AisleDash

They say love is blind. Does that also mean love makes you blind? When you spend as much time reading about other people's relationships as an AisleDash blogger, you start to understand why the divorce rate is so high.

It seems that people are so excited about being in love and getting engaged that they don't stop to do normal things like worry anymore. Worrying is a good tool. When used in moderation, it helps you spot potential problems which you can then work to solve. But when the worries are turned off or ignored, people just plow past all the beginnings of issues in a daze of love and excitement, and when that whirlwind dies down (maybe a year or two into a marriage?), the problems have grown and are suddenly overwhelming.

Take for instance, this bride-to-be in a recent Carolyn Hax advice column. Her groom doesn't speak to his family, she doesn't know why and has never met them, and writes for advice on how to get them to mend their fences before the big day. She understands that a problem exists, enough that she'll write into an advice columnist, but the solution she's seeking isn't for the real problem she has.

Why doesn't she know what happened between her boyfriend and his family??

Maybe she can come to terms with the fact that they just don't speak, that she'll never have in-laws -- but these are the people that raised and shaped her future husband, and she doesn't know anything about that part of him before agreeing to bind herself to him for life. Um, hello?

Folks, love is great, and a big congratulations to you if you've found it. But love isn't all you need to make a relationship work. You need communication, openness, understanding, and compassion. If the love is really there, this stuff should come easy. Before you send relationship questions into an advice columnist or wedding message board community, ask yourself if you really know all that you need to make an informed decision about marriage; if you've been ignoring red flags. When you can answer those questions with confidence, then everyone will be happy to field your questions about centerpieces and guest lists.

And if you identify a potential red flag, don't freak out. It doesn't have to mean the end of your relationship, but you do want to have potential problems under control before you walk down the aisle. This is why pre-marital counseling is such a good idea -- because so many happy couples are so excited in their love that they are blind to fixable problems until they become too great to ignore, and then too difficult to overcome.