Feature:
A Life Partner for my Child
What Parents Can Do (and must avoid)

Seven steps you could take as parents to help navigate your child through the life-changing decision about a future life partner.

Before we realize it, the adorable little ones we brought home from the hospital will be flying off our nests even if we feel they are not ready for the world! Children grow up fast and parenting years tend to rush by faster. Marriage of children not only alter our relationship with them, but this milestone will also affect parents’ lives and marriages in significant ways.

Having worked with many families and authored a premarital guide ‘Before the Wedding Bells‘, we have seen various ways in which families can work through this phase together. In this article, we want to share seven steps parents could take as children navigate through the important decision about their future life partner.

Collaborate
In traditional arranged marriages, it was the parents or adults in the extended family who made the decision whom a young man or woman ought to marry. Now young people want to fall madly in love with a special someone or swept off the feet by Prince Charming riding on a horse! In some cases, parents are kept in the dark about the children’s relational and romantic life. We consider both these as extreme and believe both generations stand to benefit if this important life decision is made in a collaborative manner, while the onus of the choice rests primarily on the person getting married.

Model your own marriage
Whether you realize it or not, our children’s expectations and desires are significantly shaped by what they see at home. Not long ago a young lady who visited our home acknowledged that she does not want to get married after seeing her parents’abusive and dysfunctional marital relationship. While at the same time, we know many single men and women who want to marry someone just like their mother or father respectively. When children become of marriageable age, there is not much you can undo about your past marital blunders. However, as parents you can be transparent with your children about your own marriage related decisions such as, how you met each other or how you got married and challenges faced in your conjugal life.

Equip them to make wise decisions
Parents must strive to train children in making decisions that will serve them well in every facet of life.Sharing from our own lives about making wise choices, discerning God’s will, seeking divine guidance, evaluating alternatives, assessing circumstantial evidences, and need for godly counsel from mentors, will serve our children well for years to come. Impress upon children that the permanency of this decision ‘whoever they choose to marry’ cannot be undone and will last for a lifetime. Hopefully, you would have allowed your children to make poor choices in the past in other matters and they know consequences of making bad decisions and have learned from them. Show and teach children that marriage is for a lifetime and how to choose wisely. This is a one of a kind of decision that they cannot reverse and hence one that they should not rush into hastily or be guided by emotions alone. Discuss with them different aspects of marital life and challenges posed by potential scenarios that might arise in the future. Always share from your own lives and have the courage to share your vulnerable moments. It may be humbling (especially when it comes to private matters like sexuality), but they will learn some very valuable lessons.

Before children start college, parents must discuss openly what to look for in one’s future mate. Parents and children could use the first three chapters of our book Before the Wedding Bells to guide the conversations.

Cut the umbilical cord
No matter how involved you were in your children’s life and what expectation you have of them, their marriage marks a significant delineation in your relationship with them. It is time to take our hands off and not interfere in daily matters of children’s lives. When the umbilical cord is not cut by clearly breaking the emotional and financial dependence on parents, it is difficult for children to forge the bond of marriage in a healthy manner. The failure to shift allegiance from parents to spouse is at the core of many marital conflicts and sabotages vitality of the new marriage in the long run.

Parents must refrain from the temptation of getting involved in every detail of planning the wedding of our children. Remember, it is your child’s wedding and not a grand party to flaunt your wealth or success. Avoid extravagance and find ways to make the wedding celebration a special and memorable day for your children. Both parents and children must focus more on the marriage than the wedding. Together with your children, you must decide how important this day is in your children’s life and let them have the driver’s seat. Parents and children must openly discuss expenses associated with the wedding celebrations and it should ideally be borne equally by both parties.Any demands of dowry or financial abuse must be avoided at all cost.

Don’t neglect your own marriage
As children are about to be married and you want them to settle down well, recognize that your own marriage is entering into a new season and the vitality of your own marriage will influence health and strength of your children’s marriage. After your children get married, they will see you with a new set of eyes and closely watch your marriage and either emulate you or want to swing to the opposite direction. Without parenting responsibilities and related chores, you will have more time and resources at your end and steward them well to live happily and purposefully.

Rediscover yourself and each other
Prepare yourself to deal with the loneliness of the empty nest and a new season of your own marriage. Whether you are still working or already retired, your children’s marriage will force you to enter into a new stage of life. Being wanted and super busy with children’s homework and soccer games were good things, but it is all over now. It is time to rediscover yourself and each other. Find some new friends in similar stages of life and some new hobbies. Explore opportunities to volunteer or serve underprivileged and marginalized people around you. Some of which can be immensely fulfilling.

Reflect and get ready
Reflect on your parenting journey and get ready for grand-parenting roles (yes that stage will arrive before you are ready for it). Mind you, it is very different and often people try to undo all the mistake they made with their kids the first time around. Also, blunders you made with your own kids will stare back at you because your children are making the same mistakes with their children. This season will also be marked by failing health so be prepared to face some harsh realities of life.

Above all else, pray for your children continually and their choice of a life partner. This one decision could bring much joy or a lot of heartache in your senior years. As children get married and you enter into the final stretch of life, make sure you leave behind rich legacy of life well lived and the future generations will call you blessed.