How to Work Out How Well You and Your Future Spouse Know Each Other

How well do you and your fiancé know each other? An enduring, valid type of love takes time to develop. The Hollywood lover may murmur softly to the girl whom he has just met, "I've known you all my life." But he is following a script, not stating a fact. Really coming to know a person takes time, and lots of it. Studies indicate that those couples who have been engaged for two years or longer are most successful in their marriages. And presumably they knew each other for some time before they became engaged.

But time is not the only consideration. Important also is the kind of association which you have had together. George and Mabel have known each other for eight years. But during all this time they have been together hardly twenty times, and all these contacts were at formal parties and dances, where people wear their best behavior as well as their best clothes. Actually George and Mabel do not know each nearly well enough to become engaged. One problem in connection with separate men's and women's colleges is that boys and girls see each other only on week-end social occasions. Often they have great difficulty in really getting to know each other. By far the best situation is that in which the young people have grown up together from childhood. But this is not for most of us. The best which most young people can do is a few years of group association. They go around for some time with the same "crowd." Or it may be that they belong to the same church, the same political clubs, or they have gone to school together. Here the important consideration is not merely the time span through which such associations have taken place, but the number and the kind of the associations.

What kinds of associations have you had with each other? One of the best ways to get to know anyone is to work with him. By this we do not mean merely to work in the same factory or office. We mean to work with him at the same job. Tom thought that he knew Violet and Rose fairly well. He had dated them individually several times, and had gone on many parties and picnics with them. But not until he worked with them on the school paper did he really get to know them. In a job like this you cannot stay on your good behavior for long. In order to turn work out, you must relax and be yourself. One Friday when the printer failed to get his copy out for the paper due Monday, Tom saw two personalities whom he had never known before. The Rose wilted, cried, and went home with a headache. The Violet, however, refused to shrink. She said some things over the phone that would not have been printable. Then she collected Tom and two other boys, and they visited the printer. They stayed there together until the copy was finished and the presses ready to roll the first thing Monday morning. The old adage should be changed to "You never really know a man until you have worked with him under pressure." You who are becoming mutually interested; how well do you really know each other?