What will help me last in a marriage?

One of the keys is celibacy before marriage, it allows for you to get to know one another as people, and not as sexual objects. If you already are having sex you just lessened the odds of a successful marriage. The other is a marriage best on standards and guidelines. The best standards and guidelines which have proved successful time and time again are found in the Bible. If your marriage is just based on your idea or his idea of what makes a good marriage it is like building a house on sand.