Am I being too fussy by wanting to marry a Catholic?

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AussieAngel

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Hi all, I’m hoping you can share your thoughts on a question that’s been on my mind for a while.

I’m a 31 year old single female who wants to get married and have children. Preferably, I would like to meet a Catholic (or even Anglican) guy as I have been raised a Catholic and my faith is very important to me and I would like to raise my children as Catholics and attend mass as a family (as I did growing up).

In the past, I have dated both Catholic and non-Catholic guys, but still haven’t found that special someone I would like to settle down with. With many guys, my Catholic faith has almost been a turn-off (even with some Catholics would you believe), who have scoffed at the fact that I still attend church weekly and believe in the teachings of the Church, particularly about relationships and marriage. Many seem to be only interested in getting physical and as soon as they discover they won’t get what they are after, they don’t hang around.

Some friends say my standards are too high and I’m too fussy, particularly in relation to wanting to meet a Catholic guy. But honestly, shouldn’t two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together share similar values and morals? For example, I can’t see a non-Catholic being happy to “wait” for marriage, if you know what I mean.

So are they right? Am I being too fussy and should I date non-Catholics? Or am I justified in being disciplined about meeting a fellow Catholic with similar beliefs as me? Obviously, the older I get, the smaller the pool of available single men becomes.

I appreciate any advice 🙂
 
There is no worse “alone” than being alone in the same bed with a husband who would “scoff at the fact that I still attend church weekly and believe in the teachings of the Church”. Just think about trying to teach the catechism to children with that in your home! Honestly, I married a non-Catholic because he was more decent and more willing to support my practice of the faith than the Catholic guys I knew. It is not easy, it would be easier if he were Catholic, but he has *never *told our children that the Catholic faith is anything but true. I have friends who have that to deal with, and it is not a small cross to bear.

No, you are not being too fussy, although you ought to know that there are non-Catholics, too, who wait for sex until they get married, and certainly non-Catholics who will wait to have sex in order to marry who they want to marry. No, be willing to go without marriage rather than to get yourself into a marriage that is going to be at odds with your deeply-held self. Every time, every time, every time…
 
AussieAngel said:
Some friends say my standards are too high and I’m too fussy, particularly in relation to wanting to meet a Catholic guy. But honestly, shouldn’t two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together share similar values and morals?
So are they right? Am I being too fussy and should I date non-Catholics?
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Your standards are high but there is nothing wrong with that.

I’m married to a non-Catholic man and things can be challenging in that respect. I also feel lonely because I can’t share my faith with him. There are many people here who will tell you the same thing.

Plus, there is no guarantee that even if you lower your standards that you will meet the right one. I have several friends who are in their mid 30s, have no requirements about religion (or anything else that is challenging for that matter, they just want a ‘nice’ guy) and they have not met anyone to settle down with.

I think it is better to focus on finding a Catholic man who practices his faith, even if it means online dating rather than hoping to bump into him.
 
Dear OP,

I sincerely feel that it is good that you are fussy. Can’t remember where I read this, probably from one of posters here…“Before you married, find as many faults as you can of the person. After you are married, find as many good things about your spouse.”

Having being in relationship with non-Catholics, Catholics who do not follow the teachings of church (bearing in mind, I too was not following the church’s teachings). I have come to realised that it is much better to be fussy upfront, and trust me many of my friends think I am crazy and will never “find” this person.

But as I grow in my own relationship with God, I realised that if I were to be with a person that does not have a relationship with God and is not Catholic; I am better off being alone. Since both a relationship with God and attending Mass is very important to me. So if the person I am to spend my life with can’t share that with me, it would be very difficult for me. I find when you compromise on the things that are important to you, it would come back and haunt you sooner or later.

Mind you I am at least a decade older than you, which means there is “less possibilities” of meeting such a person for me. But I was reminded over the weekend, to “seek His kingdom first and all will follow.”

May you continue to cling on to your desire of a good Catholic (maybe Anglican) spouse.

Blessings
Godloves13
 
It would be easier, but remember, Catholics can fall away from the faith and non-catholics can turn catholic… I think you should keep an open mind. It really depends on the fella. You must find someone who is supportive of your faith though. And also, someone who will accept and appreciate your sharing the faith with your children. Run as fast as you can from anyone who scoffs at you, no matter how innocent it may seem. It is much better to be single.

Also be careful about marrying an Anglican, I think if their faith is very important to them it may lead to much more tension than if you marry a supportive non-religious person. Although once again it depends on the fella.

I really know how you feel, I was in the same boat until I married my non-Catholic husband at 33. A Catholic one never came along. But I don’t regret it! He is supportive and often comes to mass with me because he doesn’t like me to feel alone in my faith. He also says an our father with me most nights. I don’t know if he believes in God, I think he wants to but has no faith. We have a little girl who we are getting baptised soon.
 
When my wife and I married in 1970, she was a contracepting, fornicating cafeteria Catholic, and I was a lower-case pagan (albeit baptized Lutheran, brought up Pentecostal). Eventually I came back to my Pentecostal roots, and eventually by gravitational influence (I was not coercive) I dragged her out of the Catholic orbit. Decades later I was “shocked!” to discover that in Protestantism I could not find answers to the questions that I had, and I started studying Catholicism, much to the dismay of my wife. However, she started reading my books, and beat me into the Church by nine months (the procedure for a lapsed Catholic is a little easier than it is for an unconfirmed Protestant 😛 ) Now we are both practicing Catholics, practicing until we get it right. This illustrates that over the course of years anything can happen.

But in your case, OP, we’re not talking about “over the course of years;” we’re talking about taking that first step. So, in answer to your query:
Am I being too fussy by wanting to marry a Catholic?
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No. Not at all.
 
AussieAngel said:
So are they right? Am I being too fussy and should I date non-Catholics? Or am I justified in being disciplined about meeting a fellow Catholic with similar beliefs as me?
Click to expand...
NO! No, they are not right. having a devoted, practicing Catholic for your husband and the father of your potential children is the best option. You have only to look in this forum for the difficulties that mixed marriages can present. Yes, marriages to non-Catholics can work out (and marriages to Catholics can fail), but having a happy successful marriage and raising devout children is much easier and more likely if your spouse shares your religion and core values. Personally I didn’t even consider non-Catholics. I didn’t want to marry someone who disagreed with me about the most important thing in my life.

Have you looked for men at church? Or perhaps at a Catholic singles group? I know a few people who found spouses on Catholic online dating sites. I met my husband at a church picnic.
 
No, they’re not right. I waited for a Catholic man and I am VERY happy. It’s really nice to know that I wont have to have that fight about “What religion will we raise our children?” or “What school will we send our children too?” We have talked about these things, and because we have the shared Catholic culture, we’re in agreement on them.

Being with a (devout) Catholic also makes staying devout myself easier. I have someone who notices and cares if I am piddling around on Sunday mornings, and someone who is willing to say the rosary with me. It is so so so so worth it to wait.

That being said - Make sure, if you want to date a Catholic, that you’re putting yourself in a position to MEET Catholics. I’ve heard a lot of people say “I only want to date a Catholic!” but then they only go to church for mass, duck out as soon as it’s over, and never attend socials, trivia nights, what have you.
 
My brother didn’t get married until he was over 30, either. We looked at it as skipping that fashionable first marriage to the wrong person, and going right to the one that is going to work. He doesn’t feel he missed out on those divorce battles and alimony payments that so many of his friends have to deal with.

“Be careful who you marry. You can divorce a spouse, but an ex is forever.”

This is true even if the attempt at marriage is declared invalid: that is, there is always that ex in your life. That try never goes away, and it is a heavy burden that most of those bearing it would like to have missed. The only thing good I’ve ever heard about it is that they take consolation in their beautiful children, but even then they either get to raise them alone for at least awhile or else don’t get to have them all of the time.

Skip the marriage that you will wish you hadn’t gotten yourself into. If that makes you picky, so be it.
 
There are Catholic guys like me who are looking for Catholic gals exactly like you. Don’t give up, I say.
 
AussieAngel said:
So are they right? Am I being too fussy and should I date non-Catholics?
Click to expand...
They’re dead wrong and you’re spot on. Can mixed faith marriages work? Of course. But shipwreck victims can sometimes swim to shore. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t struggle to get in the lifeboat!

If your faith is the number one priority in your life, you’d be nuts not to look for a spouse with the same #1 value.

Lotsa internet dating options these days. Were I single these days that’s the route I’d look into.
 
At one time, marrying a non-Catholic would be almost unheard of! It was strongly discouraged.

My husband and I were in our late twenties, had both given up dating, and then met at Mass!

When I spent time with dh the first time, I also turned down the affection of a lovely, devout Orthodox man because of the religious difference (and the fact that he seemed to presume I’d leave the Church since ethnically I am eastern). I am puzzled that you seem to consider Anglicans equivalent to Catholics, when even the Orthodox clearly are not.
 
I dated other Christians and a Muslim before I was serious about getting married. Religion was always a thing to be explained or kind of ignored or tolerated in order to be polite, even with Lutherans there is more difference than I thought. I knew even then that this is not what I wanted to deal with my whole life and I am glad I got the discovery phase out of my system… and there is no rift about whether to baptise kids, or where we need to be on Sundays or lack of understanding of Catholic traditions/holy days… I see some of my best friends facing these issues.

I married a Catholic man, he is so wonderful! We build each other’s faith up.
 
Thanks all for the advice so far. To address some of the points made so far…

Have I looked for men at church? Yes, I have. But unfortunately, there are hardly, if any, people my age who attend in my area. I’m guessing most of you live in the US so it may be different, but its hard to find many young Catholics who still regularly attend mass in Australia. There are mostly older folk and families with young children. I’m not sure if people in their 20s and 30s have just dropped off or whether they attend elsewhere. I have tried attending different churches and the one time I did spot a nice young man in one of the pews and thought ‘this could be a possibility…’, the priest pointed him out at the end of mass and announced he had just joined the seminary!! Just my luck!! 😛

Although I am guilty of what mandajane suggested - I do tend to duck out after mass, I will try to work on that 😉

Have I tried internet dating? Yes as well. But the Christian dating sites have hardly any Catholics my age in my area, but I will keep trying. I have tried mainstream dating websites too, specifying that I was a practising Catholic and would like to find similar, but this seems to narrow the field considerably (for some reason, I receive a lot of ‘hits’ from athiests??!)

In terms of willing to date an Anglican, this is a case of me widening the pool of suitable men and realised that there are a lot of similarities between the faiths. Obviously a Catholic guy would be preferable, but I wouldn’t turn away a decent Anglican guy.

I know there is no guarantee that if I meet and marry a Catholic guy, I will have a perfect marriage. It just makes things so much easier in terms of knowing we both have the same values and beliefs and can present a united front when raising our children in the faith.
 
Are you in or near Sydney? I know a great monthly mass you can attend which is followed by pizza and then adoration. Plus its on a Friday night so you wont find many half hearted catholics there. Private Message me if you are in or near Sydney and I’ll tell you where it is. Between you and me there are some really gorgeous men to be found there if its the same as it was a year ago when I moved away 😉 Its worth travelling an hour or so for both the people you’ll meet and the mass. Also you can slink away after hoffing down your pizza if you don’t like the company. Much less intimidating than cheesy youth groups etc… =)

Also I totally know what its like for you, as a Catholic in Oz too. I only ever met ONE other person who attended mass regularly in my 20s and early 30s. And I lived a highly social life and met a lot of people during that time. Travelled a lot, did two degrees etc etc. Plus add to this I think as a culture we tend to be less pro active about dating and meeting people than our American friends =)
 
No you are just being prudent. I don’t get why anyone would willingly enter a marriage with a nonbeliver because it is guaranteed to be difficult. Marriage is hard enough. I personally don’t think dating/marriage should be an evangelization tool. Just put yourself where the catholics are who are actively living their faith and pray.
 
Gliggle - I’m from the west coast, which is unfortunate as I’m sure there are a lot more single Catholics in such a big city as Sydney! 😦 My church only organises activities for teenagers after mass, which is really frustrating, as you would think they would want to attract more 20 and 30-somethings back to the faith. What I think is happening is that a lot of people at that age are being “seduced” if you like by pentecostal type religions like Hillsong, etc, which have many activities focused on the younger, single age groups. Some friends I have who were bought up Catholic and then lapsed a bit, have returned to faith through those kind of churches (if you can even call them that). But it really isn’t my thing as I prefer a more spiritual, reverent experience in mass, which I get from Catholic mass.

Back to the drawing board I guess 🤷😉
 
Hi AussieAngel welcome to CAF. Be strong and hang on to your beliefs and morals. I’ve felt what you are feeling and still sometimes get from friends that I have too high of standards. But don’t worry, you are not being too fussy to marry a Catholic. It’s better to have someone who’s on the same page and loves God instead of someone who doesn’t. It is hard today especially with the worldly influences but do we really want to marry someone who doesn’t feel the same way we do about Jesus? Like other posters have said, marriage is hard enough so without God would only make it more difficult. Put God first and in time you will meet your future Catholic spouse.

Pray daily and try to frequent adoration or daily mass.

God bless you :angel1:
 
AussieAngel - Even in Sydney it took me two years of living there before I found that mass I mentioned and by then I was happily engaged and I had decided to take my chances with a non-Catholic =). It was the same for me as you describe though. Catholics your age are scarce on the east coast too. The result of our culture I suppose, there is so much pressure to be scornful of religion. And all religious social events I looked into seemed geared towards teenagers. Actually I remember on one occasion praying rather desperately that God would give me some catholic friend because I have always felt extremely isolated as a religious person in the modern world. Anyway not long after, a girl just around my age (thirty at the time) introduced herself to me after mass and asked if I would join her for a coffee. I thought my prayer was answered! We had coffee and chatted about Jesus etc… and then it turned out she was a non denominational Christian just checking out a Catholic mass out of curiousity. Well no problem, she was a good friend, and we hung out a bit, but God still hasn’t seen fit to give me my Catholic friend yet. I am hoping and praying it will be my husband one day soon =) But clearly us Aussie Catholics are no good at making Church a social event, when many of the other religions are so good at it!
 
I had high standards too. I kept looking and looking and going on dates and doing internet chats, joining eharmony etc etc etc. Finally, I gave up “looking” and told God I was happy being single although I really couldn’t figure out why he gave me such a heart for having kids if I was supposed to be single. Fine, so be it.

The very.next.day. my future husband (whom I had known for 11 or so years at this point) called me up and invited me to dinner. I was almost annoyed that I was dating. About 3 years later we were engaged and then not quite 4 years later we were married. It isn’t about “finding” a husband. It’s about waiting on God.
 
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