Something I've Seen Too Often

These people may have been neighbors who've grown up in the same community together—or maybe not.

I can speculate on who these people might be in this picture, but I really don't know, and it would all be speculation.

'Well,' Adorable Cousin says, 'after we got married, I asked him how many kids he wanted...he said, none. Just you and me, babe... that was tough because I wanted five at least.'

Many, many couples will tell that 'the person I thought I married wasn't who I married.'

That isn't always bad, but sadly, no matter how much advice I give people in this area, most don't really listen, not to me, and not to the prospective other person.

When in school I had a girl friend who was so 'in love' with a certain young man. She would tell us (her girl friends) what a wonderful person the guy was. For years she sighed and mooned over him.

What luck it was when she grew up they actually got together. When I met him I wondered where or how she got all the praiseworthy thoughts I'd heard her spew all those years. I just figured I didn't know him well enough, but as it turned out...

She had built him up out of a figment of her imagination. She was one of those people who fall in love with people, that don't really exist.

The first criteria should be 'someone who is seeking after God first'. Second, don't get involved romantically until you observe how they treat their parents, family, and lesser acquaintances.

Most people in a relationship will treat their other partner well to impress the partner. (If they don't, run away from that person. Don't walk; run.) But they may treat parents, family or whomever disrespectfully. That's more than likely what they will do after marriage to their partner.

Listen TO each other. Many times people talk to each other then think they've listened to each other. Like someone told me years ago, "We've talked about everything."

Then after marriage they found out that they were both talking, but as is usually the happening when their mouth was open their ears were shut.

They were very different people with different goals. That didn't make them bad people per se, just not very compatible.

"House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the LORD." (Proverbs 19:14 KJV)