If your dreams for the future include romance, marriage, and children, you can take steps right now to make those dreams come true.

You may think those steps begin with dating, and you're partly right. Dating is an important part of the teen experience - not because it shows your value as a person; you're valuable simply for who you are. But dating is one step in learning to build healthy relationships.

If your parents have a healthy, loving marriage, you're already learning how to be a strong husband or wife. If, like many of us, you haven't experienced a great example at home, there's good news: Healthy marriages are based on relationship skills that you can learn through study and practice.

Our class, How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk(ette), teaches you to choose a relationship that is safe and healthy. Communication Smarts helps you practice good communication and conflict resolution-skills that will not only help you in dating, but also will help you get along better with friends and family. For class schedules, visit our classes page.

Dating, however, is only part of the story. The most important choices you can make for a successful marriage start with these three steps.

A high school degree is essential to your future. A college degree can significantly increase your earning power. That makes a difference when you have children. The current estimated cost of raising just one child to age 17 is $269,520.

Establish financial security and learn to manage a household on your own. If you move right out of your parents' house into a house you share with a partner, you're just exchanging one kind of dependence for another. On the other hand, consider a career and life path that includes marriage by age 30. Studies show marriages that begin in the 20s have the highest rates of happiness and success.

Once you're established and looking for a committed relationship, hold out for marriage. There are many reasons living together is just not the same as marriage - including the increased likelihood the relationship will end. And marriage is definitely best for your kids. Study after study shows that children who are born into a marriage and grow up with their two parents do better emotionally, physically, academically, and socially. Kids who grow up with divorced or single parents fare worse and often live in poverty.

Follow these three steps - and take the time to learn healthy relationship skills - and your dreams of "happily ever after" are far more likely to come true.