What is Falling in Love and How Can One Best Prepare For Marriage?

Falling in love is a term that we use when we think we have met the right one, but what does it mean? According to Marriage and Family by Lauer & Lauer, falling in love is put into 4 different types of love:

• Storge- the kind of love found in the affection between parents and their children
• Philia- the love found between friends (warm close relationship)
• Eros- the love found between men and women (includes sexual love)
• Agape- love that is independent of one's feelings for another (to act on behalf of the well-being of someone else, whether you like that person or not)

A lot of people ask, "Well what is the best one to have for our spouse or life partner?" This question is answered in this book. Lauer says that it's best to have all of them into one. There are differnent types of lovers as well. But what I would like to focus on is how success in marriage is predicted by the type of love that is developed in the dating/courting process. My professor, Bro. Williams, is a family therapist and has been for over 15 years now. He has his own practice and teaches on campus to us students as well. He said, that he can predict 85% of the time whether a marriage is going to last or not by the way the couple dated. That is pretty significant! Also, unlike common belief, we also talked about how researchers and therapists have seen that family members and friends are actually the best predictors of your marital success. So it might be wise to listen to them before you make that kind of commitment (I'm just glad that my wife's family loves me haha). We also talked about what dating does to prepare you for marriage. A date for men is defined as:

• Pair off              
• Planned
• Paid for

How do those prepare you for marriage than traditional "hanging out"? Those three aspects of a date helps a man to be able to:

• Protect
• Preside
• Provide

in the future. In hanging out, there's lots of competition and you usually don't get to see the real person. There  are a lot of games played between eachother that give off mixed signals. You are not focused. Dating is the best prep. to marriage-- and according to Lauer, falling in love atleast once with another person before marriage gives you benefits of further commitment with your future spouse and helps you best prepare for marriage.