Summarize the following:
A mature individual knows herself and what she believes in. Before getting married, it's important to know what you value and if you're being completely honest with yourself. Have a healthy self esteem. By knowing you're worthy of love, you set the bar high on how you'll be treated by your partner. When you have low self esteem, it may allow you to accept unacceptable behavior while preventing you from enjoying a healthy relationship. When you're insecure, you can be irritable, have poor communication and use impaired judgement in your work and personal life. In order to attract confident and healthy partners, you must have self-confidence. Know what is important to you. Ask yourself what values you have. If you're a family person, you may want many children and regular family outings. Perhaps you are more career-driven so you may need to skip children all together or wait until later in life to re-evaluate if you want a family. Maybe you are quite religious and need someone of the same faith. Search within yourself and decide what makes you the person you are. Self-reflection is important in all stages of personal relationships. If you are unable to be honest with yourself, you can't expect to be honest with another individual. Set aside some personal time to think. When you're alone, consider what you could work on. Some individuals may have difficulty communicating. If this is you, think about circumstances when you were unable to effectively communicate your feelings or be honest with yourself. Try to be observant of these situations and the points in which you shut off or close down. Negativity or being too hard on yourself can be difficult to associate with. Imagine yourself with a partner who is unable to accept praise and is generally an unhappy person. Consider why you flee to negative emotions and try to remember there is more than one perspective. After you know yourself, you can contemplate what you need out of a relationship in order to move onto marriage. Keep it simple and examine what you value in your friends, family and past relationships. Create a list of what you look for in a partner that consists of must-have, maybes, and absolutley-nots. Your list should be ever-evolving. You should always grow and change as a person, especially while young so your list should reflect that. Don't be afraid to edit your list after a poorly-ended relationship. When listing your must-haves, look for common denominators within your life. If all your friends have a sense of humor, it may be an important thing to look for; in contrast, if you prefer to be more serious perhaps you should find a person able to hold more involved conversations. Make your list how you want it. After all, it is yours and yours alone. When you have an easy go-to list you can easily look for a marriage-worthy partner. Knowing what you want before hand will help keep you on the right track while keeping your standards high.
Identify your personal values. Be honest with yourself about your shortcomings. Make a relationship check-list.