What is your current relationship status?

I’m single, single single! There are different levels—there’s ‘Single, but getting out of a relationship;’ ‘Single, but seeing someone,’ and ‘Single, single, single,’ where you are footloose and exploring your options.

Being married is not the qualifier for knowing how to be married. If that was the case, nobody would be divorced.  The quality of your present relationships is a good indicator of what your marriage would look like. Are they healthy? Are they long term? Most of the relationships in my life are 20 years old and over. I still have the same friends I had in 1976. That prepares me to know how to do the work to maintain and sustain a long-term relationship. The same keys have to be in place in your friendships and family interactions. You’ve got to do the work in other relationships, too.

You assert in How to Make Love Work that ‘We become the sum total of the love we are able to give and inspire in our lifetimes.’ How so?

Isn’t that the legacy we leave? Nobody talks about your job when you leave. They talk about the quality of your relationship with them.

When Tabitha in the Bible died, the widows mourned and brought their coats and other clothing she had made for them, and Peter raised her from the dead. The relationships and the things you did for others literally keeps you living after you are gone. Your life is a sum total of relationships. Make sure you have good ones. If there is no permanent mate, spread it to family and friends. They are the precursors to everything you’ll experience in a marriage.

Stacy Hawkins Adams is a freelance writer, speaker and Christian fiction author. Her latest novel is titled Watercolored Pearls.