Robert & Isabelle Fox

Isabelle Fox, Ph.D., has degrees from Harvard and UCLA and has practiced as a clinical psychotherapist for over thirty-five years. She has extensive experience involving divorce, custody, marital counseling and other family issues.

Robert M. Fox, J.D., is a practicing attorney with broad experience in divorce law, personal injury and medical malpractice. He holds a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of Finance, University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from Southwestern University. Isabelle and Robert live in Sherman Oaks, California.
 

The Prospective Spouse Checklist

HAPPILY EVER AFTER of SPLITSVILLE?

So you have met someone, that “special” love of your life. You’ve met each other’s friends and families, begun to discuss living arrangements, planned vacations together and talked of taking that walk down the aisle. However, how can you be sure this person is really the one? With 50 percent of all marriages ending in divorce, you have a right to be cautious. But what if there was a proven tool that could show you how to beat the odds?

Isabelle Fox, Ph.D., and Robert M. Fox, J.D., in THE PROSPECTIVE SPOUSE CHECKLIST: Evaluating Your Prospective Partner (New Horizon Press, October 2011) have devised the Prospective Spouse Checklist, a thirty-five-point introspective questionnaire that both partners should complete to determine whether their relationship will lead to a happily ever after marriage. The checklist includes such issues: Does he or she have a good relationship with parents, siblings and grandparents? Do you both have similar interests, educations and life goals? Other critical elements are “red flagged” as potential areas that must be considered carefully, including handling joint finances, desire for children, similar religious beliefs, child-care, possible addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, smoking or possibility of abusive temperaments.

Does this sound calculating and cold? Isabelle and Robert Fox reveal that though love is a matter of the heart, we are often so caught up in the raptures of infatuation and bliss that we miss the warning signs of a serious or fatal personality and behavioral issues in the person we think we’ve fallen in love with until it is too late. THE PROSPECTIVE SPOUSE CHECKLIST enables couples to explore and evaluate hardcore values and traits that are key to establishing solid, healthy foundations to long-term, successful, fulfilling marriages. Taking the time to seriously consider, fill out and discuss the issues highlighted in the authors’ Prospective Spouse Checklist will give you the tools to discern that your head and heart are in agreement and that this prospective partner in marriage is the right one to choose for a lifetime of marital bliss.

SUGGESTED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS:

•    Why do you feel it is important to evaluate a potential spouse?
•    Why do people enter into marriages that fail?
•    What do you feel couples can do to ensure happy and lasting marriages?
•    How will reducing the emotional process of spouse selection to a thirty-five-item checklist help spouse seekers?
•    Why do you place such importance on family history, specifically the first five years of childhood, in considering a possible spouse?
•    Did you use a checklist when considering your own marriage?
•    How did you create the Prospective Spouse Checklist?
•    Why is the creation of a “pool” of possible spouse prospects necessary?