Real Thing

Is this the Real Thing?

Rosalie Brennan in Should We Marry, by Rev. Joseph Champlin, Ave Maria Press, 2001

• Is this other person your best friend?
• Do you attempt to meet the other’s needs before you take care of yourself?
• Do you have similar or complementary values on issues such as family, fidelity, money, lifestyle, children, ambitions, work ethic?
• If you were deserted on an island, would this person be the one you would want to be with?
• Are you intimidated by the other person?
• Do you feel safe when you are together?
• Do you walk together, not in front or behind each other?
• Do you have similar or opposing views about your extended families?
• Do you both realize that the wedding and marriage is only the beginning of the task of making a happy relationship?
• What does the other person do to make you happy?
• Do you really communicate and listed to each other?
• Does your partner know what makes you happy, sad or angry?
• Are your problem solving styles similar or complementary?
• How do you resolve conflicts – by avoidance, confrontation, or compromise?
• Would you consider yourselves on the same intellectual level?
• Have you common feelings about children and how to raise them?
• Is your life assuming a new dimension in which you speak more about “our” time and “our” weekend, instead of “my” time and “my” weekend?
• When you look at each other, can you guess (fairly accurately) how each other is feeling?
• Does time go faster when you are together and slower when you are apart?
• Do you share common interests?
• Can you say “I am sorry” when you have made a mistake or hurt the other person?
• Are the other’s parents still married?
• What kind of marriage do the other’s parents have?
• How do the other’s parents treat each other?
• Does your partner have a deep faith and practice that faith?
• How committed is each one to making the marriage work?
• Does she/he have a sense of humor?
• Can your partner laugh at himself/herself?
• Whose needs does the other think of first in the relationship or about life in general?
• Are you comfortable holding hands in public?