Photo: Filipe Leme on Pexels
If you can't get through these scenarios, you might want to rethink walking down the aisle.
By Michelle Horton — Last updated on Feb 24, 2023
After many years of marriage, I have a deeper appreciation and understanding for marriage than I ever did as a young starry-eyed newlywed.
But that's the thing: there's so much about marriage — about the long-term consequences of joining lives with a messy, frustrating human, about the reality of changing alongside a changing partner — that's impossible to grasp without actually experiencing it.
At this point, I've lived through "worse" times, poorer times. My (now ex) husband almost died in an extreme example of "in sickness."
Our vows were sufficiently tested. I know that real marriage is not a reflection of a carefully planned wedding day. Real life doesn't start in a tropical honeymoon.
With that in mind, maybe we're going about relationships all wrong. We're already pairing up when we're out-of-our-mind in love, vowing to always be as considerate and loving as we are in that blinded state. That's crazy enough.
Then we spend the early parts of our relationships, engagements and even marriage on our best behavior, in a static celebratory state of anticipation. We get married after a few short years together, imagining that if things have been good so far — even for five or six years sometimes — how could a long-term marriage be any different?
Here's the thing: You need to see someone at their worst before you can agree to accept their worst. You have to see them mad, sick, wronged, and vulnerable. You have to experience some seriously un-ideal situations.
Instead of making dreamy Pinterest wedding boards and planning fancy vacations, do some of this instead to really test your relationship.
The 10 relationship tests you and your partner will pass if you are truly meant to stay married forever:
1. Get stuck in traffic for a few hours, and run out of gas miles from a gas station, while you're late for something important.
We can all keep it together when things are going right. You need to witness each other's coping strategies when everything's going wrong.
How does he handle inconvenience? Does he blame you? The best marriage partner is someone who takes annoyances in stride and even laughs with you when things go wrong.
2. Be together for at least 24 menstruation cycles, at a minimum.
Committing to a lifetime before he sees your full-blown PMS rage? You're rolling the dice, my dear.
Look for someone who understands your different moods and can help you through them, versus someone who triggers even bigger reactions.
3. Watch him take care of a sick, elderly person.
How he treats the old and the young says a lot about his character.
4. Have him take care of you.
You're vowing to stand by each other in sickness and health, so you should probably know if and how he takes care of you during an especially bad sickness.
Does he step up to the plate? Run and hide? Act seriously annoyed and burdened by your illness? You need to know these things!
5. Go on a cross-country drive with him.
A two-week drive in a cramped car will bring all of your cranky, moody tendencies right to the surface. It'll also give you an opportunity to get lost, to blow out a tire, to run out of gas, and anything else that could possibly go wrong.
Guess what, folks? Life is going to go very wrong, and you'll have to navigate it together.
6. Invite your mother to stay for a week, or two weeks.
Then say, "I'll probably turn into her. Still wanna marry me?"
How he treats her and talks about her when she's not around will give you a sneak peek into your future.
7. Skip breakfast and lunch, and then go to dinner at a restaurant with really slow service.
If you see a rage-filled, whiny, miserable man sitting across from you you'll have to accept that part of him, too. And he'll have to accept your hangry rage as well.
8. Go camping on a cold, rainy weekend.
Forget the tropics; sometimes marriage is damp, grey, and uncomfortable.
Do you still enjoy being together?
9. Have at least one mega drag-down fight.
You can tell a lot about a couple's longevity by the way they fight. And yes, the fights will happen, friends, no matter how calm and respectful and choose-your-battles rational you may be in those first few years.
One day the gloves will come off and you'll see each other's ingrained fight tactics. Does he hit below the belt, saying mean insults meant to hurt you? Does he shut down and give the silent treatment? Does he get too aggressive?
Does he lose his mind? Do you? You need to see just how deep the anger goes before saying "I do."
10. Have food poisoning together, in a small apartment with one bathroom.
NOW do you still want to get married?
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Michelle Horton is a freelance writer and social media specialist who founded the website Early Mama who writes about advocacy, motherhood and relationships.