A serious question about engagement

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CatholicMan85

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As someone who is trying to follow the faith to at least some extent, I would like to know the official thoughts on how long an engagement should be.

With the teachings that marriages should be annulled if the couple is not open to life from the get go, It would also make sense that if the couple is not ready to put everything aside and get married as soon as possible, they shouldn’t even be getting engaged.After all, engagement is that - a promise to marry. It’s not a “I promise to marry you eventually after …” or “until I get to know you better” or anything else. If I’m ready and she’s ready, it should be go to the next step - not wait a few more years first “just to make sure we don’t get a Divorce (which is illegal by my the church anyway - thus why I will decline a prenup.)”

With the hard stance I have against cohabilitation, marriage is going to be a bit rough for the first year or so either way one looks at it - and probably reveal a whole different side of the woman I probably never knew before that she may have been hiding. She’ll probably see a whole side of me she probably never knew as well (specifically the amount I am probably what one would call addicted to exercise, and the night shift problem will exasperate as well.)

In short, am I right to be a bit hesitant about popping the question if she’s not quite ready to get married as soon as possible after she makes her end of the promise?
 
Until the 20th century the majority of people married according to the expectations of their parents and relatives, and this worked well. The problem is anyway the choice of the inexperienced, and a few months or even a year cohabitation does not helps.

If the attitude of both party is to seek what is good for the family (‘us’) and not what is good for the individual (‘me’) then the marriage will be stable, otherwise selfish people are unable to live together in long term anyway.
 
While I agree that an engagement ought not to be undertaken without actually setting a date, you need to know that putting a traditional wedding takes quite a bit of time, and depending on how large and elaborate it is, the organization skills of the Joint Chiefs of Staff preparing a military campaign! I don’t know how elaborate a wedding your intended (and probably her mother, too,) have had their hearts set on for heaven knows how long, but putting together one of those is no mean feat, and takes time.

For openers, most (if not all) Catholic churches insist that the engaged couple attend premarital training or counseling of some sort, frequently pre-Cana classes. Those are only offered a couple of times a year in many dioceses.

Certain times of the year are more popular for weddings than others (June and September are big months in the Northeastern USA, for example.)

The church your bride-to-be belongs to might be booked up for weddings several months in advance. This is particularly true if it is an unusually architecturally beautiful church or has some other (to put it crassly) “drawing” point, such as a very popular priest, a magnificent music program, nice exterior gardens, and the like.

A traditional wedding gown might not be available in your bride-to-be’s dress size. Most bridal shops stock samples. The actual gown she wears on her wedding day is made and shipped from the company. That takes time (a few months.) It has to be adjusted for fit when the actual gown arrives (figure on shipping and a couple of fittings, that’s another few weeks.)

And then there is the matter of the availability of the reception venue, photographers, and musicians for the reception. They may be booked already months in advance, too.

I’d really advise most men to stay out of the wedding preparations, or better yet, practice saying this, “Anything you like, dear.” Matter of fact, practicing that is a good way to avoid arguments about petty nonsense that doesn’t matter one way or another during the course of your future marriage! Do you honestly care whether the wedding cake is yellow cake or chocolate, or whether her bridesmaids wear purple or pink? As long as the organist doesn’t play “Chopsticks” or sound like she’s playing at a hockey game, what do you care? It’s about compromise, my friend, and wedding preparations are a very good place to practice this skill that you will need to rely on daily throughout your married life! The marriage is about two people. The wedding day is all about the bride in popular culture in the US. Let her be the “star.” If her folks are paying for the reception, etc, they get to call the shots.

Personally, I think that couples ought to have prenuptial agreements, as cynical as that sounds. I doubt most people think that it’s all going to go south in a few years on their wedding day. But the fact of the matter is that fifty percent of all couples, Catholics included, end up telling it to the judge. Some damage control built into the legalities only sounds prudent to me, especially if one party is bringing large resources to the marriage that they earned prior to the marriage.

Also, if there is some kind of “just to make sure we don’t get divorced” reservation in setting a date, maybe the couple in question ought to hold off on getting engaged. What’s wrong with more courtship? But after a suitable period of getting to know one another better, as well as making sure each of you are up to the responsibilities of marriage (e.g., not only rightly oriented towards those responsibilities but actually having the resources to start a marriage off on a good foot, like being employed in a job that will allow you to support a family,) it’s time to fish or cut bait. An indefinite, protracted, open-ended courtship that goes on for years and years is not only keeping someone on a string, it’s also an occasion of sin.
 
odile53 said:
Personally, I think that couples ought to have prenuptial agreements, as cynical as that sounds. I doubt most people think that it’s all going to go south in a few years on their wedding day. But the fact of the matter is that fifty percent of all couples, Catholics included, end up telling it to the judge.
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the general Catholic understanding is that prenups are not allowed, however wise they might seem to you
 
CatholicMan85 said:
With the hard stance I have against cohabilitation, marriage is going to be a bit rough for the first year or so either way one looks at it - and probably reveal a whole different side of the woman I probably never knew before that she may have been hiding. She’ll probably see a whole side of me she probably never knew as well (specifically the amount I am probably what one would call addicted to exercise, and the night shift problem will exasperate as well.)
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You seem to be missing the point of the engagement period. The problems you anticipate need to be brought up before the marriage and possible solutions worked out. Did you know that important information that is hidden by one party prior to the marriage can, in some cases, be grounds for an annulment?

Did you imply you wouldn’t be able to be chaste during the 6 to 12-month engagement period because you are against co-habitation? It’s good practice. What if you had to abstain from relations with your wife for a period after marriage because of a difficult pregnancy or some other medical reason? Consider the engagement a test of your true love for each other in the absence of physical gratification.

Or did you perhaps mean that cohabitation prepares the couple to be married? Studies show that couples who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce than those who don’t. ‘Living together’ is different from being married. I have observed that my family members and friends who have lived together then married are unpleasantly surprised that they often fight during the first year of marriage because their relationship has changed and they weren’t prepared for it. I notice that the fights often concern money, whose it is and how it is spent. It’s really better to prepare well for marriage and then do it the right way.

In cultures where arranged marriages work, I believe it is due to the fact that both the husband and wife have the same expectations of what their roles as husband and wife will involve. This isn’t true of our culture. We need adequate marriage prep to help insure that the couple know what they are committing themselves to. For instance, what would you do if you later found out that your wife expected that you would give up most of your exercising and take on the role of her nice semi-couch potato dad?

Several months ago I attended the Catholic wedding of a friend who is 60 years old. She and her fiance attended the pre-cana meetings and found them very helpful (although she said they had to laugh when they filled out the questionnaire about their openness to children in their marriage.)
 
Why would being against co-habilitation imply I wouldn’t want to be chaste? Sex is probably over-hyped anyhow, and I’m the type of person that chose the woman I did because she doesn’t instantly “turn me on” to evil temptations. The nice thing is with the night shift the temptation to sleep with my girlfriend is nearly all but gone since we are on two completely separate schedules. One could almost call it a blessing?

All I meant by that statement was I’m sure there’s going to be little things she does that get on my nerves, and there will be things I do that get on her nerves once we get married and eventually move in together.

Also - is it necessary to move in immediately after marriage, or is it ok to wait a bit before moving in together? I would rather have the priest led marriage ceremony prior to considering moving in together, but this would likely mean that until our leases can be canceled we may have a period of a few weeks to maybe a month after the wedding where I’m still living apart from her before we move in - especially with the night shift/day shift schedule differences.

Would that be considered… odd?
 
It is my understanding that you should wait until you can move in together before you get married. Part of marriage is being together, as a unit together in a Sacrament before God, and you can’t do that if you life apart. If you have leases, wait until they expire or can be cancelled before moving in together. Wait until you can BE married before you get married.

IMO, the ideal engagement period is six months. After you propose, book the venue and then send out the “save the date” cards. Then you will need to take marriage preparation classes to see if you are ready for marriage or are compatible. If you have any issues (you mentioned that you exercise a lot) you will need to bring those forward. If you aren’t ready, you will need to re-take the class and postpone the wedding. If you are found to be incompatible, you should break it off completely since you are not called to marriage with that person. The six months is also a test of love and chastity (do you have self-control required for periods of abstinence? if not, you are more likely to commit adultery which is a mortal sin) and allows you time to plan the wedding, since many things need to be booked far in advance.

Living together will bring a period of adjustment, but you are also adjusting to being man and wife. It’s better to do those together. People who live together first get a “shock” of the change in their relationship when they expected everything to stay the same (marriage is just a piece of paper to those people), and they have a much higher chance of divorce.
 
I think “her” main thing is fears. She’s never been engaged before (which is a good thing) so doesn’t know what to expect. She’s suggested when I asked how long to be engaged that she would want to be engaged at least a year and a half. I’m more wanting a half year to a year because I want to “get it over with” but agreed to wait it out as long as it takes because after all I love her. I suggested dating another 6 months prior to popping the question and she didn’t really respond positively that idea either so I don’t know what to say other than to just take things as it comes.

Although, the more I think about it, I’m almost thinking I should wait longer. We have been together a half month short of a year now - whats another 6 months to a year if it takes that to get her over her fears. After all, engagement is a promise not just a suggestion.
 
I agree that 6 months is about right for an engagement, “other things being equal”. And don’t expect to see too much of her! there are 1001 things to organise. And why not? It’s the woman’s very special day that will be with her for a lifetime. There are probably very few generalisations that can confidently be made. But I will testify that i personally experienced the “Grace of State”. Your heart does change. The ‘Friday Nights with The Boys’ was really important to me. But after the marriage, from that one week to the next I could hardly remember what the fuss was about. Suddenly I had discovered wat life was really about: the adventure of preparing to raise a family, with God’s will, & to fit them for Eternity. Don’t be too worried about getting on each other’s nerves. But do spend plenty of time together before the engagement. Make sure that these little things, that will surely be there – because we are all children of Adam – are not overwhelming. After marriage, they are just all part of the fun. because it really is all fun, all romance, yet in an adult way. The casting off into the deep, with no safety net – and the lifelong voyage into the unknown, together with that wonderful yet mysterious person – because we are mysteries to ourselves, let alone out spouse – with all the unexpected frictions – why that is the very essence of the romance.

And as I have said to generations of school pupils, "I won’t explain it to you, But just you remember what o-o-o-old Mr Xxxx told you: contraceptives take the romance out of marriage.
Happy days to you!
 
CatholicMan85 said:
Would that be considered… odd?
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Yes.

Not knowing the whole story and absolute nothing about your girlfriend, I get the feeling you are not ready. I have never heard of a couple getting married and not living as husband & wife. Have you ever had a roommate? If you think there are things “she might be hiding”, run far away.

Not that any marriage is perfect, my wife and I knew each other very well before we got married. We took our time getting closer and closer. I do not remember any surprises and we are about to celebrate our 16th aniv.

I pray for both of you.
 
dconklin said:
Yes.

Not knowing the whole story and absolute nothing about your girlfriend, I get the feeling you are not ready. I have never heard of a couple getting married and not living as husband & wife. Have you ever had a roommate? If you think there are things “she might be hiding”, run far away.

Not that any marriage is perfect, my wife and I knew each other very well before we got married. We took our time getting closer and closer. I do not remember any surprises and we are about to celebrate our 16th aniv.

I pray for both of you.
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No - never had a rooom mate. Always liked my privacy and figured it gives me more financial responsibility with money management when there is no one to help me out with the easy button. Plus, freedom to dress how I want without anyone getting offended by someone walking around in boxers and having the thermostat set at 82 during summer months. Yes, this will change after marriage - especially with the whole Catholic modesty thing, but while I’m single I may as well be half naked while relaxing as it won’t cause anyone to lust if there is no one to lust over me 🙂

I don’t think the woman I’m dating has anything to hide from me - we’ve gone on short weekend vacations together and get along perfectly and she has not done anything I didn’t expect in the past 8 months of the near year I have dated her (first 4 were just getting to know her.) Her reasoning is that she “doesn’t want to be like everyone else.”

I don’t see myself dating anyone else - don’t really want to even bother with the notion since I love the woman I’m dating now and we “click” as perfect as I could dream. So I’m 100% sure she’s the one for me.

Still taken aback a tad that she wants to wait over a year - possibly 15 to 18 months - for an engagement period - as everyone else I know has had a 6 to 8 month long engagement. I don’t have a problem with it - like I said to her I will wait as long as she needs to be ready for being married.

Just kind of strikes me odd - but then again, love knows no time constraints so whatever.

Also, given the scenario it’s over a year, should I even bother going to the Church to start engagement stuff until we’re 6 months away? I don’t want to partake in something if it’s going to be a complete waste of time and I have to do it all over again.
 
Listening to that Marriage one right now. Basically this guy sounds like he states that the only purpose of marriage is popping out children. Love is important but not part of the institution. Once your too old to have kids or if you have a medical condition that makes it biologically dangerous or impossible, then you marriage is annulled?

I consider myself Catholic but not quite that right wing as this guy is. Especially when he starts the thing off with a prayer.
 
That’s not the impression I get listening to him, so I think you need to try to take it one step at a time so you gradually understand the context he is speaking in. 🙂

Traditional terminology takes time to get ahold of the meaning of.
 
The conferences portion on men and women specifically are hmm… more substantive on the roles I think… and the psychology… to the best of my recollection.

Rarely is something perfect. 🙂
 
Plus, freedom to dress how I want without anyone getting offended by someone walking around in boxers and having the thermostat set at 82 during summer months. Yes, this will change after marriage - especially with the whole Catholic modesty thing,
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…

Can you please elaborate on this? I’m not really understanding. Do you mean to say that once you’re married that you will cover-up in front of your wife? I’ve been married to my husband for 18months now, and he is the only person on earth that I feel unashamed to be with in my birthday suit.
 
From what I understand even when married your still supposed to be modest infront of your significant other so you don’t inspire lustful thoughts.
 
Wasn’t going to reply, as I had found my own answers, but I though I would so that others who might read this post, would be able to search for a clearer answer.

Please see the following thread…
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=414589&highlight=modesty+marriage

It made no sense to me that I would be unable to be naked in the presence of my husband. If this was the case, then creation would have stopped with Adam and Eve. I would also like to refer to Genesis 2:25 “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” God’s plan for us is to be naked without shamed, in the presence of our spouses.

If you have any further queries or questions regarding modesty/sexuality within marriage, please see Pope John Paul II “Theology of the Body” series, and also Christopher West’s talks on “Theology of the Body”.

CatholicMan85 – God Bless in your life’s journey.
 
Lena13 said:
Wasn’t going to reply, as I had found my own answers, but I though I would so that others who might read this post, would be able to search for a clearer answer.

Please see the following thread…
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=414589&highlight=modesty+marriage

It made no sense to me that I would be unable to be naked in the presence of my husband. If this was the case, then creation would have stopped with Adam and Eve. I would also like to refer to Genesis 2:25 “And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.” God’s plan for us is to be naked without shamed, in the presence of our spouses.
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You need to read a little further along into Genesis. 🙂

After original sin:

‘And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons.’

Adam and Eve. Married folks you know.

But this wasn’t sufficient coverage.

‘And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them.’

Took more than once to get through.

They didn’t put on enough.

People are still like that.

I would never recommend Christopher West, his mixing of the sensual and the sacred is simply blasphemous. People who use marital matters to sell things… well it’s a problem.
 
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