Should You Marry Him?

I do. Very few words, if any, have the power to change your life as exponentially as those two. Whether you’re already planning the wedding or just considering his proposal, know that you are in the process of making the most important decision of your life. Sound daunting? A little scary, even? Good. That means you’re truly considering what it will mean to be married to this man. You’re thinking about what’s at stake in choosing him, forsaking all others, to be your companion, mate and lover through your one, precious life. You know those movies in which the hero wakes up one day and finds he’s the only man left on Earth? Then, miraculously, he finds the one woman left on the planet living in some bombed-out apartment building? And, lucky for him, through all the dirt and torn clothing he can see she’s the hottest chick ever? And initially they hate each other but realize they really love each other and decide to begin their task of rebuilding the human race? Okay, maybe getting married isn’t that dramatic but it’s not far from it. Either you choose the right partner to help you successfully navigate this strange, new world called Marriage or you choose the wrong one and begin your descent into unhappy-marriage hell. With your “I do”, you will mark the start of the rest of your life. Your new husband will be the last man you’ll ever have a first date with, the last man you ever french kiss, the last man you’ll ever share a bed with. This man will be the father of your children and that’s an irreversible choice. You’ll slog through the everyday routine that is life and, if you’re lucky, that life will also be peppered with joy and moments of passion that make you both sigh and remember the good old days of coat closet sex. You will know this man, if all goes well, better than you have ever known another person. You will share his fears, his moments of glory and his bathroom. You’ll also become expert at reading his moods, accepting his limitations and soothing his demons. Yes, he has demons. We all do. And if you haven’t seen your man’s yet, you will. Make no mistake. No matter how you slice it, marriage is a gamble. Statistics vary but somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce. Let’s put it this way: Nearly half of you reading this book will get divorced. And if the numbers are that high for people who make the difficult decision to split, how many couples stay married and miserable? My clinical guesstimate is that you have about a 25 percent chance of ending up in happy marriage. Sweating, yet? Perhaps you think of divorce as something that happens to other people. If that’s true, next time you have dinner with your three closest girlfriends, take a look around the table. In time, two of you will be divorced from your spouses. Although the high rate of divorce has yet to dissuade folks from marrying, it hasn’t made the experience of divorce any easier. Ask anyone who has gone through it and you’ll hear the same descriptions of anger, grief and disillusionment. I’m a psychotherapist who has worked with hundreds of couples. I’m also divorced. I offer here what I’ve learned from my own experience and from those clients who have trusted me with the morass of their marriages. Whether you’re euphorically in love and happily planning your nuptials or you’re reading this book because you’re not sure, please don’t put it down. You owe it to yourself (and to your man) to at least consider what’s in it.