Give yourself the mental, physical and emotional foundation you need before taking the plunge. This will give your marriage unshakable strength.

There are some things that all women should address before getting married. This will ensure that you have your head on straight and are equipped with the tools you need to have a positive long-term relationship.

We have the potential to create consistent and loving relationships if we know ourselves and work on ourselves; without that, it’s easy for the challenges that life throws you to knock you out of your comfort zone and shake up your marriage. Having these habits and emotional coping skills will help you through the challenges you might face.

1. Work on your self-esteem

Since we are talking about love, we first really need to look at how much we are looking to our partners to make ourselves feel good. This can be dangerous because they then have control over how you view yourself. This can lead to codependency and jealousy.

What we need is to really know who we are, what we feel our purpose is and to be proud of it. When we are overly obsessed with our looks and rely on that for the basis of our relationships, we will constantly worry about aging and losing our sex appeal. However, when we know that we are a good person and we know that’s what our man loves about us, aging won’t be scary and we will feel more secure.

2. Develop a healthy relationship with your body

If you are constantly obsessing over how you look, calling yourself fat or looking at photos and wishing you looked like someone else, you’re not ready to take the plunge. We have been programmed by marketing companies to be insecure and think that men like skinny girls.

Men love confident healthy women who are comfortable in their own skin, not women who are trying to be something they’re not. Tell yourself that you are beautiful, that you love your body, and if there’s one thing, you’re self-conscious about, tell yourself that you love that part about yourself, too.

3. Have strong friendships

Before you enter a marriage, you need to have women who you can discuss anything with—and I mean anything. You also want to be there for them. Women need a support group of grounded and mature females to share their feelings with. We can’t look to men to be our only support, and we really do need to spend time with other people, too. When you hear about the internal struggles in their relationships and how they deal with things, it will help you understand your own.

Plus, we need to stay involved in our friends lives so that we don’t live on an isolated island and lose touch with society. Remember those couples who start dating and suddenly you never see them again? Don’t be like that; be there for your friends and make time for them.

4. Address your addictions or obsessive behaviors

This is what no one wants to talk about, but it’s very important. Are you spending too much money? Are you drinking too much on the weekend? Do you need to curtail your obsession with changing your hair color?

If you feel out of control of your behavior in anyway, it’s not yet time to get married. Luckily, with the help of counsellors we can address these issues and overcome them.

If you want a long-lasting marriage, look at any substance abuse you might be dealing with and take the time you need to heal that. You will feel so much better walking down the aisle if your mind and body are healthy, and it’s only fair to your man.

5. Work on peaceful communication

If, as a couple, you are having fights where you say mean things to each other, you’re not ready to get married. Marriage is about loving each other, supporting each other and offering consistent patient communication. Iron this stuff out before you get married. You can take a peaceful communication class and really make it a focus to communicate in a calm and loving way.

Once you have that in check, you will want him to treat you with respect even when you’re stressed. You both need to be able to do this consistently before you walk down the aisle. This will allow for mature conversations instead of childish blowouts. Often, our insecurities are triggered with our partners but based on an experience we had growing up. It’s important to learn how to own your own stuff and not project it onto your partner.

6. Learn how to budget

Don’t get into a marriage if you’re still wild with your money. You want to know what your bills are, when they are due and how much money you have coming in.

You need to have a handle on how much you’re spending on food and other things so that you won’t be stressed about finances in your relationship. Why not deal with this now so there’s one less thing that could be draining or cause disagreements in your marriage?

7. Have a stable career and life goals

This is also extremely important. You need to have momentum in your life so that you don’t lose your identity. You want to have goals that you active pursue and are excited about. Let’s be real: this is something many women need to work on.

You can work with a life coach to help you figure this out before you get married. Remember, this is a new era, we can be leaders in our communities and mothers. Don’t just throw your goals out the window because you’re getting married; you need to keep your passion going.

8. Feel like you can stand on your own

This is a hard one to know for sure, but let’s say that you need to know that you would still be happy without your man. You would need to feel satisfied with the life you’re living and be able to support yourself. This ensures that you don’t have power struggles or feel less important than your partner.

If you were miserable before your relationship and looking for a relationship to save you, you’re not ready. If you don’t feel happy on a daily basis, you’re also not ready.

If you think that getting married is going to make the problems go away, slow down: you need to work on the problems and get to the root of the negative patterns before you tie the knot. This is also to protect you. It’s a big decision, and you want to make sure your man has communication skills, emotional coping skills and a strong sense of self as well.

9. Have techniques to keep your mind positive

Do you have a way to stay positive? Maybe learn meditation or work with setting an intention in the morning. Being able to keep a positive frame of mind will help you to get through the sad and stressful situations that will happen.

Imagine having kids together and the things that will be out of your control. You will need these tools in order to keep things positive and optimistic. There are good books and videos about this. Start now, and you’ll realize how fun life can really be.

10. Trust yourself

If you don’t trust yourself, you’re not ready for a relationship. If you find yourself thinking about being with other people and wondering if you would be happier with them, you’re not ready for marriage. You need to be all in and be able to be yourself. If you worry that you will hurt your partner, you need to work on why you’re not able to fully commit.

You also will not be able to trust someone else until you trust yourself. This means that you need to have complete transparency with him—no white lies. Don’t lie to him about where you’re going, what you buy or anything. It’s a bad habit that can cause a lot of problems.

Hopefully you found this helpful and will share it with your friends as it’s the advice any woman should have before getting married. We want to hear that your marriages last and are very happy!