Love is battle. Love is War. Love is growing up. ~James Baldwin

I think that a lot of people lose sight of the fact that the marriage is more important then the wedding, and personally, I don't want to be one of those people. So in honor of keeping your spouse before your wedding I am posting quotes from the book 1001 Things Happy Couples Know About Marriage (Like, Love, Romance, & Morning Breath). And I will be posting some of my favorite questions that J.D. and I went through and answered in the book 356 Questions For Couples. 

Think about it, if love is war, and most people say that it is, then the better you know the person that is fighting along side you, then the better off you will be. And I think that knowing your partner does not mean that you are better equipped to demolish them in a fight. I think it means that you know have the knowledge to stop a fight, to say that I love you more and care about you more, then I care about this fight. Will that thinking work all of the time? Don't be naive, of course not, but it will be useful and help you feel closer. And how fun is it to learn new things about the person that you are with? The best!

"You need to know you're promising 'till death do you part.' Not 'till the good times end.'"

"You need to know you're choosing the person you'll spend the rest of your life with. And still make passes at when you're both on walkers."

Question:

What is anything, do you feel you need to sacrifice of compromise by being a part of our relationship?

-Trust me when I say that you need to know the honest answer to this question. IF, and that is IF, you or your partner feels that they are sacrificing or compromising to be with you, then you need to share and you need to know. This is how resentment starts, and it is ugly and the destructive.

Question:

Would you be willing to adopt children if you or I were unable to have children or our own? Would you adopt even if we could have children? Would you prefer surrogate motherhood or fatherhood to adopt?

-I feel that this is an important question that does not have a right or wrong answer. What it boils down to, is that this is one of those big things, that having differing opinions could be volatile. And it is important to know what your partner is and is not willing to compromise on.

"You need to know to try and look good at home. Don't just put on stretch shorts and a Grateful Dead T-shirt and assume you look fetching"

-I love that quote because so many people have problems keeping the illusive spark alive in their relationship. Take pride in how you look. I don't look nice all the time, there are days when we sit around in a big heap on the couch, being lazy, greasy, and content. Some times those days are necessary, but when that becomes your routine, then there is a problem. Don't be complacent. This is a lesson that we are still ironing out.

"You need to know how to express heated emotions without cursing, yelling, make accusations, o throwing things. Even though they are all effective when you were a teenager."

-This is very important because when you yell and curse and hurt the person that you are with then you have dented them. Each relationship starts out new and fresh. Every fight leaves a mark, you can buffer it out, and rework the metal but the mark is still there. Big hurtful things leave big awful dents, and are hard to fix. Would it be easy to fix a car if the bumper had been totaled in an accident? Rework each piece, piece by piece? No it wouldn't and things would never be the same, so be careful and loving. If you wouldn't talk to a stranger on the street that way, then why are you talking to someone that you love that way?

That is all for now, maybe I will try to post something like this every week or two? What do you think?