Marriage Can Be Forever — Preparaton Counts!
A Learning Guide Based on the Bahá’í Faith
Susanne M. Alexander and Johanna Merritt Wu, PhD
Fully Revised Fourth Edition
Marriage Can Be Forever—Preparaton Counts! (Fourth Editon)
ISBN: 978-1-940062-31-0 (Trade Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-940062-32-7 (eBook)
Publisher: Marriage Transformaton LLC
Printer: Ingram Spark; United States of America htps://www.marriagetransformaton.com susanne@marriagetransformaton.com +1-423-599-0153 (US Eastern)
First Editon: January 2003
Second Editon: August 2003
Third Editon: 2007
Fourth Editon: 2024
© 2024 by Marriage Transformaton LLC, all internatonal rights reserved.
No part of this book may be electronically shared, scanned, uploaded, or reproduced by any means, without the publisher ’s writen permission. Violatons are considered thef of the authors’ and the publisher ’s intellectual property. Thank you for your respect for this legal copyright. Your adherence to this law grows positve spirit and respect throughout the world and brings us happiness. If you wish to share the book, please direct people to an online bookstore or our website where they can purchase a copy. Brief excerpts may be quoted in study groups, newsleters, and media. The publisher welcomes inquiries about use and discount purchases for groups and distributors. This publicaton provides useful and educatonal informaton about couple relatonships. If you need expert assistance, please meet with a competent professional counselor.
Cover Design: Neda Rahimi (assisted by Maile Smits) and Steiner Graphics
Cover Photographer: Ronan Futura, ronanfuruta.com
Layout: Marriage Transformaton, LLC
Note: You may purchase a PDF version of this book and extra sets of worksheets from the e-store at www.marriagetransformation.com.
Editorial Note: One of the authors and the publisher was raised in Canada and was taught both Britsh and American spelling and punctuaton rules. In additon, many quotatons in this book were originally in Britsh English and edited to be American English. Untl there are global standards for these things, we trust that you will tolerate such variances as you might find different than expected. Thank you!
Table of Contents: Chapters
What Is It All About? Welcome to Preparing for Marriage! … 1
“Building a ‘Fortress for Well-Being ’, an Essay on Marriage Preparaton” by David Bowers … 8
A Couple’s Story—Background on Lindsay, James, and Their Families … 11
Step 1 – Creatng Your Foundaton As a Couple … 13
Chapter 1 Becoming Serious: Thinking of Marriage … 14
Chapter 2 At the Center: A Focus on Service … 26
Chapter 3 Creatng a Strong Connecton: Friendship in Acton … 42
Chapter 4 A Vital Building Block: Knowing Each Other ’s Character 62
Chapter 5 Agreeing on Boundaries: The Physical Side of Relatonships … 85 Summary and Reflecton … 99
Step 2 – Understanding Your Interactons … 101
Chapter 6 Minds and Hearts: Communicatng with One Another … 102
Chapter 7 So Many Possibilites: Expressing Feelings … 129
Chapter 8 A Route to Harmony: Excellent Consultaton Skills … 152
Chapter 9 Powerful Atracton: Your Love for One Another … 175 Summary and Reflecton … 189
Step 3 – Diving Deeper into Some Realites of Marriage … 191
Chapter 10 The Goal: A Strong, Eternal Marriage 192
Chapter 11 Focus on God: Your Spiritual Life Together … 222
Chapter 12 True Partnership: Equality in Marriage … 239
Chapter 13 You Are Each Unique: Talents, Personalities, and Time Preferences 263
Chapter 14 Rocks on the Path: Responding to Tough Stuff … 293
Chapter 15 Money In and Out: Earning, Managing, and Spending … 322
Chapter 16 A Personal Consultaton: Intmacy and Sex 350 Summary and Reflecton … 370
Step 4 – Considering Aspects of Family Life … 372
Chapter 17 Family Time: Rearing and Educatng Children … 373
Chapter 18 A Blend of Lives: Creatng a Home … 398
Chapter 19 A Big Happy Family: Becoming Relatves … 417
Chapter 20 An Even Bigger Family: Being an Intercultural Couple … 438 Summary and Reflecton … 459
Pause to Reflect: A Practcal Look Before the Sacred Choices Ahead … 461
Step 5 – Commitng to One Another; Involving Our Parents … 479
Chapter 21 Looking Ahead: Envisioning Marriage Together … 480
Chapter 22 Making Your Choice: To Marry…or Not to Marry … 495
Chapter 23 To Your Parents: Requestng Consent to Marry … 508
Chapter 24 Rough Waters: When Parental Consent Is Challenging … 523 Summary and Reflecton … 535
Step 6 – Moving Forward: Wedding and Marriage 537
Chapter 25 Connecting During Engagement: Almost Wedding Time … 538
Chapter 26 The Big Day: Creatng Your Marriage Ceremony … 547
Chapter 27 An Adventure: Looking Forward to the First Year Together 560 Summary and Reflecton … 574
Appendices … 576
A. Spiritual Revelation: A Glimpse of the Bahá’í Faith … 577
B. A Spiritual Selection: Bahá’í Prayers for Marriage and Family … 578
C. Knowing One Another: Defining Some Virtues … 584
D. Courses of the Ruhi Institute … 588
E. Behind the Scenes: About the Authors … 589
A Final Note … 590
What’s It All About? Welcome to Preparing for Marriage!
This book may help:
• Couples explore whether to marry and learn how to establish happy, lastng marriages
• Individuals to learn about marriage before being in a commited relatonship
• Groups to study and discuss topics related to courtship and marriage
• Facilitators to lead workshops or study sessions about marriage preparaton/marriage and their partcipants
• Couples who are already married contnue learning about each other and building a stronger relatonship connecton.
Why use this workbook:
The path toward marriage has many potental routes, and many wonder how to navigate them smoothly. Marriage Can Be Forever Preparaton Counts! invites you to engage in an actve learning experience to thoroughly prepare for marriage. The book draws on the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith, which offers you new paterns of courtship. Based on this knowledge, you can use your minds and hearts to learn whether you are ready to marry. Marriage preparaton can offset future problems and help you build long-term success. This book can serve as a neutral “third party,” raising important but sometmes difficult topics for you to consult about.
In a leter accompanying the compilaton “ To Set the World in Order: Building and Preserving Strong Marriages”, everyone was encouraged “to deepen their understanding of this vital insttuton and that it will enrich their conversatons about the essental role that the marital bond plays in the establishment of order, well-being, and unity in human relatonships throughout society.” (On behalf of the Universal House of Justce, August 2023)
Marriage provides the essental stable base for children, families, communites, and the global society. Many people spend a lot of tme and money planning their weddings, something that lasts only a few hours. Planning for your marriage will have a much more long-lastng effect. You are creatng something to last a lifetme and beyond. This book is designed to assist and accompany you through courtship and into marriage, whatever your age, background, faith path, culture, or experience.
Our role as authors is, of course, not to tell you how to behave or which choices to make. Instead, we present spiritual guidance and content based on science and our experiences to offer optons for you to consider. You take charge of your learning and reflecton, perhaps facilitated by the tools we provide. Through study, consultaton, prayer, acton, and reflecton, you can build your knowledge and understanding of each other and determine whether a forever partnership in marriage is the path you will walk together.
Marriage preparaton may sometmes feel overwhelming, and how you carry it out will be up to you as individuals and as a couple. We provide this book as one possible approach. How you use it and the pace of your study and actvites will be up to you. As with anything important in life, patence, determinaton, and perseverance will help you through it. We hope it ’s a useful tool for your courtship and one that provides many rewards in learning and growth for your relatonship.
About the Bahá’í Faith
This book is primarily for couples in which at least one of the two people is a member of the Bahá’í Faith. However, we hope that anyone may find it useful. Even if neither of you is a Bahá’í, you may both wish to create a marriage with faith in God at its heart.
Our intent is to contribute to a spiritual focus on marriage by weaving the gif of guidance from the Bahá’í Faith throughout the book. A Bahá’í is someone who believes in Bahá’u’lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá’í Faith (www.bahai.org). It is the most recent of the world’s religions, and it offers many applicable spiritual principles for datng, courtship, marriage, and family life. We believe the insights from its teachings will be invaluable for you as you prepare for marriage, and you need not be a Bahá’í to find them applicable to creatng a spiritually-based marriage.
Some central elements and Bahá’í teachings addressed in this book are:
• Knowing your own and each other ’s character
• The beauty of hearts and souls connected and dedicated to service
• Chastty and faithfulness, offering a unique type of freedom
• Potental spiritual practces to integrate into your relatonship
• Partnership based on equality
• Discovering and developing trust and trustworthiness
• Building friendship and unity as a couple and as a family
• Communicatng and consultng harmoniously, building understanding, and making unified decisions
• Balancing the spiritual and physical aspects of life
• Spiritual principles and practcal approaches to consultng about many aspects of marriage, such as creatng a home, parentng, managing money, navigatng and growing from tests, and enjoying physical intmacy
• Making an independent decision, as a couple, to marry
• Requestng consent to marry from parents, afer a couple makes their decision
The laws and teachings that apply specifically to Bahá’ís who are involved in relatonships and want to marry are included in this book. The materials also apply to those who are not Bahá’ís but are in a relatonship or considering marriage with someone who is a Bahá’í. However, people of any faith may find them useful, as laws and spiritual practces from religious faiths guide individuals and society to behave in transformatve ways toward themselves and others.
Many people feel a conflict between acting completely “freely” and following laws. However, contrary to common views in the world today, the Bahá’í Faith teaches that laws based on justice provide a structure that allows individuals to live more freely and lead happier lives. Think about traffic signals, for instance, that enable vehicles to move freely and safely through intersections. Without these guidelines, vehicles are in gridlock at intersections, unable to proceed, and often involved in harmful accidents. The laws of the Bahá’í Faith operate similarly, keeping us safe, happy, and, counter-intuitively, with more liberty than we might have otherwise.
The Universal House of Justice, the global Bahá’í governing body, explains laws in this way:
“Just as there are laws governing our physical lives, requiring that we must supply our bodies with certain foods, maintain them within a certain range of temperatures, and so forth, if we wish to avoid physical disabilities, so also there are laws governing our spiritual lives. These laws are revealed to mankind in each age by the Manifestation of God [the Messengers for each religion], and obedience to them is of vital importance if each human being, and mankind in general, is to develop properly and harmoniously. Moreover, these various aspects are interdependent. If an individual violates the spiritual laws for his own development he will cause injury not only to himself but to the society in which he lives. Similarly, the condition of society has a direct effect on the individuals who must live within it.
“… Life in this world is a succession of tests and achievements, of falling short and of making new spiritual advances. Sometimes the course may seem very hard, but one can witness, again and again, that the soul who steadfastly obeys the law of Bahá’u’lláh, however hard it may seem, grows
Step 1
Creatng Your Foundaton As a Couple
In This Secton:
Chapter 1 Becoming Serious: Thinking of Marriage
Chapter 2 At the Center: A Focus on Service
Chapter 3 Creatng a Strong Connecton: Friendship in Acton
Chapter 4 A Vital Building Block: Knowing Each Other ’s Character
Chapter 5 Agreeing on Boundaries: The Physical Side of Relatonships
Summary and Reflecton
CHAPTER 1
Becoming Serious: Thinking of Marriage
Remember: The words “consult” , “consultation” and “consulting” are used in this book to indicate a specific method of discussing important issues, often including prayer and fact-finding. Consultation generates understanding and effective decision-making. Chapter 8 has more information about consultation, and it may be helpful to read ahead if you are unfamiliar with the process. Learning to consult well as a couple can be a bedrock for your healthy relationship.
Chapter Themes
• The context of an eternal marriage
• New courtship practces and paterns of courtship
• Learning about each other
• Involving family in appropriate ways and tmes
• Including friends, community, and Local Spiritual Assemblies
• Long-distance relatonship benefits and challenges
A Couple’s Story
Note: It will be helpful if you read “A Couples’ Story: Background on Lindsay, James, and Their Families”, located in the front section of the book, before reading the first part of their story below. The story will then continue in each chapter.
Lindsay and James meet each other at a Bahá’í study circle and become friends. They participate in a lot of activities together. James helps Lindsay build the set for the play at her university theater, they discover a mutual love of music and going to concerts, and together they help with a city park cleanup. After getting to know each other well, they start to see themselves as a couple and feel comfortable being seen that way by others. They begin to explore the possibility of marriage. James buys two copies of “Marriage Can Be Forever Preparation Counts!” and gives one to Lindsay as a present. They have begun to talk about what they are looking for in a marriage partner, and using the book seems like an excellent guide to learn more about one another.
James has not yet met Lindsay’s parents, as they live in another part of the country, but he has spoken to them briefly by video on her phone. Lindsay does regularly see James’ parents, Sondra and Marvin, at Bahá’í gatherings. As they notice Lindsay and James becoming close, they invite the couple to their home for dinner.
James loves his parents and feels close to them, but he is a bit concerned they will push Lindsay away by asking her too many intimate questions about herself and her family. Before they go to dinner, he shares with her that he doesn’t want her to think he is pressuring her to move forward too quickly. Lindsay is grateful. They pray and consult about the pace at which their relationship is unfolding. Once they feel some resolution, assurance, and harmony through their consultation and prayers, they go to dinner.
Sondra and Marvin greet Lindsay warmly, and she begins to relax.
“Thanks for inviting me,” she says.
Over dinner, the four of them talk about what is going on in their lives and the community. After dinner, the conversation turns to the couple’s relationship.
“Lindsay and I agree that we’re starting to get serious about each other,” says James. “We hope you’ll be supportive of us. We’ve started using the term “courtship” about our process of exploring the possibility of marriage, based on what we’ve read in the Bahá’í Writings. And, even though we want your support, we also know from the teachings that parents aren’t supposed to interfere. It seems like a delicate balance, and we aren’t sure how to navigate it.”
His parents smile and nod, and they encourage Lindsay and James to keep sharing.
“I really want to learn from you both,” says Lindsay hesitantly. “The two of you have been married a long time. This is hard to say, but with Mom and Dad divorced, it scares me sometimes that I won’t be able to maintain a long-term relationship. When I get married, I want to stay married. I want to know more about how you have done it.”
“Yeah, we want a lasting relationship,” says James. He grins at his parents and says, “But just because Lindsay and I are serious, that doesn’t mean we want you bombarding us with endless questions. We prefer to consult as a couple and make decisions about our relationship. But we do want your help with getting to know each other, and with making sure it would be good for us to go forward. We just want to do that in our own way and at our own pace.”
Sondra and Marvin look at each other and smile back at the couple.
“We want to support what you’re doing. We’ve prayed and consulted about how we can be helpful and not interfere,” says Marvin. “We agree that it’s a good idea for you to take the time you need to be sure.”
“But as far as questions,” laughs Sondra, “I love to ask them, so we’ll just see how it goes. Just stop me if I start sounding like one of Lindsay’s professors giving you a test!”
Reflecting and Consulting on the Story:
1. What types of activities help Lindsay and James get to know each other?
2. What role are the parents playing in their relationship?
3. What did Lindsay and James say would work and not work for them in interactions with his parents? How did his parents respond?
Guiding Quotatons
1. “Regarding the question of marriage, know thou that the command of marriage is eternal. It will never be changed or altered. This creation is divine, and it is not possible for that which is created by God to be changed or altered.” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “ To Set the World in Order: Building and Preserving Strong Marriages”, compiled by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, August 2023, #7)
2. “Bahá’í marriage is the commitment of the two parties one to the other, and their mutual attachment of mind and heart . Each must, however, exercise the utmost care to become thoroughly acquainted with the character of the other, that the binding covenant between them may be a tie that will endure forever Their purpose must be this: to become loving companions and comrades and at one with each other for time and eternity….” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, #86)
3. “It is indeed a matter of deep regret to him that some of our young believers do not attach due importance to the question of marriage, and seem to be under the impression that marital life has
Worksheet 1: Relationship-Learning Activities
Date:
Purpose: To identify activities that will assist you to learn about each other’s character, personality, and behavior throughout your courtship; to see how well you get along as friends and partners; and to consult about whether you can effectively accomplish shared goals. Some activities may offer opportunities to assess whether you can maintain unity and harmony in both enjoyable and stressful situations.
Instructions:
A) In the first column, identify activities that will help you increase your knowledge of each other. Ensure that some of them focus on increasing knowledge of each other’s character in particular.
• Chapter 3 lists several of these, if you have difficulty generating a list.
• Consider the timeframe within which you want to complete the activities for example, in the next week, month, 3 months….
B) In the second column, list your learning goal(s) for each activity.
C) As you complete each activity, note in the third column what you learned about yourselves and each other.
D) Perhaps limit your list to 5 activities. After you’ve completed a manageable number of activities, assess your success, and then add and carry out more activities.
Learning Activities
Example:
Cleaning and organizing an elderly friend’s home
Learning Goal(s)
To see if we have positive attitudes about service to others and we can cooperate in the process
Learning Outcomes
We were enthusiastic and cooperative at the beginning; we were kind to her; we were a bit impatient when we got tired and had different approaches; we persevered and finished
End of this sample.
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