Characters To Evaluate In A Man Before Saying “I Do” -By Sandra Ijeoma Okoye

Recently at a forum, a marriage counsellor asserted that most married women who thought they are married to the husbands of their dreams were wrong. She asked, “Has it ever occurred to most of them that they made mistakes as they walked down the aisles, respectively at different time? Unarguably to buttress her view, she said “more than a staggering 30 per cent of women who thought they are married to the right husbands are dead wrong”.

Ostensibly offering solutions to upcoming wives and mothers, she said, “Here are some bold and practical principles for women which could be helpful in keeping our lives happier and safer when choosing partners and fathers for our children”.

First and foremost, she copiously advised, “Do not take a man at face value, but evaluate his character, including his potential as a financial partner. Is he imbued with ambition, or is he looking for a meal ticket in a woman? Remember, talk is cheap.

“Women, discuss these with your daughters and let them know that we women have more power than we realize. Teach your sons to be respectful to women and to only associate with women worthy of respect.

“It is of great importance also, that fathers interact attentively and lovingly with their daughters, so that they will have a healthy self-image. If their fathers treated them well, they will expect and know how to identify the same when they are looking for romantic interests.

“Unless you are an atheist, ensure that he is a godly man. That should be an indicator of basic potential, although not an exclusive indicator!

“Watch for signs that a man is controlling, manipulative, a liar, domineering, prone to physical abuse, lazy, unstable, and unreliable, has violent tendencies, and is prone to fits of rage. If so, run!

“Observe his behavior when you interact with other men. Jealousy is not flattery… it’s only a display of control.

“Steer clear if you suspect alcoholism or substance abuse. You don’t need a ‘wounded bird’ in your life. You could end up being their prey.

Don’t try to ‘fix’ an emotionally unstable man or one prone to depression. You could end up with depression!

“Show me your company, I’ll tell you who you are”. We can’t choose our family, but we do choose our friends. Are his close friends those you would wish to associate with?

“Steer clear of married men, and don’t give too much too soon. Don’t tell him about your financial affairs, and your salary is none of his business. Definitely watch out if he’s always depending on you for money and needs “a loan”.

“Don’t be overly impressed by his ‘affection’ for you – all the abusers were once affectionate.

Watch them, and take your time before you get in too deep, and don’t just go along and continue to have children for men who have continually shown you their dark side!

Most advice-giving in her submission is “Never give up on love. There are good men out there … and one with your name all over him!”

And at first glance, research seems to back this up, suggesting that married people are on average happier than single people and much happier than divorced people. But a closer analysis reveals that if you split up “married people” into two groups based on marriage quality, “people in self-assessed poor marriages are fairly miserable, and much less happy than unmarried people, and people in self-assessed good marriages are even more happy than the literature reports.” In other words, here’s what’s happening in reality:

Dissatisfied single people should actually consider themselves in a neutral, fairly hopeful position, compared to what their situation could be. A single person who would like to find a great relationship is one step away from it, with their to-do list reading, “1) Find a great relationship.” People in unhappy relationships, on the other hand, are three leaps away, with a to-do list of “1) Go through a soul-crushing break-up. 2) Emotionally recover. 3) Find a great relationship.” Not as bad when you look at it that way, right?

All the research on how vastly happiness varies between happy and unhappy marriages makes perfect sense, of course. It’s your life partner.

Thinking about how overwhelmingly important it is to pick the right life partner is like thinking about how huge the universe really is or how terrifying death really is—it’s too intense to internalize the reality of it, so we just don’t think about it that hard and remain in slight denial about the magnitude of the situation.

But unlike death and the universe’s size, picking a life partner is fully in your control, so it’s critical to make yourself entirely clear on how big a deal the decision really is and to thoroughly analyze the most important factors in making it.

Well, start by subtracting your age from 90. If you live a long life, that’s about the number of years you’re going to spend with your current or future life partner, give or take a few.

(Sure, people get divorced, but you don’t think you will. A recent study shows that 86% of young people assume their current or future marriage will be forever, and I doubt older people feel much differently. So we’ll proceed under that assumption.)

And when you choose a life partner, you’re choosing a lot of things, including your parenting partner and someone who will deeply influence your children, you’re eating companion for about 20,000 meals, your travel companion for about 100 vacations, your primary leisure time and retirement friend, your career therapist, and someone whose day you’ll hear about 18,000 times.

So given that this is by far the most important thing in life to get right, how is it possible that so many good, smart, otherwise-logical people end up choosing a life partnership that leaves them dissatisfied and unhappy?

In his discussion on why people marry the wrong person, Dov Heller, an international marriage counselor said, there are two types of daters: Those who want to get married and those who “say” they want to get married.

He added that people who want to get married keep track of the issues that need to be clarified in order to make a decision to marry or not to marry this person, and added that they date only one person at a time and stay focused.

He warned that people who say they want to get married, wait until they fall in love and then think about the possibilities of marriage.

How do women that married the wrong husbands missed it? He advisedly asked.

He said based on principle that it is inadvisable to marry someone because you’re in love.  To buttress his view he said, “Falling in love is a state of temporary psychosis.  It is the “delusion of fusion.

Against the foregoing backdrop, he advised, “Identify the specific character traits you must have in your spouse and know clearly how to relate with each one”.

He advised that background checks are essential, and advised that careful check on the family should be carried out, and that people from warm and loving homes will most likely be emotionally healthy people.

When you find yourself in the foregoing situation, what tool should you apply”? He asked. As he opined, he said it is expedient to look in their face, look into their eyes and ask yourself: What do I see inside this person?  Joy? Pain? Confusion? Sadness?  Anger?  Etc.

He added that chemistry means there is physical and sexual attraction.  Judaism says you cannot marry someone whom you find disgusting.  This means even one physical blemish that you find disgusting is important and should not be dismissed.  Can you live with it?

On Compatibility, he advised that looking for sameness: same backgrounds, culture, language, interests, politics etc. may be advisable but it is not necessary that all the requirement should be seen in single man but, at least, 80% of the requirements should be seen in a man.

Against the foregoing backdrop, it is expedient to make reference to Mwanandeke Kindembo’s saying that “Marriage is the best test of your physical and mental abilities. It’s the greatest adventure of all ages.” To this end, it is expedient to advise that it is necessary for every woman that intends to go into marriage to evaluate the characters of a man before saying “I do”.