Preparing for Marriage

I hesitate to write on preparing for marriage, since I did a poor job (and my wife and I are divorced)... However, I think you can learn from my mistakes... Some of the things I did wrong were:
....Focused on physical attraction when dating (instead of becoming friends)
....When my wife and I married, we were both Christians, but had no training on the husband's and wife's roles in a marriage
....She is a dominate woman and I am a passive male [I have PMS (Passive Male Syndrome)].
....We battled over who would lead in the home for a few years and finally I gave up and let her raise our five children... I threw myself in my education and then career (and became an absentee father)
....Eventually, that destroyed our home (and has harmed our children) and led to our divorce.

Since I started walking with the Lord again in October 2007, I have studied how I should have prepared for marriage.... I think Mark Fox (Pastor of Antioch Community Church) says it best as shown below,

"I heard someone say many years ago that most men and women come into marriage just
the opposite of the way they are supposed to.... You should approach a potential lifelong spouse with a magnifying glass, trying to see every little flaw, every character deficiency, every potential problem that would make you wish you had never married the person in the first place!... Then, once you have resolved yourself to love the person like they are, warts and all, and you say “I do” at the altar, then you take off the magnifying glasses and put on the rose-colored glasses... From then on, you approach your mate with acceptance and love and forgiveness, even to the point that you learn to overlook a transgression (Proverbs 19:11).

Instead, what many young couples do is just the opposite... They put on the rose-colored glasses during courtship, not wanting to even admit to themselves, much less confront their partners, about a potential problem they may see in this person they think they “love”... Then when they get to the altar and say the “I dos”, the rose-colored glasses are tossed aside in the bushes on the way out of the church, and out comes the magnifying glasses... Every flaw, every blemish, every character deficiency that they joyfully overlooked during courtship is now a thorn in their flesh.

Let me hasten to add that with a potential mate we must not have a holier-than-thou attitude... We must do all we can to lay aside pride or a critical spirit and look with God's eyes, not the eyes of our flesh... But this examination process must be done; otherwise, we are in for big trouble ahead... It is better to never marry at all than to marry in haste and repent in leisure."

From “Planting a Family-Integrated Church”
by J. Mark Fox (2008) pp 27-29

Mark also recommends the following book:
“Reforming Marriage”
by Douglas Wilson

(He requires that potential elders study it)