For those of you who haven't been divorced, I'm curious as to why you believe your marriage has lasted. Some say common interest, while others say interests change. Some say compatibility, but how compatible equals compatible? People marry for the wrong reasons, get counseling, and then everything's fine. While there are others who marry, get counseling, and split. Is it nothing more than a desire to make things work? What do you think?
If you want a Christian marriage, I'd put love, the fear of the Lord, and taking God's word seriously high on the list.
A lot of things are included in these categories. It's important to forgive. That is extremely important. Humility is also importation. If you or your partner have a big problem with pride and not wanting to forgive, that can make the marriage really hard. Humility allows either you or your partner to admits your mistakes.
If you both fear the Lord and continuing in a state in your relationship that is not pleasing to the Lord is not an option for either of you, that's a good motivator to work things out. It really helps to pray together. You can take any relationship problems to prayer. You can also read the Bible together, go to church together. Those things are good for the relationship, too.
Compatibility is important, but compatible in regards to what? Your values are what need to be compatible. My wife and I were from time zones that were literally 12 hours apart for much of the year. She lived in the southern hemisphere when she graduated high school, and I lived in the northern hemisphere. I don't know if there is an inhabited place on earth that is more than could be further away from where I was give or take a few hundred miles. She is from a very different culture. But we come from similar religious backgrounds, and her values were probably a lot more compatible with mine than the average girl on the street I could have found in the US. We were both Christians, but we were also coming from a similar perspective.
You want to be compatible in things like this:
1. Your faith.
2. Your philosophy of marriage.
3. Your philosophy of raising children.
4. Your attitude toward parents.
Some of things my wife and I did not discuss at great depth before marriage, like parents, but in hind sight I'd recommend it. Are you going to put your parents in a home or do they have to live with you? That's the sort of thing it's good to talk about. If you want to have 10 kids, and your wife wants to have surrogate mother have one child, max, with her implated eggs (to save her figure) that might not be a good match. If one of you doesn't want children and refuses to budge, and the other does, IMO, it would generally be extremely foolish to marry.
If I knew what I knew now, and I were a young man looking for a wife, I'd look for someone who took Ephesians 5, I Peter 3, and Colossians 3 about the duties of the wife seriously, just as I should take the duties of the husband seriously. Honestly, the culture programs American and probably western European women to oppose this teaching of scripture. I'd want to be on the same page when it came to that. I did ask about that with my wife. We are on the same page. I did not do a good job of setting the tone by provided leadership as head in the way we interacted at first in our marriage. I also was not diligent about praying with my wife or studying the Bible with her until later on. That was foolish of me. I didn't really have a great vision for my own marriage. I didn't do a lot of refining of what I grew up with to improve on it, in my mind, in regard to marriage.
Proverbs has a lot to say about women. It's starts off as a letter to a son. One preacher argued that the passages about women are written to the son, and therefore the book is partly a guide of how to choose a bride. It seems to be a compilation of books, but it sure can serve as a good guide for choosing a bride, too. One thing to avoid is the quarrelsome woman. If the girl likes to argue a lot, won't own up to being wrong when it's obvious, or is too in your face about it when she is right, that's something to look at. If she yells at her own parents, what will she do if she's married to you. See how she interacts with her parents. See if she has a string of broken family and friend relationships. A few here and there could be the other person's fault, maybe even suffering for righteousness' sake. They could also be signs of a lack of an ability to get along.
Look through Proverbs 31. Ask yourself if this woman can be a good mother? It sounds like something a redneck off of a cowboy movie would want in a wife, but looking at that chapter shows us you want a hard-working woman. Can she cook? I she willing to learn. My wife could cook a little when we first got married. Now people rave about her cooking, and she was recently a guest chef serving a $45 a plate dinner. You want a wife who will feed the kids that are hard to feed, not sitting around watching soap operas and expecting you to mop the floors and do the dishes when you get home after working overtime. I didn't really focus on this as a criteria as a young man, but God blessed me with a diligent woman anyway.
You seem concerned about divorce. If I were you I would also look for a virgin. Another option, would be a widow who'd been faithful to her husband and lived pure after he passed. My perspective is as someone who waited till marriage, and I've only been with my wife. Otherwise, that criteria might not seem 'fair.' I was looking for someone who'd not become one flesh with another man or multiple men, after reading the Old and Testament scriptures on the subject over the years.
Statistically, there is some evidence in the marriage and family academic literature that either virgins and women who never had sex with anyone but their husband are statistically less likely to divorce than women who have had multiple sexual partners. (Look up Teachman on Google Scholar). The reason that might come to mind is comparing men. It could also be emotional baggage. It could be that women who wait value marriage more, or maybe they choose high quality men who are willing to respect their virginity. I don't know of statistical evidence on widows. Of course, you could find someone who had fornicated who repented of her sin who would make a good wife, too. People aren't statistics.
If I were in your shoes, I'd ask a potential candidate for marriage her opinion on some scenarios related to divorce. You could start with an example from a feminist atheist's blog where a woman divorces to 'go find herself' or use some example from someone you know, and ask her what she thinks. Maybe you could work some celebrity or movie storyline into a conversation and see what she thinks without it sounding like a test that she would then be motivated to pass. You could read some old posts on the married couples forum about marriage problems that are much more challenging and ask what the wife or husband should do. If she throws divorce out as an option for really light marriage problems, or the first thing that pops in her head for regular difficult marriage struggles, you can study the Bible with her and disciple her. If she's set in her ways about divorce being an easy option-- if she has an escape hatch sitting there open and ready to use in her mind-- break it off. Don't invest any more romantic interest in that relationship and waste both of your time.
Of course, you would also have to be against divorce for light or moderate marriage problems. If she suggests divorce or separation over adultery, a man beating his wife to a bloody pulp, or things like that, you may find that reasonable. If they can't agree on whether to buy a new model wheelchair for her mom or a boat for him, and she recommends divorce, that may be cause for alarm.
Find out whether she wants to stay home with the children. How are you going to spend the money? Is your philosophy for your wife to go out and get a job and pay her half of the rent, or are you going to work and support yourself, your wife, and the kids, and she makes the home suitable for a family? Is your money family money and her money for special projects and needs she has, or is her money half yours? That's good to discuss. Neither of you may have thought about it. But it's good to go into marriage with an idea about this.
I hear money and sex are the two biggest sources of arguments in marriage. So I think it is a good thing to discuss the sexual issues before you actually get engaged. If you want to find out if she is a virgin, you may need to very, very tactfully try to get that information early on, maybe by sharing your information. You have to be careful not to talk about this stuff on a couch in a dark room where you can be tempted. Outside in the park, out of earshot in broad daylight, or maybe on the phone with some reasonable privacy might work. The question is her philosophy of sexual frequency. If she's a virgin, depending on what kind of 'activities' she has engaged in she may have no idea. You may have no idea. If her philosophy is only birthdays, Christmas, and Easter, and ovulation days while seeking to conceive, and you are looking forward to every night or several times a week, that might be a problem. But if she says she's really flexible about that and is willing to meet her husband's needs, you might be able to work with that. If she says every night, and you are looking for once a month, you might need to consider whether you'd be a good match for her. But if she's a virgin, that might not be an issue. IMO, the best answer is the frequency should be to meet the needs of the other partner and to get your own met, so that no one is unsatisfied. You can open I Corinthians 7.
This is the kind of conversation you do before bringing out the ring. IMO, it's best to keep it in the third person. Talk about her husband, not you. If you haven't made a commitment, you don't have a right to talk about her having sex with you. It may be a good idea to have the conversation when you've pretty much decided this is the person to marry.
You can also list a number of traits you are looking for in terms of personality, character, and skill. But if you are like the rest of us, there are areas you need to work on and develop. Whatever woman you decide to marry will likely have some shortcomings that you can see. She may even have some shortcomings in areas that keep her from being the Proverbs 31 woman. But reading that, her husband is already an elder, so she's probably at least middle aged. She's probably got some life experience already. If you meet a woman who fears the Lord and is on the way to becoming a Proverbs 31 woman, that's quite a blessing to.
Proverbs 31:30
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
(NIV)
Maybe that's not the best theme verse for me looking for a wife, because my wife is pretty, too. But she does fear the Lord. If I get angry and it last 10 seconds, that's a really long time for me. If I get into an argument with her, I'm ready to make up in a few seconds to maybe a minute. In the past, my wife would need more time than that, though she's gotten a lot more relaxed about it in recent years. But if she were angry or struggling to forgive me, she'd pray, and she'd realize she had to forgive or not hold resentment and we'd make up. Fear of the Lord has lead her to do the right thing. It's also one of the main things that keeps me from running around on my wife, or mistreating her, or ignoring her needs, or doing drugs, or a million other things that could seriously damage a marriage. I don't seriously think about running off and doing drugs and all kinds of stuff like that, but it's the fear of the Lord and love for the Lord that keeps me from wanting to go do such things.
Something else to consider is really praying, seeking God, and fasting and asking the Lord to send you the right wife for you, and asking whether the woman you meet is the right one. I took a 'show me whether this is the right one' approach with the Lord. So did my wife. By the time I decided to propose, I was completely convinced and ready--in terms of commitment to her-- for the many challenges involved in marrying into another culture where extended family can be very involved in the wedding. I was completely convinced I wanted to marry that woman, and that she was the woman God had for me to marry.
It's also important to be a good husband and grow in your own walk with the LORD and in your own character. It's important to work really hard and prepare financially for having a wife. Certain things can tempt women to leave their husband, even if it isn't completely justified. Of course there is abuse and adultery, which makes a lot of people's mind go to divorce. But there is also laziness and passiveness. Being passive about the career or what direction to take the family can hurt the relationship. Of course there is also withdrawing sexually or emotionally. If you like a 'spunky' type girl, letting her run all over you why you say 'yes dear' to unreasonable demands, letting her be right all the time even when she's wrong may even make her feel insecure, since it's signalling not having much of a backbone. So you have to be firm and have goals and direction at times.
Keeping a relationship strong is on-going work. It's a lot of fun being married if you do have a good, loving relationship. A lot of the divorce statistics you hear aren't accurately interpreted, and repeated wrongly. Be that as it may, I've read in a couple of secondary sources that less than 1% of married couples who regularly pray together divorce. Put God first in your marriage. If you believe God has designed you to marry, don't let the prevelence
His expectations are set far, far too high, and it worries me for his future relationships. IMO, he needs to work on those high expectations. Marriage isn't all butterflies in the stomach, as we all know!
