where a man can build his strength and freedom

Is marriage the best ultimate goal of a relationship?

We need to hold out for a partner who is marriage material. The photo shows a newborn baby, mouth wide open and eyes clenched, crying hard and painfully and depicts a difficult relationship.

Many young people these days no longer believe marriage is their best goal.
They feel they would be better off to experience different relationships.
Learn more about themselves over time
and change partners as they grow.
They feel it is too limiting to commit to love one person for life.

How about you?
How do you see this question?

I’m for marriage

I am all in for marriage.
I believe marriage needs to be the ultimate goal of a relationship.
In fact, if you are in a relationship with a person
you already know you would never want to marry…
I say you are wasting your time and theirs,
and you need to set each other free.

Let me offer you three reasons why I believe
we need to hold out for a partner who is marriage material:

1) To love at the deepest level, we humans require security.
And we require security for pregnancy, birth and raising our children.
Marriage provides security that supports the establishment of strong families.

2) Making a lifelong commitment to one person makes it far more likely
that we will face our problems rather than simply flee to another partner.

3) Marriage is a long-term growth lab in which we and our partner
have the opportunity to develop ourselves and our purposes in life
in order to reach our highest potential.

Yes, but

You may think over these reasons for making marriage your goal
and then reply:
That sounds great
…but what if I marry someone
who makes security, facing our problems,
and growing to our highest potential impossible?

Well, in that case you would likely have to get a divorce!

But why not do your best to prevent such a disaster?
Why not resolve to never get into a relationship in the first place
with anyone whom you already know
would make an unsuitable marriage partner?

Are you with me?

Let’s work on building a healthy process of awareness and selection
that begins when you meet someone—
before you get involved with them!
Let’s prevent the grief that is inevitable
if we get involved with the wrong person.

Let’s hold on to the ultimate goal of marriage
and do our best to make sure it lasts
by choosing a person with whom we could see building a great life!
How can I tell if the person I meet would make a good partner?