Mr. & Mrs. Right | How do You Know if You Married the Right Person?

I cannot count how many times I have had someone ask me the question, "How do you know if you married the right person?" 

It's never asked when we get engaged.  It's rarely asked in the first 2 years of marriage.  But at some point we wonder...did I choose poorly, could life be different if I were with someone else, or why don't things feel like they used to?

All relationships have a lifecycle.  All relationships experience ups and downs...ALL RELATIONSHIPS.  If we believe this to be true, then that includes the next relationship as well.  Many of us have asked the question, but it's the wrong question.  No matter who you are married to, there will be times where you feel like Mr. and Mrs. Right and times where you feel like Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.

Unfortunately, falling out of love is as easy as falling in love, and neither have anything to do with marrying the right person.  Falling in or out of love isn't intentional. It isn't a decision...it's emotional.  Marriage is a decision.  Being married to the right person requires being intentional.  Once you are married, you get to decide day in and day out that you are married to the right person.

The question about marrying the right person stems from our belief in fairytale relationships, and that there is ONE perfect person for you.  The reality is 1. there are many people you could marry and have a successful marriage with, and 2. being married to any of those people would lead to ups and downs and difficult questions about being married to the right person.

Here are 2 alternatives to asking whether or not you have married the right person:

• BEFORE: The best time to ask if you have chosen the right person is prior to being married.  There are a number of different questions we can ask when preparing for marriage and really intentional exercises we can participate in to uncover whether we want to spend the rest of our lives choosing this person as the right person. Our Marriage Prep video program is designed to help couples ask these tough questions and create fair expectations for what Mr. & Mrs. Right actually looks like in your relationship and how you can be that couple for life in the ups and the downs.

• AFTER: Once you are married, the question should shift from "Did I marry the right person?" to "How can I be the right person?"  Since we can admit that most of us have asked this question, then we have to assume our spouse is one of those people.  We can choose to live in such a way that if our spouse were to ask this question about us, their answer would be forever and always, "YES." Our Marriage Refresh video program is designed to help couples discuss their expectations and provide clear steps for meeting them so the questions and answers are easier to come by.

In either of the above scenarios of before and after, you do not need to be perfect to be Mr. or Mrs. Right.  The only way to be right for each other is to be willing to invest in each other.  If you make the decision to get married, you are responsible to make the decision to stay married by working on and maintaining your relationship.  

Finding and being the right person does not need to be a mystery.  In fact there is no Mr. & Mrs. Right (unless your last name is Right).  There is only you...Mr. and Mrs. [insert last names here].  There are things you can do, conversations you can have regularly, and things you can avoid doing to be the best version of you.  Our very intentional approach is to share these things in a way that fits each unique individual couple rather than trying to make each couple fit the fairytale myths of "My One True Love" and "Happily Ever After."

We are here to help you ask the right questions about your relationship so you can have the marriage you've always wanted...or should we say, "The Meaningful Marriage you've always wanted."