I am writing this on what would have been my wedding anniversary. I hate that I still remember the date, that it’s burned into my brain. I wish I could forget.

I woke up happy that I changed my life and didn’t waste any more time in an unhealthy relationship. Gratitude isn’t a bad way to start the day. In fact, normally, I’d recommend it. But on the heels of gratitude was the memory of another day in what feels like another life.

My wedding day was garbage. Even when I was married, I would have said that. It was stressful and low-budget and lacklustre. I’d compromised everything I wanted because of someone else’s preference, and my then-fiancé didn’t seem particularly excited to be marrying me. My expert-level denial told me he was just nervous, but deep down, I knew better.

Whatever I had wanted for my wedding day, it wasn’t what I got. But I was hopeful about the marriage even if the wedding day was far from the one of my dreams. When it rained, I told myself it was lucky. When the day went to hell in a handbasket, I said it would be a story we’d tell our grandchildren. I tried to make the best of it, but I would not relive that day for love or money.

Honestly, it could have been the most magical, extravagant day of my life, and I would feel the same. I would still feel glad that I freed myself, however long it took, but also sad for the person I used to be who believed that it was a relationship that would go the distance. The marriage is dead, but the experience yielded much in the way of life lessons.

With that in mind, I thought about what advice I’d offer those who aren’t yet married but are going to be. I wondered what advice I would have given to myself if present me could have a talk with the girl in the white dress who didn’t know the sky was falling. What could have helped prepare me? What did I want younger me to know?

This is what I came up with:

Know why.
We need to know why we want to get married at all. Is it because it’s expected or time or the next step? Is it supposed to provide some sort of security or commitment or social acceptance? The reason matters.

We also need to know why we’re marrying that particular person. We need a damn good reason, and “love” alone isn’t good enough. Plus, we need to be able to differentiate between love and attachment or codependence. The why of what we’re doing is more important than anything else.

Decide if this is the epic love we’ve always wanted or settling for something that’s good enough.
Epic love exists. It’s out there. We probably won’t find it if we’re married to someone else. No one wants to be the person someone has settled for, so why would we do this to someone else? We need to believe in a love that compliments an already full life, that makes us the best version of ourselves. Epic love doesn’t ask us to give up who we are to exist inside of it.

Get counselling — and not just pre-marital counselling either.
Real counselling could be a real help. Pre-marital counselling may ask some of the right questions, but by that point, the marriage is already decided on. How often do we back out by the time we’re making wedding plans? I feel like couples counselling could be much more beneficial at an earlier stage — when we know we want to go the distance and we want to make sure to preemptively address issues.

Trust our friends.
Unless we surround ourselves with negative people who hate everyone, if our friends don’t like our partner, there’s a good reason. We don’t need to marry someone our friends hate — or who hates our friends. It’s a flashing neon warning sign of trouble ahead!

Opposites attract — but later repel.
Never underestimate the power of common interests. While we don’t have to love all the same things, we need enough common interests to go the distance — or at the very least, the willingness to try new things and to be respectful of our differences.

Beware of quirks.
Quirks are cute — when we’re dating. But some of the things we find endearing at the beginning become an active source of frustration later. We need to be able to tell the difference between quirks we can live with and red flags we won’t be able to stand.

Understand that time changes all of us.
I got married young and believed that I would always be who I was then. I’m not. Life happens. Hopefully, we learn and grow, constantly evolving. The problem comes when we aren’t really on the same page in the first place and then evolve in different directions — or when one person evolves and one stays stagnant. It takes intentional effort to grow together and to allow the person we love to grow in new and changing directions.

Pay attention to the subjects we avoid.
This is a big one. If there are areas of our relationships where we don’t look too closely, there’s something we’re avoiding that could trip us up later. Not only is it conflict-avoidant, but it’s also a major sign of denial.

We need to love ourselves first.
Half of all marriages don’t end in divorce. I think the number is likely higher. But honestly, I think the reason is that we often don’t know who we are as individuals before we try sharing our lives with someone else.

We need to be alone — truly alone, without dating — before we can be with someone else in a healthy way. We need to know ourselves and love that person in order to figure out what kind of life we want. Enjoying our own company is essential to being able to be healthy inside of a relationship.

Deal with our personal baggage.
Before we leap into marriage, we need to deal with our issues. It’s not anyone else’s job to fix us, and getting married sure as hell won’t do it anyway. We all have issues — every single living, breathing human. Whether we see a therapist, pick up a self-help book, or just practice better habits, we need to make personal growth a lifetime priority regardless of our relationship status. Whatever we don’t address will certainly impact our relationships.

Plan (and focus) on the marriage — not the wedding.
I look back at the organization of my own lacklustre wedding and realize that I didn’t need to put more time into planning a better wedding. I needed to look at and talk about what we both wanted from a marriage. His idea and mine were vastly different. Our values weren’t the same, and this became more and more obvious as we got older.

We put so much time, energy, and resources into the wedding, but we act like the marriage itself is effortless. Marriages take work and intention. It’s learning how to adjust to someone else’s way of living, to fight fair, to negotiate the division of labour equitably, and to find that balance between what we want for ourselves and what we want as a couple. We could spend a year planning a wedding and be utterly unprepared for being married.

We can’t control other people.
We can know ourselves and love someone well, and it still might not work out. Marriage isn’t any more of a guarantee than anything else. This is where risk comes in. If we decide to make our relationship legal and to promise to share our lives with someone else, we need to know that the legal designation won’t give us security.

All it means is that we’re telling the world that we’re devoted to trying. And if it doesn’t work out? I hope we learn something and still choose to love again.

As a society, we spend so much time focused on relationship status and labels. There’s an expectation that we date, get engaged, get married, and have children. But why? Do we know, or do we just follow the rules even if they don’t fit what we want for our lives?

I know friends who are happily married and happily single, friends who are happy to be parents and those who never want to be. Almost everyone I know has figured out that life rarely works out according to our careful plans. But it still works out, and if we keep learning and growing, it works out better than anything we ever planned.

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