The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make!

The most important decision you will ever make in your life, will be the decision about the person you choose to marry! Many may balk at the thought of this. With all of life's important decisions, how could someone narrow it down to one person? The truth of the matter is: all the decisions we make lead up to the choice of who we will marry. Once we have chosen a mate it then affects every decision we make there after. Some of the best advice I ever received, I now wish to share with you. (If you have already married hopefully this will help remind you why you fell in love. If you are looking to get married, or are single and one day will be married, please consider taking this seriously.)
The sage advice that I was given so many years ago was this.... "People do not contemplate who they want to marry." Many times people date because they want to get married, but they don't think before hand "I want to date you because you are who I want to marry." Allow me to clarify this concept a little. It is a true saying "You marry who you date," for it is impossible to marry someone that you don't date. (Unless you are into arranged marriages or reality TV shows.) So if that saying is true, wouldn't it make sense to only date those who you want to marry? ....Of course it does! Now comes the next part of the advice I was given, "make a complete list of all the things you want in a wife and a list of some of the things you absolutely couldn't have in a wife." The reasoning was that if you wrote out what you wanted in a wife, you would spend your time dating those people who best fit that description- and vice versa you wouldn't waste time with those who were not what you wanted in marriage.
I was married at a relatively young age, I believe I was 22 years old. I made my list when I was 18 years old. In order to really know what I did and didn't want in a "wife", (and having never been married before) I looked at those marriages around me that were happy and unhappy. I selected traits from all these women based on how happy those traits made their husbands. Also, I told myself I would never marry a woman who treated her husband the way some of these women did. Some of them had terrible bad habits that made me embarrassed for their husbands (at the same time I was doing reconnaissance on the type of woman I wanted to marry, I was also scoping out the traits of men I wanted to emulate, both as a husband and a father). No one can make a list for you, it must cater to your needs, personality, and desires. Finally, I had my list together. Had anyone ever read it, I am sure they never would have thought that I could marry the girl I was looking for! I had such things on my list as "I want a girl that I have know for a long time....If I have meet her recently we would need to date for 5 years." (yeah right who would be that patient.) "I want a girl who is athletic....she doesn't have to be pro she just has to like wanting to play with me (sports that is). I wanted a girl who was comfortable in the outdoors, yet at the same time someone who liked staying home and watching movies. I wanted someone who sang and played the piano. Someone who was blond, but who also would change their hair color just for fun. (Isn't that Rebecca to a T.) I wanted a girl that belonged to the same church as me. It was a must that she was debt free when we got married. She had to be thrifty, yet I also wanted her trendy. I wanted a girl who felt the same way I did about how to discipline our children. Physically, I wanted her to be very curvy in all the right places. I wanted her to be a girl that would workout to keep her body in shape. (Child-bearing not included.) I wanted someone who wanted around the same number of children I did. I did not want a girl who was vulgar. I did not want a girl who could not be a lady in public. Nor did I want a girl who would belittle her husband in public or private. Did I want a girl who thought it was her job to have children but someone else's job to raise or educate them? NO. Did I want to marry a girl who's political views were going to be opposed to my own? NO. Did I want to marry a girl who had no mothering instinct at all? NO. And now you have gotten a small glimpse of what my list might have looked like.
I have known my wife since I was 3 years old, yet I still didn't know when I made my list that she would fulfill 100% of everything I ever wanted. I believe if more people would take the time to find out who they want to marry and then date only those people who are meeting those requirements, people would not only know who to marry, but fewer people would want a divorce from that person. A word to the wise, If you don't put it on your list then it must not have been that important. Remember your spouse will not be perfect, and you can't expect her to be. So include all those things that you must have, and those thing that you cant stand. Then any other little thing: just learn to let it go.