The person you choose could impact your health, happiness, and wealth.  As a divorced person-- I made a poor choice the first time around.  I was young and foolish.  The second time around I knew to look harder and ask more questions.  I refer to part of my courtship with wife as the "interrogation".  We interrogated each other-- we didn't want to make the same mistakes twice.

Here is the advice we will give our kids:

• Ask hard, serious questions and listen hard to the answers you get from your potential mate
• Next, watch the behavior of your partner in certain situations good and bad-- especially the bad situations
• Finally, do the answers to your questions and their behavior in both good and bad situations match?  This is the key-- if they don't you have a problem.

Here are the topics to cover in your questions:

Life is too short-- try to make your life better, not harder . . .