Take Time to Count the Cost of Getting Married

Published May 1, 1987. I think we need to do a better job of educating and preparing young people for marriage. Not long ago I had a conversation with a young woman who was experiencing some difficulty in her marriage. She said she felt her marriage was a mistake and that she had, in her own words, “married the wrong person.”

A little later in the conversation I asked her when she concluded that her marriage was a mistake. She replied, “The minute we walked out of the church after the wedding ceremony!”

Most of us know someone who, over the years, feels that their marriage has changed and is no longer warranted. What they once felt is now gone, and apparently they believe it cannot be revived. This occurs in approximately 40 percent of contemporary marriages.

But my conversation with the young woman reflects a new trend. Some people feel marriage is a mistake at the time of or within a few days or weeks after it occurs. That is why, among many other reasons, we need to do a better job in preparing young people for marriage.

Those who soon believe their marriage is a mistake do not immediately divorce. Some do not divorce at all. A husband and wife with several children and nearly 30 years of marriage recently told me that they, too, thought they had made an error in deciding to marry each other. They both felt this soon after the marriage. But they had chosen to stay together for the sake of the children. The sad part of their story is that their youngest child will soon leave home. And the man and woman now do not know what to do with the child-production-unit-called-marriage they have created.

A few months ago Susan and I received a wedding invitation. A daughter of some of our friends was getting married, and we planned to attend the reception. A few days before the reception we received a phone call informing us that the wedding had been called off by the young couple. A get-together of family and friends was being held anyway and we were invited.

At first everyone was obviously curious about the couple to be married. What happened to cause them to change their minds? Susan and I later commented on the courage and fortitude it took the young man and woman to call off the marriage. This was particularly true since the wedding announcements had been sent out. Though the decision was undoubtedly difficult at the time, much misery and unhappiness had likely been avoided for the future.

Estimates are that as many as 25 percent of formal engagements with rings, do not lead to marriage. And a small percentage of couples, perhaps 3 to 5 percent, feel at the time of the marriage, that they are not the right thing. Both these trends reflect the uncertainty that many young people feel immediately before, during, and after the ceremony.

If young couples have excessive feelings of doubt, they should postpone the wedding day until they feel more comfortable with the decision. How can you tell when to postpone or even call it off? It is relatively simple: A wedding ceremony should be perceived as a celebration and not as an execution.

The advice to carefully assess the impact of major decisions such as marriage is not new. Years ago Jesus taught:

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying. “This man began to build, and was not able to finish (Luke 14: 28-30).