This is also the time to nurture rich friendships in two arenas.  Other men and women. The state of your marriage will only be as rich as the friendships you take the time to cultivate. Here is where you learn everything that can be applied to your marriage. Open communication, sharing the important things. Working through offence. Expectations of giving and taking. Compromising. Being sensitive to the needs of others. Being a good listener. Nurturing a servant’s heart. Being transparent and accountable to someone.  Giving 100 percent of yourself unconditionally.

Yes, friendship is the rehearsal before the marriage. Platonic friendships with men are important because, let’s face it, you cannot learn about men from your female friends. Men are different. They think differently. They rationalize on another wavelength. The way to learn about men is to observe men, talk to them, and listen. Most women gauge the responses of men based on their own responses to things. This is not the way to get an accurate read on a man. The assumptions we make when it comes to men usually send us careening down the path of self- deception, where we make destructive mistakes that not only affect the outcome of the relationship, but our hearts as well.  Take the time to make and treasure your friendships with men.  Live, laugh, and learn from them. When men get honest, the revelations can be most surprising. They get honest when they feel safe, and they feel safest within the boundaries of a friendship that expects nothing more from them.

Now is also the time to spend time constructively nurturing your relationships with other women as well as your family. I am astounded by the number of people who desire to be married but have outstanding feuds with family members and inconsistent relationships across the board. It is self-deception to think that if you have unresolved issues with those you should be at peace with in your inner circle that you will be able to live through conflict with a spouse. All of your other relationships are merely tests for the graduate class called marriage. Settle your debts with those in your life now. Clean the slate and get your heart back to a healthy place, where it is free to give and receive love.  Thinking that, if you had the right mate, all of your other relationship dramas would be resolved is not realistic. In contrast, getting married will exaggerate them. Trust me. Your marriage will bring all outstanding issues to light and offer you no fresh tools for resolving them.

The long and short of it? Never put off for tomorrow what you can do today. Never hang so much credence on someone else completing you that you leave the major issues of your life hanging in the balance. The question begs to be asked:  If God told you that you would never be married, what would change about your approach to life? What would you get busy doing? How would your priorities shift? What would you do with the rest of your life? How would you apply yourself to the relationships that are already at hand? The truth of the matter is tomorrow is not promised. None of us can afford to allow life to pass us by on a maybe. This is also a good case for not abandoning your friends when the “man of your dreams” comes on the scene. Remember, your friends were there before he showed up, and they will still be there should he not last for the rest of love’s journey.