As we go through life, there are many decisions that we will make.  Some of these decisions have a greater impact than others, but there is a single decision that frequently has a greater impact than most other decisions combined.  This monumental decision is the selection of a spouse to be your partner in life, or possibly a decision to be permanently single.  Either decision will have an extremely profound impact to the remainder of your life, and should be made with a significant degree of consideration.

This is complicated by the fact that our character and personality are in a perpetual state of change.  The person who we are at 21 is different than who we are at 31, who is different than we are at 41, who is different than we are at 51.  It is most certainly true that a good marriage can be the greatest of all experiences, but it is also true that a bad marriage can be among the worst.  The inherent difficult of creating a fulfilling marriage comes from the fact that it is not always clear how the character and personality of each person will develop.  In some cases, both people will develop together.  In other cases, one will develop while the other desires for things to stay the same.  In a few cases, both people will develop but they develop in different directions.  In all cases, it is more difficult to anticipate the future than most people imagine.

On the other hand, the window for marrying and raising a family does not last indefinitely.  It is important to keep all of your goals and ambitions in perspective so that imprudent decisions are not made by either rushing into relationships or avoiding them entirely.  In all cases, it is important to be flexible and supportive of the person with whom you decide to dedicate the remainder of your life.  By making the decision to spend the rest of our life with one person, we are implicitly deciding to make sacrifices for the purpose of facilitating a happy and fulfilling relationship.  Sometimes people exhibit a resistance to making these sacrifices, which frequently influences their partner to avoid making sacrifices themselves and can plunge the relationship into a self-defeating spiral.

In the end, marriage is a critical decision that requires considerable commitment for success to be achieved.  In this way, it is similar to (albeit vastly more important than) a business venture.  Nobody realistically expects to enter into business with half-hearted effort and achieve success.  People starting a business expect to invest many years of hard work in exchange for long-term success.  However, there appear to be a disturbingly large number of people who enter into their marriages with the expectation that a minimal level of effort will be sufficient to create success.  By approaching the most important decision of your life with even greater resolve than that of a business entrepreneur, it will cultivate the seeds of success for both you and your family.