ARE you preparing for marriage? If you are, then this article is for you.  Are there qualities in your partner’s personality or behaviours that you question-like jealousy, hot-temper, irresponsibility, selfishness, dishonesty, or stubbornness?
Ask yourself if you’re willing to spend the rest of your life dealing with these problems.
Personality features like these rarely vanish when you get married.  This is why as a counselor I am concerned about your future.
Most of the above problems are personality traits, meaning they happen over and over in many different situations, not just once or twice over a long period of time.
If you potential partner was in a bad mood two or three months ago, that’s no big deal.
But when her or his mood fractures a lot in the same week, and there are too many of those “weeks,” you’re dealing with an established personality trait.
These behaviours normally start out as strategies designed to handle some part of life.
Take lying, for instance.  Your potential partner found herself in a tight spot, perhaps early in her life.
If she told the truth, she looked bad or lost something of value.  This kind of reinforcement makes lying under similar circumstances more likely to occur the next time she faces a dilemma.
When these behaviours have been tried over and over with regular reinforcement, they become a habit.
If some one you love is regularly undependable or untruthful or irritable, it will be extremely difficult for you to build trust, let alone enjoy him or her.  And if you can’t trust or enjoy your partner, friends look out!
If the personality disorders are not sorted out before marriage, be sure that marriage will not be a magical cure, instead it will magnify and intensify problems.
The stress of marriage, the vulnerability of living with some one day in day out, the weight of responsibility, the fear of fear of failure, the realisation that marriage isn’t a cure-all all these combine to thrust existing problems to the forefront.
This is why it is important to resolve all the existing problems and personality disorders before marriage.
Many people think that marriage will be a magical cure for their problems, that their old struggles will disappear as soon as they tie a knot.
And perhaps for a while the freshness of their relationship may hide the signs of trouble.
It’s a new beginning, the newlyweds think.  We’re going to leave the old problems behind and start over.
Obviously, if the person you are considering to marry has a drug or a drinking problem or trouble with sexual integrity, you should make absolutely sure that he or she has worked through the problem well in advance of your marriage.
Two things will happen if you don’t: your partner will have little motivation to improve behaviour once you are married.
To make matters worse, the stress of marriage will tend to magnify the problems and make them considerably more difficulty to manage over time.
A Christian must have a sanctified tenderness and love, in which there is no impatience or fretfulness; the rude, harsh manners must be softened by the grace of Christ.
A friend of mine told me a few days ago that his marriage was in a mess because he ignored an obvious psychological problem he had recognised in his wife long before their wedding day.
“She always has to have her way,” he told me, “and that has been true since I met her.  When we were dating and trying to see which movie to see, she would make her choice and settle for no compromise.  Through the years it has been one thing for another.”
“And I came to see that I had two alternatives: agree with her or call it quits.  I hate divorce, and I have refused to give up, but I’ve lived in misery my entire marriage.”
That’s a terrible sad story, isn’t it?  You may wonder if my friend and his wife tried hard enough to deal with the problem.
When I asked him about that, he assumed me they had been in counseling three different times.  Still the problem has barely budged through the years.
Dear young guys do not under any circumstances, move ahead with marriage like my friend, until significant personal problems have been addressed and fully overcome.  If you do, there is tremendous potential danger for your relationship.
Has your character been transformed? Has darkness been exchanged for light, the love of sin for the love of purity and holiness?
Have you been converted, who are engaged in teaching the truth to others? Has there been in you a thorough, radical change?
Have you woven Christ into your character? You need not be in uncertainty in this matter.
So there you dear friend, we have dealt with the most deadly causes of faulty mate selection.  If you can eliminate these, you’ll significantly increase the chances of building a solid marriage.
If you follow what is put here, you will get rid of the major causes of choosing the wrong mate.
Then you will be free to think more positively about how you can make your marriage wonderfully happy and deeply meaningful by design and careful intention.
The rewards of wise mate selection are overwhelming, and your hard work will pay off.
Take it from, the truth is, successful marriages require an incredible amount of hard work.  You will experience all kinds of pain, and there will be problems all along the way.
And however well your marriage turns out, you will still have dozens of personal challenges to test you.
I have watched many marriages sink because the couples expected things to out on their own.  They put in very little effort.
Please do not be foolish like that friend of mine.  Do something now.  I wish you well.
For comments; Email: brysonkatele@yahoo.com Cell: +260977 772697; +260975 772697