Understand what marriage really demands beyond love

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The big mistake you would make is to believe in happily ever after. You will be happy with the right person but that's not all there is to marriage.

Marriage is a lot of negotiations that you didn’t even realize you were going to be making. The love itself is easy, love is super expressive and there from the start. But what isn’t as obvious and often doesn’t reveal itself till much later, in some cases many years later, is how your partner manages a joint bank account when it’s running low, or what they actually meant when they said they were fine with any option on where to live.

Couples keep getting caught up on the money into their relationships. Couples get caught up on money through not so much from not talking about money, but talking about the numbers and not the psychology of money. So, two people can be making the same amount of income but have two completely different relationships with financial security. One person grew up having basically no money. The other person never even thought about. So unless you and your partner start having deep conversations about how to handle money and financial security, that gap won’t disappear after you marry one another, it will transform itself into disagreements about home improvements, vacations and what career to prioritize when you have to make a choice.

The same type of dynamic occurs with children. When couples typically agree to have children, they basically shake hands on the agreement, but only after they discover that they have completely different beliefs about raising children, including discipline methods, education systems, screen time and religious beliefs. The real disagreements come from the details.

The reason why you have hard conversations ahead of time, that is, before you marry your partner is not because I am trying to be unromantic, the reason you want to have these difficult conversations is so that you will know who your partner really is and not just who they are when things go smoothly, but who they are when things get messy. That’s who you’re marrying.

I just had to screenshot this guide on the things you need to prepare for or have a serious conversation with your partner about before you think of a wedding. These discussions are worth more than the bachelor party you're spending all your time thinking about.

Screenshot attributed to Words of Wise on X