Do you have to be 'certain' before you marry?

[ToBeLoved]

So ive been thinking about marriage with someone for a while now but I cant decide for sure because I still doubt if its meant to be.

someone just said to me "if you are having doubts then its not meant to be"

is that too simplistic?

why are there hundreds of articles online regarding "is this the person I should marry" if being sure is the only criterion? (the advice was from an unbeliever)

First thing, do not be unequally yoked.

Second, when talking marriage you want to make sure that you agree on the things that are really important. Like God and raising children and families. Those are things that kind of speak to the heart of who we are like our morals and values.

You both can begin to have conversations about things and then just see what the other person's goals are. You need to be compatible on the big things. Marriage is a forever thing with God.

 

[ToBeLoved]

interestingly, Im not sure I have ever displayed agape love for anyone in my life! and I am definitely a born again christian, so what gives?

Agape love most simply is when you love someone else seeking nothing for yourself in return. This could be many things, but mainly it is when you are in a conversation or when you just concentrate on what is best for the other person, not yourself. Christ is of course our role model always, but for this especially. He is God, who became man, only to offer Himself as a sacrifice to get His creation back. There was nothing in it for God, per se. We are the ones who get the free gift of salvation and forgiveness for our sins. Not only that, but God makes us not only His children, but sons and daughters of the Most High. A special designation that shows His love for us and is great insight into how valued we are by God. He lives inside of us and works tirelessly with a bunch of sinners, so we can become spiritually like His Son.

Does that make sense? I'm a liittle tired today.

 

[JohnKing67]

So ive been thinking about marriage with someone for a while now but I cant decide for sure because I still doubt if its meant to be.

someone just said to me "if you are having doubts then its not meant to be"

is that too simplistic?

why are there hundreds of articles online regarding "is this the person I should marry" if being sure is the only criterion? (the advice was from an unbeliever)

For a decision as important as marriage, I would pray and make sure it's what God wants for me.

 

[Ben Collyer]

Agape love most simply is when you love someone else seeking nothing for yourself in return. This could be many things, but mainly it is when you are in a conversation or when you just concentrate on what is best for the other person, not yourself. Christ is of course our role model always, but for this especially. He is God, who became man, only to offer Himself as a sacrifice to get His creation back. There was nothing in it for God, per se. We are the ones who get the free gift of salvation and forgiveness for our sins. Not only that, but God makes us not only His children, but sons and daughters of the Most High. A special designation that shows His love for us and is great insight into how valued we are by God. He lives inside of us and works tirelessly with a bunch of sinners, so we can become spiritually like His Son.

Does that make sense? I'm a liittle tired today.

sure, but if I make a decision to love someone and care for them, expecting nothing in return, without any emotions attached, am I displaying agape love? because Often I find it confusing when people talk about agape love as a feeling AND as an act of the will

 

[Kenny'sID]

Yes I love her, but im not in love with her as such, she is in love with me.

Then what the heck is wrong with you!

Take that as half in jest and half not.

 

[ValleyGal]

Ben, I think agape is inachievable in marriage. God's love takes a while to explain in the context of his unilateral relationship with Israel. But in a nutshell, he entered a unilateral covenant with Israel, where God himself would take responsibility for all in the covenant. In other words, it was up to God to provide a way of reconciliation when Israel didn't reciprocate. Israel reciprocated on and off for centuries, but her lack of reciprocation is why Jesus came to die - as the atonement for her sins. She rejected him, and his salvation was offered to the Gentiles. That love of Jesus that motivated him to go to the cross is utterly overwhelming and indescribable and incomprehensible. The Lord gave me a tiny vision and sense of his great love, and I could not stand to experience it! It was too overwhelming for me. That is not the kind of love that God expects in marriage.

Marriage is a bilateral covenant. It reciprocates, it expects, it requires both to be 100% "in." Additionally, being "in" love as a basis for marriage is a historically recent phenomenon and is based on feelings. The Bible tells us that the "heart is deceitful above all else." (Jer. 17:9) Those feelings will come and go over the years, but what will stand the test of time is your integrity to keep your vows. Both of you. There are going to be times in your marriage when you will not even like your spouse. It is in those times when you will need to remind yourself of the command to love her - in spite of how you feel about her. How did Jesus love us? He loved us while we were yet sinners, he loved us enough to die for us - in spite of begging God to find another way... he didn't want to go to the cross. But his love and his commitment compelled him. Sometimes it will be only your commitment that will compel you to continue to love your wife in spite of not liking her all the time.

That is not to say I think you should marry this woman.... only you can decide that. And it is true what some say - there must be at least some level of affectionate feelings for her. Let me tell you about a book I read once. It's called "Learning to Live the Love we Promise" by Lewis Smedes. Good book, easy read. Get it and read it if you can. He talks about commitment. There are two pieces that must combine to make commitment real. You can have one without the other, but that would not make it commitment. For commitment, you have to have both care and consistency. These will bring significance and security to the marriage. If you have genuine, deep and consistent caring for this woman, then it might be worth discussing marriage with her. Even on those days you don't necessarily like her, will you still care about her? Will you care enough about her to meet her needs, to put meeting her needs above meeting your own? Will you do this consistently? Can she count on your care and your consistency? If so, she will feel significant to you and secure with you. And vice versa. You will feel that with her, when she demonstrates her care and consistency with you.

There is another book I'd like to recommend. I think you will really appreciate this one because it digs deeply into the theology behind marriage. It's called "A Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. He tells it like it is - marriage is not all roses and lace. It can get messy and mean. But you will still know that you care and are consistent.... that is commitment.

And if you really, really like to read, there is another book that I highly recommend - "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" by D. John Gottman and Nan Silver. Gottman spent 40 years researching the marriage and divorce relationship, and knows his stuff. He is Jewish - although that does not influence his research. His research is purely professional.

Please read from the experts rather than a bunch of us on the internet. Like you said, you're just going to get a mixed bag of opinions here. So read what the experts say, and make a truly informed decision.

 

[LinkH]

I was sure before I proposed. I didn't have cold feet. I was convinced and ready on the wedding day.

But before I met her, I prayed for the Lord to send me a wife. I'd been doing that, but I was praying more intensely about it. And I believed the Lord may have been telling me I'd meet her that month, before it happened. After we met and had our first conversation, I went home praying if this was the woman I was supposed to marry. She went home praying about something similar.

I'd had a vision when I asked who I'd married a year before. It focused on a part of her face and quickly zoomed out,and I don't memorize pictures that well. But that certainly helped. On her end, she believed the Lord revealed to her I was the one she would marry that day we met, and she'd had a vision shortly before.

When we were dating, I kept praying about it. One time, she got upset while we were talking on the phone early in our relationship. I prayed about it, and it seemed like the Lord might have been speaking to me, some details about her past as to why that would have upset her. She told me that same story during our next conversation on the phone.

There were some things to kind of challenge my belief that we were to be together, someone who did not seem very supportive of our relationship. We got past that.

She went away on a short-term missions trip, and I spent more time at home, praying. A couple of older men, a missionary and a married Christian with five kids both gave me similar advice about how they'd pray about a decision, and then make it. One said after he did that, He'd tell God, "If you don't want me to do it, stop me." The other said he'd pray, make a decision, and then if it wasn't right he'd know before he left the room because he wouldn't have peace about it.

So, before my future wife arrived back from her mission trip, I prayed. I laid out all the reasons I believed she'd be a good wife that I could think of in my prayer. I probably mentioned several of the reasons I believed it was God's will that I mentioned in this post in my prayer.

Then I told God I was making my decision to propose. I summarized why. I told Him if He did not want me to to let me not have peace about it, or stop me.

Before that, I was 90-something percent sure we'd get married and that we were supposed to do so. But I still had a bit of uncertainty, maybe even doubt, you might say. After I prayed that I was sure about it.

I would have loved to have gotten a prophecy from someone confirming that I should propose to her before that prayer. But at that point, after praying that, I didn't feel I needed it.

But probably that very day, or maybe the next, I went to pick my future wife up after her mission trip, and we went to a 'young adults' meeting which had a lot of older singles. A guest evangelist was there who I'd met before, but hadn't talked to since I'd started dating my wife. He called us up after the preaching, and prophesied to us about going to many places and ministering to many people. It implied we'd be together a long time. i took it as confirmation.

 

[LinkH]

Yes I love her, but im not in love with her as such, she is in love with me.

Have you been 'in love' with someone, so you have situation to compare the feelings with? Are you concerned that you don't get butterflies and you are able to breathe normally around her? Do you ever find yourself staring into space, smiling, and thinking about her? Are you happy if you pick up the phone and here her voice?

Are you attracted to her? Would you have a problem with doing 'wedding night' stuff with her regularly for the rest of your life? Is there attraction there physically?

 

[LinkH]

I memorized some scripture as a teen that included some of Christ's teachings on divorce. So I wanted to make sure I would marry a woman I could be with for the rest of my life. It was a big decision, and I also wanted the Lord to actually speak to me about it. So I spent time praying about it, asking God for His will when I wasn't off dating her, when I was at home alone.

Really honor the Lord in the process. You can also ask God to show you if she's the one. For me, I got the certainty from the Lord after praying about it and just sort of stepping out in faith and making a decision to trust God with the information He'd given me to make a decision.

 

[Ben Collyer]

I would agree. Feelings come and go like the wind, so we should not let our decision be based upon them, but rather how we feel will change based upon the decisions that we make. If you spent a year taking care of someone, then an emotional connection would form between you and them. If every day you choose to act in a way that shows your love for your wife regardless of how you feel, then an emotional connection will follow. How you feel when you say your vows is not the height and depth of your marriage, but rather it will continue grow as you continue to love either other.



Doubts about whether something is meant to be is different from doubts that stem from red flags. If there is a good reason that has to do with her in regard to why you broke up with her, then that should give you pause. However, God does not have a history of seeking out the most qualified people to accomplish great things in service to Him, so what He wants is not out qualifications, but rather God gives us the ability and what He wants is our availability. So it is not an issue is not whether you are the most qualified person to love her, but whether you are available to commit to doing so.



Love is not the same thing as being in love. Being in love is infatuation, which comes and goes, but you can always choose to love her.



I seriously would recommend seeing a Christian counselor for premarriage counselling if you decide to go in that direction. It it is important for both of you to have realistic expectations of what you are getting into. Marriage is not about what you get out of it, but about what you put into it, about laying down your life for the other, so if she is idolizing what she expects to get out of it, then it will likely lead to problems.



You should not go into marriage expecting the other to change, but you should be expecting that you will change. Arranged marriages in India as just as successful as chosen marriages in the US, so it is about two people living by what they committed to do.



I do not think that they have given good reasons for saying no because they have focused on how you feel and not on what you are able to commit to regardless of how you feel.

So you say love can be cultivated as a fruit of the act of love, but does there have to be a seed of love start with?

 

[Ben Collyer]

also i wonder if bein possessive, unkind and inconsiderate can stifle feelings of love for both partners

 

[Kerensa]

also i wonder if bein possessive, unkind and inconsiderate can stifle feelings of love for both partners

Yes.

 

[lastofall]

[for me anyway] it is a matter of trusting in the Lord with all our heart, and lean not to our own understanding; and acknowledge Him in all our ways, and He shall guide our paths.
We must trust Him and acknowledge Him is all our circumstances in life, knowing that making the sincere effort to do His will which begins first with humility, that we shall be on the side of right always.
(Proverbs 3:5-6)

 

[Soyeong]

So you say love can be cultivated as a fruit of the act of love, but does there have to be a seed of love start with?

Again, it is important to make a distinction between a feel and a choice. When the Bible commands us to love our neighbors, it isn't commanding us to feel a certain way towards them, but to choose to act in a certain way towards them. If we always choose to act in a certain way, then feelings will inevitably follow. Anyone is cable of making the decision to lay down their life for someone, though chemistry between them certainly helps to make that decision easier. However, feelings come and go, so it is important for people not to build their marriage on sand, but on rock. Couples often come down from an emotional high after the first few years of marriage, so even if you started on an emotional high, it is not guaranteed to last long. Some mistakenly think that their marriage is falling apart because they have confused love with infatuation and all they've really fallen out of is infatuation, while the decision to continue to love is still one that they need to choose to make every single day. They did not vow to always be infatuated with the other.

 

[seeking.IAM]

Sometimes I think it is better if one is not certain. Does "certainty" mean it is easier to take each other for granted? Does uncertainty mean we work harder every day to make things work? I think it is interesting to think about.

Here in the west we mostly do love marriages. In some parts of the world, arranged marriages are more common. In the U.S. about 50% of (love) marriages end in divorce. The global divorce rate for arranged marriages is about 6%. I think it is interesting to think about.

Forty-three years ago I stood at the altar with a little green-eyed, brown-haired girl. I was full of uncertainty yet certain I wanted to try. I'd like to think that feeling of uncertainty kept me focused on working to "be the right person" for her every morning. We've made it 43 years; we'll see how it works out. I think it is interesting to think about.

 

[jsimms615]

So ive been thinking about marriage with someone for a while now but I cant decide for sure because I still doubt if its meant to be.

someone just said to me "if you are having doubts then its not meant to be"

is that too simplistic?

why are there hundreds of articles online regarding "is this the person I should marry" if being sure is the only criterion? (the advice was from an unbeliever)

Just my opinion, but I think if your not sure when your dating and engaged then you should call it off. It is a big decision and not to be made in a rushed manner.

 

[LinkH]

Going into marriage, one thing you need to be certain of is your commitment. This is a covenant for life, not something to back out of if you think you made the wrong choice.