to give up, and what you expect out of your marriage, then both you and your spouse will be fulfilled and happy with the union.
Make a list of parts of your life you’re not willing to compromise, what you would change, and what you expect out of a lifelong partner. Be open and honest with your guy and have him make the same list.
Before there’s a Mr Right or a right time, you have to figure out what type of marriage is right for you.
By Lindsay Tigar
Photos by Kelly Tunney Photography
