Before You Marry Them, Ask Yourself This

I read a post from a woman who was days away from her wedding when she discovered that her fiancé had been having an affair and had gotten another woman pregnant. Desperate and devastated, she turned to strangers on the internet and asked the question that was consuming her, which was, should I still marry him? Should I forgive him? He was remorseful. He promised to do therapy. So much of the wedding had already been planned. So much money had been spent. And she has dreamed about this day her entire life. She loved him so much and she really wanted to know, could she work through it? I rarely comment on people's posts, but I decided to comment here. And this is what I said. I said, who you decide to marry is the most important decision you will ever make in your life. Do not marry him. And I rarely give this kind of like strong directional advice about leaving a serious long-term relationship on the internet, because I've learned that most situations are actually quite nuanced and have far more sides than a single post can reveal. But this was different. The answer was clear. And yet it was not clear to her. Because when we love someone, when we have built a future with them in our minds and in our plans and in our hearts, leaving them can feel nearly impossible, even when leaving is the only real option. Which made me think of something that has become one of the most important principles that I share with anyone who is thinking about marriage. And it's this. It is never enough to just love someone. You need to feel truly loved by them too. Because emotions guide our decisions. They are the reason why we decide on anything far more than logic does. Even the most rational person that you know is ultimately making their biggest choices based on how they believe those choices are going to make them feel. The woman who shared this on the internet, this woman was weighing the loss of her fiance, her money, her wedding day, her dream. And those losses, they felt immediate and very visceral and very overwhelming. But what she could not yet fully grasp, what she could not yet fully feel in her body, in her bones, because it existed in a future that she had not yet lived, was the slow and excruciating reality of being married to someone whose actions had made it abundantly clear that he did not respect or love her. Not really. And obviously, this is an extreme example. And not all situations are this dramatic. But there are millions of people right now, and maybe you are one of them, who are either getting married, or wanting to be married, or rushing toward getting married, or pressuring someone else into getting married, who never stopped to honestly ask themselves the question that matters most, which is, do I feel as loved by this person as I love them? Because if you are going to marry someone, remember that the love you have for someone is not sufficient evidence that they are the right person. What matters is how they love you too.