The One Thing 11 Relationship Experts Think You Should Know About Your Partner Before Marrying

"Why do you want to marry me?"

"That's it?" His brows rose, and then he was laughing and holding her close. "I thought you were going to ask me a tough one. I want to marry you because I love you and I need you in my life. It changed when you walked into it."

"And tomorrow?"

"A two-part question," he murmured. "I could promise you anything." He drew her away to kiss her cheek, then her brow, then her lips. "I wish there were guarantees, but there aren't. I can only tell you that when I think about tomorrow, when I think about ten years from tomorrow, I think about you. I think about us."

He couldn't have said it better, she thought as she touched his face. No, there weren't any guarantees, but they had a chance. A good one.

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

"As long as I'm going to get an answer eventually."

"Do you believe in Santa Claus?"

What made it perfect, even more than perfect, was that he didn't even hesitate. "Sure. Doesn't everyone?" Now she smiled, completely. 

"I love you, Sam." 

The Name of the Game

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By Hannes21061984 [CC BY-SA 4.0 

(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Before getting married, it's important to come to several layers of understanding with your partner. Obviously you'll want to discuss where you think you'd like to live, as well as fun things like how often you'd like to go on vacation. (You know, couple-y stuff.) But you'll also want to have some serious conversations before getting married.

While not always the most fun, it's important to ask the hard questions and learn as much as you can so you know who, exactly, you're marrying. 

BUSTLE

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It was very odd waking up with a man in your bed. A man took up considerable room, for one thing, and she wasn’t used to worrying about how she looked the minute she opened her eyes in the morning.

She supposed she’d get over the last part, if she continued to wake up with this man in her bed for any length of time. And she could always get a bigger bed to compensate for the first part.

The question was, how did she feel about sharing her bed—and wasn’t that just a metaphor for her life?—with this man for any length of time? She hadn’t had time to think it through, hadn’t taken time, she corrected.

Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine it was a month later. Her garden would be exploding, and she’d be thinking about summer clothes, about getting her outdoor furniture from the shed. Henry would be due for his annual vet appointment.

She’d be planning Jenny’s baby shower.

Laine opened one eye, squinted at Max.

He was still there. His face was squashed into the pillow, his hair all cute and tousled.

So, she felt pretty good about having him there a month from now.

Try six months. She closed her eyes again and projected.

Remember When

Rekindling

“You brought me flowers again.”

“My daddy brings my mama flowers once or twice a week, 

and I figured out it’s because they make her smile, just like you are now.”

The Witness

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By Pierre Auguste Cot - Art Renewal Center – description, Public Domain, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1597861

Rekindling the Spark in a Long-Term Marriage

People tend to work very hard to get into that “once-in-a-lifetime” relationship. The honeymoon phase of courting and dating requires great effort to let the other know that she is special, that he is “the one.”

Falling in love with your partner for the first time is all-consuming. Maintaining the love and affection once a relationship is well-established also requires effort. 

PSYCH CENTRAL

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He heard the click of heels on wood—quick, brisk, female. And when he turned, nearly bobbled the second cup of coffee.
“Wow,” he managed. “What’s up with you?”
“Oh. Well. Just . . . nothing really.”
She blushed. He didn’t know mothers could blush. And apparently he’d forgotten how beautiful his own mother was.
Her hair was swept around her face, and her lips and cheeks were attractively rosy. But the dress was the killer. Midnight blue and sleek, it was short enough to show off terrific legs, scooped low enough at the bodice to give more than a hint of cleavage, and snug enough in between to show off curves he wasn’t entirely comfortable thinking about his mother having.
“You hang around the house like this very often?”
Her color still high, she tugged self-consciously at the skirt. “I’m going out shortly. Is that coffee for me? Let me get you some cookies.”
She hurried to the counter to pick up a clear glass jar.
“Where are you going?”
“I have a date.”
“A what?”
“A date.” Flustered, she circled cookies on a plate, just as she had when he’d come home from school. “I’m going out to dinner.”
“Oh.” A date? Going out to dinner with some guy? Dressed like . . . barely dressed at all.
She set the plate down, lifted her chin. “With your father.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said I have a dinner date with your father.”
He sat down. “You and Dad are . . .dating ?”
“I didn’t say we were dating, I said we had a date for dinner. Just dinner. Just a casual dinner.”
“There’s nothing casual about that dress.” Shock was slowly making room for amusement, and trailing just behind was a nice warm pleasure. “His eyes are going to pop right out of his head when he gets a load of you.”


Birthright

"I am enough."

Pilar let out a moaning laugh. "I hate where I am, and I don't know how to get someplace else. I didn't even fight back, Helen."

"So you're not a warrior." Helen rose to sit on the arm of the chair, wrapped an arm around Pilar's shoulder. "You're a beautiful, intelligent, kind woman who got a raw deal. And damn, honey, if this door finally closing isn't the best thing for you."

"God, now you sound like Tony."

"No need to be insulting. Besides, he didn't mean that, and I do."

"Maybe, maybe. I can't see clearly now. I can't see through the next hour much less the next year. God, I didn't even make him pay. Didn't have the guts to make him pay."

"Don't worry, she will." Helen leaned over, kissed the top of Pilar's head. 

No man like Tony should slip through life without paying, she thought.

"And if you want to scald him a bit, I'll help you outline a divorce settlement that will leave him with permanent scars and one shriveled testicle."

Pilar smiled a little. She could always count on Helen. "As entertaining as that might be, it'd just drag things out, and make it more difficult for Sophie. Helen, what the hell am I going to do with the new life that's been dumped in my lap?"

"We'll think of something."

The Villa

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By SebCon (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The Life-Changing Lesson I Learned Through the Pain of Infidelity

Then one night, in the midst of a late night conversation, a friend finally said just the thing I needed to hear to shatter my feelings of inadequacy. No flattery or comparison this time. He simply told me that in a relationship “Whatever issues that other person has, they have no bearing on your own validity. You eventually just realize it’s not all about you.”

HUFFINGTON POST

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"I suppose. In any case, you're all but living with the family, so you'll hear things. My husband and I have been separated for a number of years. He informed me recently, very recently, that we are getting divorced. His bride-to-be is very young. Beautiful, sharp-edged. And… very young," she said again with a half-laugh. 

"It's ridiculous, I suppose, how much that part bothers me. In any case, it's an awkward and difficult situation."

"It'll be more awkward and difficult for him if he ever takes a good look at what he let go."

It took her a moment to adjust to the compliment. "That's very kind of you."

"No, it's not. You're beautiful, elegant and interesting."

And not used to hearing it, he realized as she simply stared at him. That, too, was interesting. "That's a lot for a man to let go. Divorce is tough," he added. "A kind of death, especially if you took it seriously to begin with. Even when all you've got left of it is the illusion, it's a hell of a shock to watch it shatter."

"Yes." She felt comforted.

The Villa

Things happen to couples who have been together a long time

Still looking at him, she held out a hand. Jake put a mug of coffee into it. 

“I heard you were out of town.”

“I got back yesterday. I came by the site, but you were busy.”

“Oh. Well. You put cheese in those eggs?” she asked Jake, and was already opening the

refrigerator to dig some out.

“Not everybody likes cheese in their eggs.”

“Everybody should like cheese in their eggs.” 

She passed him the cheese, skirted around him to open a loaf of bread. 

“Put some in my share, and if it gets in someone else’s that’s too bad.”

Doug watched Jake hold out a hand for the knife she’d taken out of a drawer, watched her

pop bread into the toaster, then take the plate he handed her.

It was like a little dance, he decided, with each knowing the steps and rhythm the other

would take even before they were taken.

Birthright

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"Another sunset together" by Leo Hidalgo from España - Another sunset together. 

Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Science says these 5 things happen to couples who have been together a long time

Being with someone for a long time changes the way you see the world. It also changes you. Everything from how you act to the way you think shifts in ever-so-slight ways.

And according to Joshua Wolf Shenk, the author of "Powers of Two," these tiny shifts are also the catalyst for a different kind of thought process — a shared mind, so to speak — that allows couples (romantic or not) to come up with more creative solutions to problems than they'd ever think up on their own.

YAHOO!

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“I’ve been making this pie for too many years to count. It’s Loren’s favorite.”

“You smile when you say his name.”

“Do I? We’ve been married—I count from the handfasting—for thirty-six years. He still makes me happy.”

That, Abigail thought when she was alone again, was the most vital and compelling statement on a relationship.

The Witness