Enjoy the courtship period

Before you walk down the aisle, there is no better time to get to know your future partner, writes ANTHONY KAGIRI

The foundation of a good marriage lies in a healthy courtship.

How fast and easy we settle in marriage to a great extent depends on our dating and courtship. It is sad that these two are either bypassed or not taken seriously by many.

The danger of skipping these two is that we get into marriage on the basis of the looks, charisma or what they have and fail to connect with the "who they are", which is what keeps a marriage.

When the beauty that attracted us delivers us to him/her, it is after interacting with them for some time that we discover whether life would be worthwhile with them. We get to know each other better, adapt where necessary, or drop our marriage bind.

After knowing each other during dating, courtship offers the opportunity for lovebirds to reflect on their choice, meditate over the life to come, and consult those who have gone before us to get a glimpse of the new life.

Marrying your friend is an asset. You understand each other; you feel for each other and can sacrifice for one another. When love fails in marriage, friendship comes to your rescue.

Friendship

That friendship is achieved through a considerable time of relating. Hurrying up to get married denies you the opportunity to make a friend.

The sequence is also critical. Don’t date someone you barely know or court someone you haven’t dated. The casual relationship should always be the place to start, which should lead you to dating. Sharing social activities like work, schooling, church, community work, family gatherings and parties offer a perfect opportunity to nurture a friendship.

Courtship should be the highlight of the journey to marriage and never a ‘pass on’ stage.

Here, emotions should take a backseat as reasoning take prominence. It’s at this stage that critical decisions about how you want your marriage to be are made. Where do you want to live after the wedding? Where will you build a home? How many children would you want? How will you handle your finances? What if children don’t come, will you adopt, divorce or just stay together happy?

It is here that people should agree on how conflict would be resolved. Let it be clear, for example, that no form of verbal abuse or violence would be tolerated. It should also be clear that infidelity will be the deal breaker.

Choosing

This way, you set standards that you will strive to achieve when you get married. If either of the party is not ready to live by them, then they are safe to quit at this point. When you fail to visualise and say what kind of life you envisage in marriage, anything that comes your way, you will take.

Some people get in there with the attitude, "nature will take its course". Then you get there and he is barely home for he is out the whole night on Fridays. It becomes difficult to deal with it since you set no standards before you got married.

Courtship is a safe environment to make critical life decisions. It is only here where you can’t see things the same way. You can give up and take a different direction without major consequences. Marriage doesn’t offer you this luxury.

It is sad that we are living in the days of ‘marriage by default’, where it has been simplified to: "I met him, I liked him and he invited me for coffee. Five months later, I was in his house."

The process of marriage is more important than the wedding. Jumping a step in the process might be exciting, but paying for it will certainly not be interesting.