“I do, do I?” was the title Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) from ‘Sex & the City 2’chose for her book when she decided to discuss marriage. While watching the movie last night, this title got me thinking, how do you really know you’re ready to get married?

Is it love? Is falling in love a sign that you are ready for marriage? If so then how come loads of marriages that are the follow-ups to tremendous love stories crumble?

Is it age? Do you reach a certain age that makes you eligible and old enough for the big step? Are the pictures of our grandparents’ weddings hanging on the wall and showing that they were in the springtime of their lives when they got married photoshopped?

Is it compatibility? Like meeting someone who shares your same background and his or her family clicks on some levels with yours? I heard the ‘marriage isn’t about two people; it’s about two families’ line a lot. Could this be a thumbs up to get married to this person? But hey, I’m not applying for a job; I’m getting married here!

Though these criteria might be essential, especially love, none of them succeeded in convincing me on what’s my green light to get married. Simply because a big scary step such as pledging your life with someone else’s isn’t a walk in the park.

Saying your vows isn’t much different from taking any choice or giving any promises. It’s identical to these processes, and it requires one major key, maturity.

Maturity is reaching a stage of mental and emotional development, characteristic of an adult. You can reach maturity at sixteen and fail to attain it even though you’re forty, meaning marriage readiness isn’t based on chronological age but true wisdom.

You’re ready to get married when you’re convinced that things don’t have to be perfect, and that life isn’t like the movies. When you realize that you have a partner and a relationship that are good enough. Not perfect, but good enough to want to build a life with, to want to have children with, good enough that when life throws fireballs your way, you would want to work it out together instead of separately. Good enough that you would want to commit to each other, to learn to love each other in new ways every single day, to know that what you know now about love isn’t what you will know 20, 30, 40 years from now. When you and your partner agree that marriage and love is a partnership. Each should be ready to give up on something for the other to be happy, but in return the other person should do the same, that’s maturity in love.

No one can teach you how to be mature; it’s a skill that you master with each experience and each scare. It’s a state that requires sweat and patience to reach, and at the same times it might be naturally rooted in you.

When you attain maturity, you won’t need to guess if you’re ready or not. You will know you are.