With This Ring ... I vow to love you now and for always!

Question: Why Get Married? In today's world, is marriage still relevant? Unlike a hundred years ago, a couple today can live together without getting married. What are they missing? (This is not a theoretical question for me...) Answer: Marriage is more relevant today than ever before in history. Marriage used to be a given. Now it is a choice. All the old arguments for marriage have fallen away, and we are left with only one true reason to get married. We can finally get married for the right reason. What were once good reasons to get married are largely irrelevant today. Here are four classic reasons to get married: So we can live together. As you pointed out in your question, this reason no longer applies to the many couples who live happily together without getting married. So we can have children. Again, it is possible to have children and be wonderful parents without getting married. To make a solid commitment. That's a charming one. We are getting married to make it harder to walk away from each other. How romantic. To make our relationship official. You could achieve that by placing an announcement in the newspaper saying, "We are now official." You don't need a caterer to serve gazpacho soup in a ballroom just to make it official. So what are we left with? If not to live together, to start a family, to make a commitment or to make it official, why get married? There's only one reason. Marriage makes a relationship divine. Getting married means that something bigger than both of you is bringing you together. A wedding achieves something that simply can't happen otherwise -- G-d is introduced into the relationship. Until they are married, a couple's commitment to each other is a human commitment, with all the limitations of being human. We can't see the future, we can't know what may change and what may eventuate, and we make mistakes.  Today, one out of two marriages will end in divorce. Many people fail to ask themselves why they are getting married and end up marrying for the wrong reasons. Love, of course seems like the best reason. However, it is not. The best reason to marry someone is companionship. For a marriage to be successful, both partners must have a genuine companionship. Of course, there are several reasons why a couple should not get married even if they do have companionship. People are born with a desire to be loved and give love. It can be the most fulfilling feeling in the world. However, marrying simply because of love is not a good idea. Yes, it may sound very romantic. In fact, it is one of the main reasons people get married. Love alone is not a good reason to get married. Marriages succeed when there is a strong foundation of companionship built by the couple. A strong foundation for marriage includes compatibility, trust, and communication. Couple should ask themselves three questions to decide if marriage is right for them. First, are we compatible? In a marriage, the definition of compatible slightly changes. It is more than liking the same activities, same foods, same movies and music, etc. Being compatible in a marriage is having the ability to adapt to changes. People constantly change from day to day and will continue to do so in marriages. Work, children, and in-laws are just some of the changes that occur in a marriage. The key is to be on the same page and know how to deal with your relationship when you are not. Second, do you trust one another? Marriages without trust are marriages that end in divorce. Having your partner's trust is a must have in a relationship. If there is the slightest doubt in either of the partners' mind, then there is no trust. Relationships thrive on trust and cannot survive without it. Third, is there communication? Lack of communication can destroy a relationship. Communication is very important in a marriage. Married people need to communicate all the time. Talking only when times get rough or not talking at all only hurts the relationship. The lack of communication is also a leading reason for divorces. Divorcees commonly complain that the other partner never listened or avoided conversations with them. Communication is vital to the relationship. If you never communicate, how will you know if you are compatible and if you trust one another?