8 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A LIFE PARTNER.

Marriage is a social, and legal contract between two individuals that unites their lives legally, economically, and emotionally. Getting married, staying married and happy marriage is always the dream of most young adults. Sadly, it sometimes doesn’t come through as dreamt and wished. The role we play in achieving happy marriage cannot be over emphasized. It begins right at the beginning; Making the right choice. 

Here are 8 important things to consider when choosing whom to spend the rest of your life with as a husband or wife. 

1. Always have it at the back of your mind that the person you choose as your spouse is who you will sleep next to, eat with, gist with, confide in, trust, raise kids with, do practically everything with, for the rest of your lives. So, you have to choose someone you will not get tired of doing all those with.

2. Love should be your number one priority for choosing your spouse. Choose someone you love unconditionally, not for their looks or money. Your love for who they are should be so strong that even in difficult times when there's no money, you still love them. And if the good looks fade away over time, you will still love and need them.

3. Do not allow your family, friends or loved ones decide who you should marry. You can entertain their opinions if they are reasonable, but the decision should totally be yours. Because like I said in number (1), this person is who you will do everything with for the rest of your lives. Your friends, parents or siblings are not the ones going to live with your spouse, you are, so settle with who makes you happy, not who they are happy with. 

 4. Settle down with the person that allows you to be yourself a little, not who forces you to be perfect. I said who allows you to be yourself a little because, sometimes compromises have to be made, it's OK to drop one or two habits that do not go well with your spouse. But not to completely change who you are to suit your partner. 

5. Happiness and freedom are very important too. Do not settle down with someone that constantly belittles you, make you feel like they are doing you a favour by settling down with you, constantly makes you cry, never brings out the best in you. Your life partner should not be someone that allows you to live with the fear of losing them. They should love you and constantly assure you of their love and your place in their heart. You deserve to be happy and relaxed in a relationship or marriage, not to be constantly scared of losing your partner cos they act like they can do without you or leave you at any given opportunity. 

 6. Someone that doesn't put you through hell to prove your love for them is the one. Remember, you do not have to suffer as proof to someone that you love them. 

7. Trust is inevitable for a happy marriage. Do not marry someone that doesn't trust you or you do not trust them. When you get married, you become one. You keep secrets together but not from each other, you confide in each other, you trust each other to raise the kids right, you advice each other, e.t.c. All that can't happen smoothly if there's no genuine trust. Nobody's phone has to be locked with password, or financial status hidden from each other. But even if the phones are not locked, there should be so much trust that you do not even think of going through your partner's phone while they sleep. Never do anything to break that trust, if there are doubts, talk about them and straighten things out immediately. 

 8. Lastly, love yourself first. You need to love yourself to be able to love someone else right. If you do not love yourself, you constantly need someone else's love for you to make you feel good about yourself, or feel worthy. And that means the person has the complete power to break you down emotionally. You should be in love and want the person you love, but not to need them and your happiness shouldn't depend totally on them. There's a relationship where you love someone deeply and want them in your life forever, that's the one that should lead to marriage. And there's a relationship where you need the person you are dating, you love them but mostly just because you can't imagine life apart from them, not because they complete you, but because they make you, without them you do not know who you are, that love shouldn't lead to marriage.