Spouse Check

Lifestyle Relationships
1

This may apply mostly to North American guppies.

So, let’s say you have started to like this person that you either met through some friend/relative or on your own. You two meet a few times and things start to get serious and you are both thinking along the lines of marriage.

(For ease of reading, I will use male gender for this person but it equally applies to females)

Would you like to know what the other person was doing all his adulthood life before you two met. What if he has a criminal past, is hiding previous marriage(s), children, or may be filed a bankruptcy. What if this person never told you the complete story. Because the person thinks he/she will lose you.

My question is at what point in a relationship would you like to perform a background check, if at all?. Would you feel comfortable going into marriage not really knowing about events in the other person’s past that would directly affect you and your relationship in the future?

Getting a background check is not too difficult in the USA. You need the person’s drivers license and may be social security number and a current address. All three things should be easily available if you are at a point of considering this person for marriage.

Would you prefer getting the background check done before moving forward?

2

:hehe:

I’ll reserve some of my comments.

When one of my cousins got married, her father did a thorough check on the guy. Granted it was in Pakistan, so the possibility of a background check as you’ve described is not so possible. But he did head over to the boy’s workplace to have a chat with the guy’s boss and his co-workers.

3

You're a big boy, figure it out.

4

Sooner the better.

I ran the background check on a woman and turned out she was arrested on DUI charges. I couldn't help but think what else she'd been upto through out her adult life, things I didn't know. Where had she been, what had she done, with whom?!!!!

5

Not really. I mean most of the times you can tell by talking/spending time with that person. But looks can be deceiving and you sometimes can’t tell what kind of a person someone is just by looking at the face or talking to him/her. However, I wouldn’t care much and if I like her, I’ll marry her :k:

6

^ oh you judge. tsk tsk.

7

The girl in my situation was a Pakistani muslimah. :rolleyes:

8

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by LuxuryItem: *
Sooner the better.

I ran the background check on a woman and turned out she was arrested on DUI charges. I couldn't help but think what else she'd been upto through out her adult life, things I didn't know. Where had she been, what had she done, with whom?!!!!
[/QUOTE]

She murdered her second and thrid husband.How did you miss all that?

9

i refused to read the content of this thread just the title freaked me out...

10

Luxury Item...DUI aint that big a deal is it?

11

yeah and how do you jump from a DUI to "what has she done and with whom"??

12

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by lastknightess: *
Luxury Item...DUI aint that big a deal is it?
[/QUOTE]

For shareef people like me it's everything.

13

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by LuxuryItem: *

For shareef people like me it's everything.
[/QUOTE]

Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone :p

Edit - spellin

14

You ask them up front whatever you need to ask and vice versa. There comes a time when things become 'comfortable' enough to ask ... and the other person might volunteer/open up information about themselves on their own without being asked. Doing an official background check is a bit extreme. You should be able to trust the other person is telling you the truth and if you have to go to the extreme of doing a license check, etc. then you may have trust issues. I dunno ... maybe that's naive of me.

15

:k:

Nicely put Mehnaz.

Now I just ask, no need for background checks. :slight_smile:

16

You can have me checked out … I have no DUIs :rotato:

17

Mehnaz becareful our pal LI here takes things a bit too seriously ;)

18

dont see any harm in it.

19

this spouse check thing is very very common atleast in Pakistan in the case of arranged marriages...

recently someone we know checked with the local thana of the prospective's locality checking if there was ever any case against that person or their parents...

ppl do checks of the whole khandaan, their property, their business dealings and what not...

ppl check if the person actually graduated with the degree from the college they claim...

all this kinda stuff...

at the end of the day i think a lot has got to do with "kismat"...you can get married to the "cleanest" person but if Allah has written something bad in your fate than you can't avert that...and sometimes if you marry a so called "criminal" but Allah has written that (s)he will become a good spouse for you and your family then nothing can change that too...

some ppl even lie though (happenned to a relative of mine recently and it was a rude shock to everyone in our family)...the susraalis lied about their property and the guy...it was really a sad situation and caused a lot of pain to my cousin...some ppl dont disclose diseases their children have, like TB, and get them married off...this has also happenned to someone in my family...

there's all sorts of ppl in this world with all kinds of weird thinkings...

if you've known someone lets say in college for four or five years and don't know too much abt their khandaan but know their personality and present habits.... thats a different thing...but if you've only just met someone and haven't known them for sometime on a personal level then its a given that you don't know a lot about them...assumptions can be false and should never be made abt anyone...

my personal belief is that its the present that counts not the past...but some part of the past can play a role into the present and the future and should be taken into account...like what if a person has kids from a past marriage or even a wife? obviously that's going to affect the present and the future...what if the person has a past criminal record like if they're a political refugee or something?

im not saying dont marry such a person but jus saying be aware of it and prepare urself to deal with it coz it could be a surprise if such things are discovered after marriage..

emotions should never come into play in this entire matter and one should approach marriage very practically, not with some dreamy eyed indian movie type notion of "love" or whatever, one should never rush into making any commitment...

to be honest i think a background check must be made but maybe the other person should not be told about it, and if something comes up that seems strange then the other person should be asked abt it mildly... its not abt betrayal of trust ... if there's no commitment till that point then there's nothing wrong with checking the person's background ... and there should be no commitment, emotional or official, until all such practical details have been sorted... one should commit only when they are mentally at peace about everything ...

lekin ofcourse...in the end...theres only so much these things help with...at the end of the day its all in Allah swt's hands and a lot of it is just your fate :)

20

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MehnazQ: *
You ask them up front whatever you need to ask and vice versa. There comes a time when things become 'comfortable' enough to ask ... and the other person might volunteer/open up information about themselves on their own without being asked. Doing an official background check is a bit extreme. You should be able to trust the other person is telling you the truth and if you have to go to the extreme of doing a license check, etc. then you may have trust issues. I dunno ... maybe that's naive of me.
[/QUOTE]

Mehnaz, yaar, no offence but yes your approach is very naive :) it might work but i think its risky...you can say that life is full of risks anyway, but hey why take a risk that can be avoided?

There's a difference between telling the truth, keeping a part of the truth away from a person, and ofcourse hiding a part of the truth from fear that you'll lose the other person as funguy pointed out. We're all human yaar, we've all got our insecurities, and its true that all of us don't speak the truth 100% of the time even though we do try to.

And someone might even tell you the truth but your perception of what they are saying can be entirely different from reality.

I'll give you an example of a situation I know very well about. This lady I know married someone who was already married and had kids. He told her he'd have nothing to do with his past family. Under influence of emotions and silly indian movie notions of "love" she got married to the guy. Well, now they are married and he does live with his new wife but obviously he still has to support his wife and kids from his past marriage and he does visit them sometimes. She thought she'd be okay with this but she is not and this has become a big bone of contention between them.

Its easy to say under the influence of emotion that you would be okay with something but to actually live with it in a real day to day basis is a different thing, and one should be as realistic as possible when it comes to marriage coz its the most important things in one's life.

some ppl really are strong or so emotional, that the strength of their emotions carries them far and they can deal with anything about their significant other just because they "love" them. more power to such people. they really have a big heart i would say. but this doesnt happen all the time and one should try to be as safe as possible i think :)