1) Impatience. Looking for a partner requires patience. It is better for you to remain a single than to rush into a relationship that is unhealthy. It takes patience to pray, search, and wait when looking for a partner. Impatience leads people to make hasty decisions and regret later.
2) Every dating or premarital relationship may not be your passport to marriage kingdom. The fact that you love each other or you have known yourselves for a long time does not mean marriage is automatic.
Janice Moss, in her article, “Five Mistakes Women Make That Keep Them Single Longer,” wrote: “Each relationship has a reason, season and a lesson attached to it. Some relationships come to teach you things you need to know before you find “the one.” Then, of course, there are those that help you identify what you want and don’t want in a relationship.
Still others allow you to work out your childhood dysfunction. And, thankfully, there is a smaller subset of lasting and “till death do you part” relationships sealed by a lifetime commitment and marriage. Before you offer your heart to someone, analyze the relationship and determine what type of relationship it is.” It is a mistake to think that every relationship has to lead to marriage. It doesn’t work that way. It’s heartbreaking if you think it has to work by all means and it turns upside down.
3) All that glitters is not gold. You have heard that saying before. Not all people who appear so nice or appeal to our eyes turn to be a blessing to us. People are quick to judge a book by its cover. Are you looking for the shiny, the gold, the glamorous, and the superficial things? In relationship, money, fame, power, royal birth, and beauty do not bring happiness. But a lot of people seeking for partners are influenced by the external features.
Taisen Deshimaru made this observation: “What some females don’t understand is that none of the things that they want has anything with love or how that person will treat you. You could find a man that looks perfect, has a house and car, he can be a college graduate with a good job, and you could still end up being with a person that doesn’t truly love you, and will treat you like shit.
What I am trying to say is that the person who could treat you good and really love you could already be in your life, but you could have been blinded by the things you want in a man so you overlooked the person that you were really looking for. And by the way there are men that do the same thing; I just wanted to be clear on that.” Look beyond the physical features. Some of the features are there for a season, marriage is a life-long journey. “Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.”-Washington Irving.
4) Confusing sex with love. The main thing that blinds people from making right choices during premarital relationship is when a person thinks that the drive to have sex is love. Sex makes you strongly attached to the person and you will experience a strong force pulling you together; but big problems in the relationship are nothing to you.
Some people mistakenly believe that they really love each other, living in sexual illusion until they open their eyes when they cool off. Sex-driven premarital relationship is not the best. You need self-control to overcome all sexual temptations. Even there are some people who claim to be Christians or affiliated to other religions but they don’t believe premarital sex is wrong.
Not everybody is strong in his or her faith. Some are fake. Shannon L. Alder stated: “If a man says he is Christian, yet he has no problems knocking you up, having premarital sex or living in sin with you, then you have to ask yourself, “What version of Christ does he believe in?”
Abstaining from sex before marriage is your Christian duty, if you are one. You mask ask “how do I remain sexually pure before marriage?” Here is the answer: “That means more than abstaining from vaginal intercourse. It involves abstaining from fondling genitals, oral sex, and physical pleasuring that leads to orgasm. The biblical word is porneia, which is often translated “fornication,” but involves a wide range of sexual practices. It bears repeating that the question to ask is not “How far can I go?” but “What standard of purity honors God?” Such a standard is not what we will view on TV or at the movies or read in magazines or on blogs.
Yet it is clearly what God desires and has determined as best for our well-being.” ((Sexual Intimacy in Marriage” by William Cutrer, MD and Sandra Glahn). Premarital sex may affect your future marriage negatively. Mark Gungor warned: “Couples who are virgins when they marry have a fraction of the divorce rate compared to those who were sexually active prior to marriage.” This warning is not his opinion, the statement is based on research findings.
5) Cohabitation. There are some partners who believe that living together when they are not yet married will give them a chance to have a trial version of marriage. They live together as a husband and wife. Jennifer Roback Morse wrote: “Cohabiting couples report lower levels of satisfaction in the relationship than married couples. Women are more likely to be abused by a cohabiting boyfriend than a husband. Children are more likely to be abused by their mothers’ boyfriends than by her husband, even if the boyfriend is their biological father. If a cohabiting couple ultimately marries, they tend to report lower levels of marital satisfaction and a higher propensity to divorce.” Cindy Wright reported this: “Research indicates that couples who cohabit before marriage have a 50% higher divorce rate than those who don’t. These couples also have higher rates of domestic violence.”
6) Failing to seek divine guidance. Your physical eyes alone cannot help you to make right choices. Ask God to guide you. Some people don’t see the need to involve God in this special exercise. Others know but they ignore. I suggest you pray and plan for your search for love. Much prayers should precede mate selection. This is exemplified in how Eliezer, the servant of Abraham who was sent to look for a wife for his son, Isaac.
Before making such an important decision for the son of his master, this is what he did: “Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the towns people are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac.
By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” 15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor.”(Genesis 24:12-15). The choice of Rebekah was an answer to prayer. Let the choice of your partner be an answer to prayer. Allow God to play the leading role. Don’t run ahead of God.
7) Incompatibility in faith. Studies on relationship show that couples with shared values is one of the keys to successful marriages. Differences in faith and religious values can bring problems to couple. Abraham knew religion was important when he was sending his servant.
He said: “I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living” (Genesis 24: 3). Abraham wanted his son to marry somebody who shared their faith in God. People in faith community should not overlook this principle of marrying fellow believers.
Abraham knew how the people around him were, they were so corrupt in morals. He wanted the best for his son. Read this: (1Kings 11:1-2): “King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Marrying someone who does not believe in God can make you like that person.
The person will turn your heart after his or her gods (not God). Be careful! Don’t commit the mistakes identified in your pursuit for love or a partner.
