50 questions

Is there one person out there made just for me?

It’s a dream and a worry at the same time ...Is the person I met really made for me? Does the one that I am dreaming of really exist and if so, how will I know?

These questions are nearly inevitable: the more we get to know the other, the more we discover his or her qualities as well as his or her faults. We also become aware that the committment we will make is total and definite. What if I were wrong? What if it were not him or her? And what if we were blinded by our passions and once we were married, we realized that we had made a mistake?

Sometimes the imagination tends to create an ideal image of the other: He or she has to be just like that, look like this, act like that and definitely not have that fault! Often, instead of accepting and getting to know the other for what he or she is, we try to find in him or her the ideal image that we have created in our minds.

To be sure that we are made for one another requires that we take time together to get to know each other well. We need to share in depth and to accept that the other is different from myself. It is also good to discuss certain questions together: Will we be able to love each other for all our life? Will we be able to face together the troubles of life? Do we love each other enough to put up with each other’s faults? Recognizing these concerns will enable us to make a choice in total freedom: Yes, it is with her or with him that I want to live for the rest of my life, to have children and to raise a family. Then the choice to make a total and definite committment will be made in total trust and with hope.

It is also important to feel free to stop a relationship because we realize that after all, we are not made for each other, that we will not be able to overcome the differences in our temperaments, in our cultures or in our age, or else we are not able to accept the limitations of the other, etc. That choice needs to be made without being distracted by ideas like: I desperately want to get married and to have children, everything will work out once we’re married or, my parents really like him. We must also be careful not to let ourselves be pressured by society or family, not to idealize the other, or be physically or emotionally dependent upon each other. This can happen without us noticing it.

In fact, this decision is a committment of our whole life, as well as the other’s and the children’s to come. This is why we can say that marriage is not only the starting point of a life together but also the finishing point of a long road lived and shared together on which we recognized that we were made for one another.