Building Yourself: Putting Your Success Together

Building Yourself
Putting Your Success Together One Piece at a Time

These pages contain the complete 2005 revised text of Building Yourself, public speaking trainer Elliot Essman's guide to living the successful life.

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6.05 Don't Rush Into It

Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure; Marry'd in haste, we may repent at leisure. William Congreve (1670–1729)

The best marriages are deferred. Both partners should wait until they're well involved in life before they decide to marry. If you're older and have better judgment, there are still no guarantees. But you'll have a better chance of spotting the right person. If things go wrong you'll have the maturity to try to work things out. If the marriage breaks there will be more of you left afterwards. And, not unimportant, you'll be coming into the marriage with more money than when you were younger. Don't kid yourself—the money helps.

In turn, once the partners have finally decided on each other, the engagement should be long. Unless one of you needs a Green Card in a hurry, I can't conceive of any viable argument against a long engagement. If you're really that much in love, or so fabulously compatible with each other, how could the wait hurt?

The year or so minimum engagement should be time used well. Individually and together the two people should do some soul searching. They've got to come to know their personalities and needs, and know what they can accomplish together as a couple. The waiting period should be a calm one. If it's to be a year, then let that year pass without the excitement and involvement of planning a wedding. After the year passes—a solid three hundred and sixty-five days to think things over—then go ahead with all the wedding planning.

Considering the negative statistics on marital success everybody talks about these days, deferring the marriage is simply sensible. Marriage is too big a step to act otherwise. It may indeed be “love at first sight.” You may be right, you may “just know.” The waiting still cannot hurt. It can only help.

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