How can I be sure if I am ready for marriage?

Thinking about popping the question of marriage? Thinking about if this relationship is headed towards a more serious space? How do you even know if you are ready for marriage? The short answer to if you are ready for marriage is there is no real answer, but being able to ask yourself questions about what your hoping for in marriage can really help you get closer to an answer.
Keep reading and I will share some journal prompts that will hopefully turn into conversations between you and your partner, to help you both decide if you are ready to take your relationship to the next step. Because it’s a big one!

It is important to ask yourself deep questions before you get married or commit to your partner. Asking yourself important questions can help you identify if this person is the right person for you to get married to. Journaling on these mindful questions of yourself can help you feel more sure about whether you should marry this person.

Questions to ask yourself to see if you are ready for marriage.

What does marriage mean to me? Closed? Open? Legally? Only spiritual?
What does it mean for me to be a good partner in a marriage?
What does it mean for my partner to be a good partner in a marriage?
Do I want kids? How many?
If I do want kids, how will we raise them?
What are my expectations of gender roles?
What does conflict mean to me and how will I (we, hopefully) navigate conflict in our marriage?
What are the big dreams I have for our life and how does that work with marriage?
What was my parents' marriage like? And how does that possibly impact me in how I do relationships?
What are my relationship triggers and what activates deep feelings for me? What are those feelings? What do I need for myself to self-sooth? How can my partner help?
How do I feel about my future in-laws?
How do I feel about my partner’s friends and how he spends his time?
What do I consider to be cheating?
What do I want holidays and celebrations to look like?
What role do I want religion or spirituality to play in my life?
What does a great date night look like, even once we get busy with marriage and kids (if)?
What else would be important for me to know about my partner and for me to share with my partner before we get married?

Don’t just jump into marriage with out being clear with yourself and one another.

Lots of people jump into marriage or a deep commitment like moving in together before they really slow down and make sure that they are making the best choice for themselves. If a person really wants a marriage that is going to last forever, they need to be sure to ask themselves hard questions so that they can reflect on themselves as an individual.

It is important to reflect on our own past and how that impacts us today.

As a couples therapist who often works with people overcoming the attachment wounds that they acquired from chaotic childhood homes, I work with people to build on their awareness about what they are bringing into the relationship. We all bring baggage to relationships, how can we not? Some of the baggage that we bring into the marriage is often a repeat of the relationship we had and saw as children. As an Emotionally Focused Therapist, I am a big fan of the attachment theory and I believe that people find their partners to subconsciously repair the hurt that was done to them in childhood.

I see this all the time in my couple's work in private practice. I work with couples all over San Diego and all over California. And now as a dually licensed therapist, I also work with couples in Phoenix and all over Arizona. I am very passionate about helping people see how they feed into their relationship dynamics so that they can break cycles and find healthier ways of doing relationships.

Am I just not the marrying type? How do I know if marriage is even for me?

Maybe. These journal prompts might take you down a path of thinking and reflecting on if marriage is even for you. I would highly recommend speaking with a therapist who specializes in relationship issues to see where this thought process is coming from. Is it preference? Or is there a block there? Some people are free birds and that is beautiful. Some people are afraid of commitment and this can be hard to navigate, for both you and your partner. It can lead to couples having communication issues, trust issues, and intimacy issues. A therapist can help identify your motivations so that you are making the best choice for you.

Couples who struggle the most are the ones who don’t slow down enough to talk with one another, like really talk with one another. I know from my own personal experience, that long walks with my husband daily have really helped us through some pretty stressful times in our partnership. And in order to really talk to one another, we both have to ask ourselves our own questions to build our awareness and insight. This has also been true of the countless couples that I have worked with in couples therapy.

As a Latina couples therapist, taking time to really reflect on race, culture, and early experiences of how this may have impacted a person's worldview has been vital for the couples that I work with who are also BIPOC, like how immigration has impacted the couple and their families. Most of the research in couple therapy (as with most health care) as not been very inclusive. This is why I don’t shy away from hard conversations about race, culture, sex, and gender with the couples I work with in therapy, because it often has a big impact on how couples have come to view themselves and the world around them.

Meditation and Journaling are something can help you when deciding if you should take that next step in your relationship.

Having a space daily, whether it is journaling or meditating can really help you connect with yourself in a way that can help you in determining if you are ready to get married. Using the questions above you can hopefully start to gain more awareness and start reflecting about moving forward and what the motivation is for you, hopefully, grounded motivations. Gaining a healthy sense of introspection can really help you out in future conflict because all couples fight. Being able to pause and reflect is a skill I often work with couples on because it is something a lot of struggle with. Childhood homes and past betrayals are often root issues that we explore in therapy so that we can finally have improved communication and feelings of love with our partners.

Asking yourself big questions should not only be something to do before you married. Other times when you might want to bust out the journal and have a long conversation with yourself might be at other moments of transitions like the following.

When deciding to be exclusive
When moving in together
When planning for a long time away from one another
When deciding to reorganize your relationship to open, poly, or closed.

These are great times to pause and reflect, and hopefully to then open up these conversations with your partner. Talking about the issues actually will help you and your partner move forward in your relationship.

What if I can’t have hard conversations with my partner? What if we always end up fighting?

This is when I would suggest you reach out to couples therapy for professional support. It can be hard to know what is getting in the way of being able to have these deep conversations and a trained couples therapist can help you. I highly recommend working with a couples therapist that you not only feel like you have a good connection with but also one that is trauma-informed. Trauma is something that really impacts how we should up in our romantic relationships and it is important to be able to address it in therapy so that your relationship will be able to thrive again.

Check some more about how to have healthier conflict with your partner, that way you can stop going around in circles.

Do I need couples therapy or are my issues for individual therapy?

Great questions and there is no easy answer, but I am trained as both a couples therapist and trauma-informed therapist helping people with relationship issues. I can consult with you and help you get started. Half of my work is couples while the other half of my work is helping people heal from chaotic childhoods. When I work with someone individually on their upbringing, whether it was healing from emotionally immature parents or childhood abuse, I support people in letting go of deep narratives. I blend EMDR therapy wit parts work, or Internal Family Systems, as I find this to be the most helpful in helping people deeply process what is in their subconscious and deep in their bodies.

Trauma impacts our ability to have healthy and secure relationships.

Therapy can help. Everyone is able to heal and work towards having a calmer life where they feel connected in their relationships. Our bodies and deep neural networks hold trauma, and trauma can make it hard to love ourselves which makes it hard to love others and have healthy relationships. I would be happy to speak with you about whether couples therapy or individual therapy would be a good choice for you to help you reach your goals.

With Warmth,

Elisa Blair