Isabelle Fox - The Prospective Spouse Checklist: Evaluating Your Potential Partner

The Prospective
Spouse Checklist

The Prospective
Spouse Checklist

Evaluating Your Potential Partner

By

Isabelle Fox, Ph.D.
and Robert M. Fox, J.D.

New Horizon Press

Far Hills, NJ

Copyright 2011 by Isabelle Fox, Ph.D., and Robert M. Fox, J.D.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, including electronic, mechanical or any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted in the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission should be addressed to:

New Horizon Press

P.O. Box 669

Far Hills, NJ 07931

Fox, Isabelle and Fox, Robert M.

The Prospective Spouse Checklist: Evaluating Your Potential Partner

Cover design: Robert Aulicino

Interior design: Susan Sanderson

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011923245

ISBN-13 (eBook): 978-0-88282-405-5

New Horizon Press

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

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This book is based on the authors research, personal experiences and clients real life experiences. In order to protect privacy, names have been changed and identifying characteristics have been altered except for contributing experts.

For purposes of simplifying usage, the pronouns he/she and him/her are sometimes used interchangeably. The information contained herein is not meant to be a substitute for professional evaluation and therapy with mental health professionals.

Our book is dedicated to our seven grandchildren:

Alexander, Laura, Ben, Anna, Amanda, Jeffrey and Sophie

T he selection of a spouse and the decision to marry are two of lifes most crucial decisions. Be aware the result of your choice will have ongoing reverberations. It may determine the amount of stress you feel in the years to come, how long you live, your sense of security and satisfaction and whether you will suffer years of boredom, conflict and misery or years of bliss, happiness and growth. Author David McCullough writes in his biography John Adams about the entire married life of John and Abigail Adams: fifty-four years, until the death of Abigail at age seventy-three. Concerning Adams marriage to Abigail Smith, McCullough comments: It was the most important decision of his life. We agree! The wise and careful selection of a mate is invaluable. McCullough shows how expertly Abigail continually fulfilled her four essential spouse roles (discussed in chapter 3), in particular the wisdom and good judgment in her advice to our second president. It also confirms another key concept: a wise marital decision can bring many decades of deep satisfaction to a married couple.

Many people are concerned about the dangerous deterioration of perhaps our most important institution: marriageand the family it is expected to create, protect and nurture. According to the National Kids Count Program, 34 percent of all United States So, whatever the method used to select a spouse, the success rate is very low. The unfortunate consequences affect children of all ages as well as the spouses.

Paradoxically, despite the far-reaching results of the marital decision, almost no one in Western civilization is provided any help, education or advice in choosing a mate. Neither high school nor college curricula have courses focused on spouse selection. It is difficult to locate videos, CDs or books with substantiated information that contain practical assistance in selecting a good match. Much of the help available concentrates on how to obtain dates, etc., but offers little on a proven plan for evaluating a potential partner and deciding to marry.

In the United States today and in most Western countries, the person one marries remains a choice based on highly emotional,

We hope, by conveying the information, strategies and steps in this book, to help reduce the high incidence of divorce and to increase marital happiness. Our purpose is straightforward: to assist men and women in making more intelligent spouse choices. If men and women are more rational and less emotional in spouse selection and have a greater understanding of each other, there is a much higher probability that the marriages will succeed.

Our guide will help you evaluate a potential spouse. It is based on a thirty-five-item checklist covering a variety of factors that determine whether the person you are considering as a potential spouse is a good match and possesses the capacity to sustain a long-term committed relationship.

L ove is an elusive goal sought by most of us. It is an emotional concept much discussed but little understood. The yearning for romantic love is pervasive. It permeates music, literature and drama. It is also the subject of endless discussion by most of us from adolescence through old age. Those who have experienced romantic love describe it as an altered state of being and feeling exhilarated, stimulated and complete. They feel they have found partners with whom, hand in hand, they will share a path to a fulfilling future.

In this book on spouse selection we take a careful look at the concept of love and what other experts have to say about this subject that occupies so much of our time and thought processes. About love, psychologist Nathaniel Branden observes: Moved by a passion they do not understand for a goal they seldom reach, men and women are haunted by the vision of a distant possibility that refuses to be extinguished.

Social psychologists Stanton Peele and A. Brodsky argue in their book Love and Addiction that love can act as a narcotic with a mate providing a quick fix for everyday living problems.

A more positive and encouraging view of love is from psychologists Philip Shaver, Cindy Hazan and Donna Bradshaw, who convey that love relationships are similar to the attachment behavior between infant and parent in a secure parent/child relationship. They explain how an infants need for proximity with the parent as well as the cuddling, cooing, and tactile contact is very similar to the conduct of husband and wife in a good marriage.

Psychologist George Levinger has explored the nuances of close relationships and commented on the need for reciprocity. He points out that loves longevity depends on its mutuality. Further emphasizing the physical/sexual element of romantic love, Dr. Ellis states that sexual desire is an important part of romantic love.

Famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud also seemed to be in accord, as noted in The Nature and Pursuit of Love: To ensure a fully normal attitude in love, two currents of feelings have to unite we may describe them as the tender, affectionate feelings and the sensual feelings.