Days ago, I had this quite long lengthy chat with a friend JC about a possible relationship thing. Apparently this person seems to be kinda confused. While I left her with a seemingly sound advice (I think) dugging out old letters in my shelf, I found this one and I think this one's timely.

I received this email four years ago. I was then 21 and still in a relationship with someone else who I was hoping even planning to eventually marry after a few years. Funny but while we were then already planning and thinking about getting married, I still had a lot of questions or two racing in my head.

Questions or two--including my unsettled phobia of getting married. Yes at a certain point, I feared marriage. Good thing, the said fear left me when I was 23.

Then this email came about. And clearly there still are undefined, unanswered questions I still had back then aside from my concerns.


Marriage means choosing the person you will spend the rest of your life with. This is a very long time to spend with one person. This person will live with you, sleep with you and go on vacation with you. More important yet, this person will share your children and so you need to choose wisely and not on feelings alone. You need to ask yourself these questions and the decisions have to be made on solid considerations.


Will this person be a good partner? Is he mature enough to put his own selfish desires aside to look out for what is best for the family? Is he prepared to be a good provider? Is he responsible enough to get a good job and keep it? Will this person be a good parent? Can you stand the thought of your children turning out exactly like this person? They will, you know. Children spend a lot of time with their parents and consequently pick up many or most of their parent’s character traits. You had better like your spouse’s traits because you will be seeing them again in your children.

If something were to happen to you, would you completely trust this person alone with the task of raising and forming your children? This is not a pleasant thought, but it is an important consideration. Not everyone dies at a ripe, old age with great grandchildren gathered around the bed. Sometimes a parent dies and leaves young children in the care of the other parent. If you feel that you would need to be around to correct or lessen this person’s influence on your children then you are considering the wrong person.

Does this person share your faith in God? God does not give us children so that we can mold them into the coolest, most popular people in school. Our job is to get them to heaven. To do that we need to raise them believing in God. It is tough to do that if only one parent believes.

Saying “this is right and this is wrong and I want you to ignore mommy ‘till you’re 35” does not work. Small children ask about eight skillion questions in a single day. The answers to those questions go a long way toward forming the kind of adults they will become. Who will be answering those questions for your children?

Does this person you are marrying have sexual self-control? Single people sometimes have this idea that marriage is just some kind of a lifelong sex festival and that as long as they have each other, they will never be tempted by other people. WRONG! There are many times in every marriage when one partner or the other is sexually unavailable—illness, travel and the last months of pregnancy. There are also times when spouses just get on each other’s nerves.

At times like this, other people seem very appealing. That can be dangerous, because there are plenty of very attractive people out there who are willing to make them available to married men and women. Do you want someone who has never said “no” to sex? Ife he is not good at saying “no” at eighteen, it won’t be different at forty. Do you want to worry about whether or not your spouse is being faithful?

With these questions, it dawned on me, there’s really no plan B when it comes to marriage. It’s not all about a bungee-jumping act. Jump in, bounce back. Get it? They say it’s a leap of faith. It is one huge leap of faith to take but once you jump in, you cannot go back to where you once been. Because once you get married, it means to say that you have chosen the right man or woman for you. For sure, no one wants the scenario of saying "I thought I married a price; how come he turned out to be a frog? How come I didn't see it?"

I'm 25 now and I still try to read that email once in a while--although I can say that I know better now than before. JC, I know you're probably not considering marriage yet but then quoting our former Sociology professor, "courtship is the first step towards marriage" I hope in a way this will help you out with those bothering questions.