Are you ready for marriage? Five honest questions

Wanting to be married and being ready to be married are not the same thing. These questions can help you tell the difference.

First, can you support a household, or do you have a realistic plan to? Second, have you made peace with your past relationships, so you are not carrying them into a new one? Third, can you put another person's needs alongside your own, day after day, without keeping score?

Fourth, do you know what you believe and how you want to live, clearly enough to explain it? Fifth, are the people who know you best glad, rather than worried, when they hear you want to marry?

If some answers are not yet yes, that is not a failure. It is a list of what to work on, and working on it is part of preparing to be a good husband or wife.