Your partner wants to get married but you’re not ready. It is never uncommon for a couple inside a long-term relationship to think or discuss marriage. Some even daydream about this special day and some are not ready to actually tie the knot.

Don’t feel bad about yourself, it’s normal. As a human, we all have different degrees of readiness when it comes to commitment or marriage. Perhaps your partner’s started dropping hints and you’re not quite sure how to react. You might feel under lots of pressure to make a decision or risk the future of your relationship and worst, your partner. Who knows? Maybe you just need to sort things out.

There’s no surefire way of knowing if you’re really prepared for marriage or not, but if you can relate to the items in this list, chances are you’re finally ready to leave singlehood behind.

1. When you think of your future, your partner is part of it. It’s not only on specific events like your friend’s wedding or a family vacation. You just look ahead and know you want him to be there.
2. If you couldn’t have the wedding of your dreams, you would still marry him. You would give up your dream of a fairytale wedding just to be with him.
3. You have shared values and goals. If you feel that you’ve talked through significant future goals together and you’re aligned, that’s also a good sign.
4. You feel like this relationship is different from all your others. If you’re just like, intuitively, this feels different from all my other relationships in terms of not only our connection, but our lifestyle, our trust, our respect, our shared values and goals, that’s certainly a sign that you want him in your future.
5. When you can’t imagine life without your partner. Being together forever means a lot of time in one another’s close presence. When you and your partner are ready to make this step, then it’s because you already know your relationship will survive it.
6. Your family and friends can see how happy you are with this person. Your friends and family have known you the longest and know you best. You will be able to feel if they like who you are as a couple together.
7. Saying “I’m sorry” is easy. Why is it so hard to say you’re sorry? If you cannot say it, you may be destined for divorce if you decide to marry. When you can truthfully and authentically say, “I’m sorry,” to your partner then most likely you don’t want to lose him.
8. If you can control your temper and emotions and you can absorb your partner’s emotional abnormalities. It can be really hard to love our partners when they start to throw an adult temper tantrum. If you still love your partner behind the being difficult sometimes, then that’s a special kind of love.
9. If you both are willing to compromise to give up things and change things to adjust with each other. A healthy relationship should affirm who each partner is and allow each person to meet his or her needs together with the other. A lesser relationship demands that one or both partners change in a deep and meaningful way to meet the needs of the other, which compromise one or both of the persons involved.
10. If you can communicate your thoughts very well to your partner and you have an understanding for each other even when one of you is upset.
11. Do you guys get along well, treat each other well, and improve the character and life of the other person. Are you a better person by being around them?
12. If you want children and ready to take their responsibility. Having a baby changes a lot for a couple, particularly when it comes to the number of responsibilities involved in the relationship. When deciding if you’re ready to have a baby, it’s important to have a lengthy, sincere conversation with each other about the elements of parenthood that you’ll need to prepare for, and whether each of you feels equally ready for that leap.
13. If you can accept your partner’s downfalls and faults. Love in fact, does not conquer all. It’s a common misconception that if you love someone, everything else will work itself out, but love alone is not enough. Acceptance is what will get you through to the other side. It means understanding that something is what it is and that you can choose it for exactly what it is. Because when you do choose it for what it is and what it isn’t, it brings something entirely new into your world.
14. If you and your partner are financially ready. Money — mainly how you and your partner manage it — can be instrumental in having a healthy and happy marriage.
15. If your partner is your best friend. Best friends see beyond the façade we put on display publicly. They see right through to our well-guarded selves within. When your partner is your best friend, he or she knows you for who you truly are and accepts you just the way you are.

After checking out this checklist, one thing you could do is to discuss your feelings with your partner. The two of you might be able to work together to resolve some of your tension, and you may even be surprised to find out that he or she is having some doubts of his own!

Learning to work through feelings together is a part of what makes a marriage work and durable. If the two of you can work closely together to work through issues, it will make a very strong foundation for the marriage.

If you have trouble discussing your feelings, you can start out by writing notes to each other about how you feel. Sometimes this can help if you’re too nervous to talk, or if you’re worried about starting an argument. Our friends of chat line dating provide us a list of free chat line numbers in case you’d like a quick friendly chat as a little therapy

Once you both understand how the other one is feeling, it will be easier to resolve your issues. You have to learn how to talk to each other, and it’s best if you do it before you even plan to get married.

Note: There’s no such thing as a perfect time to get married as they say, but for people who’ve taken the plunge, they’ll often say they knew when it was right for them. 😉