Discerning marriage? Concerns

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Hi, I am trying to discern my vocation and have been having a hard time. Warning - this is a very long post!

A little bit of background: I am attending a secular college right now, living at home with my parents. I’ve been trying to discern my vocation but it has been difficult for a few reasons. I don’t think I’m called to religious life, but I am trying to keep that door open just in case God calls me to it. However, I’m also not really sure about marriage either. I think my parents’ marriage has greatly impacted my perception of that vocation.

Very short description of some of my parents’s issues in marriage: growing up, I was usually the only kid left at home (big age gap between me and my older siblings). My dad lost his job in the 2008 recession, plunging us into financial trouble for years. It took a huge toll on my parents’ marriage and slowly drove them apart. They would fight over pretty much anything and refuse to talk to each other for days, sometimes weeks. Sometimes they used me as a middleman of communication. My mom threatened to leave/divorce my father several times. I remember feeling so incredibly alone. Stressed out by going back to work and trying to homeschool me at the time, my mom took a lot of her stress out on me.
Slowly, my parents worked through their issues and are at a much better place now, more than ten years later. It helped a lot after my dad got a better job, but they still have problems from time to time (differences in how they practice Catholicism usually come in to play).

As a result of my childhood exposure to the not-so-great side of matrimony, I am afraid of my future marriage failing, my children having bad memories of their childhoods, or poor emotional connections with their father and/or me.

I have not dated any guys yet, but I am finding myself more and more resistant at the thought of dating because I know the end result of serious dating is marriage. I know every relationship is different and you can’t control everything, but it is precisely this factor that makes me concerned.

This is not something I can talk to my parents about, as I know my mom would take it all personally and it would crush her. My dad would just shut down. Since I am at a secular college, there are no professors or counselors I can speak to who would understand my Catholic viewpoint. I do not know any priests or religious sisters that I feel I could speak to. Also, none of my siblings are married, so they wouldn’t have that perspective of a married person.

I know there isn’t a cure-all for this kind of issue. I just want to know - for anyone discerning marriage, is currently married, or has been married, have any of you dealt with problems like this during your discernment of marriage? To anyone reading this still (thank you to everyone who has gotten this far!), any tips or advice on how to move forward/not let my parents’ marriage affect me negatively?
Thank you so much for reading this incredibly long post. Please be kind when answering, as this is hard for me to talk about. May God bless you all.
 
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Well, your parents marriage isn’t a reason to discern a religious vocation.

In either situation, keep God as the head of your life and ask Him for guidance.

Marriage can be difficult, but as one who’s been happily married for 47 years, I can assure you that there are many blessings as well.

I’m sure those who chose religious life for the right reasons, will also affirm the blessings they received in their decision.

In all, prayer is the only way to learn God’s will for you. Finish school and watch and pray.

God Bless
 
In my personal experience I wasn’t all that excited about the “idea” of marriage until I actually met the man I am married to now! Then suddenly I remember thinking “hey, the idea of spending my whole life with this man is something I’m finding myself wanting to do!” I remember it surprised me and scared me a little bit. I’d dated other guys before but anytime I thought about anything lifelong I felt a little ill inside. Until my now-husband. 😉 So is just day - meet actual guys. Get to know them. You don’t have to be ready to marry them - just go out a few times. See if you want to get to know them even more after that. It’s a process. (And for the record I don’t mean serial dating or stringing someone on. You’ll probably know after a handful of dates if there’s any chance of a future with the person.) But the man is the “marriage material.” Hard to discern without that. Ex, if my husband and I had not ever met I may not have discerned “a vocation to marriage” simply because I may never have met anyone I wanted to marry! Make sense? Same with religious life - I think it’s be hard to discern in a vacuum. Go live with some nuns for a couple weeks and experience the way of life!
 
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JimR-OCDS said:
Marriage can be difficult, but as one who’s been happily married for 47 years, I can assure you that there are many blessings as well.
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This! And remember - you + whomever (future spouse) are NOT your parents. You can do things differently!! My parents had issues I will never face in my marriage simply because I don’t have my mom’s personality & my husband’s personality is light years from my dad’s. We do, of course, have our own difficulties & one child swears she’ll never marry as a result. I remind her that she & I are pretty different personality-wise and she will have her own way of managing a home/spouse/kids. And of course she’ll have her own UNIQUE issues & possibly a kids who says “well if THIS is marriage, forget it!” But “THIS” is not “marriage.” It’s just how those two individuals handled marriage. Be the change! And expect your kids to be the next change too, and so on! 😉
 
MD1 said:
I just want to know - for anyone discerning marriage, is currently married, or has been married, have any of you dealt with problems like this during your discernment of marriage?
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Yes.

I grew up with divorced parents, multiple parent remarriages, half and step siblings, and a lot of upheaval.

I had issues for a long time. I finally worked through most of it on my own, probably should have seen a counselor as a young adult.

I’ve been married 14 years to the most wonderful man on the planet. Who sometimes makes me crazy and mad enough to spit. And I’m sure I make him crazy too. But we work through things like the adults we are. I love being married. I had a vision for how I didn’t want my marriage to be— and I think that helped tremendously in my spousal discernment process. I eliminated a lot of frogs from the would-be prince ranks.

What you are experiencing is normal. And the good news is, you don’t have to have it all figured out right now.

I would encourage you to get some counseling. There are religious counselors out there, and don’t discount “secular” counselors either. A good counselor isn’t judgmental and will respect your beliefs.
 
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If you have not even dated yet, you do not know what your own relationship(s) will be like. You need to do that for a bit to see what you truly think. You are in college, if you date now, you may not meet the right person, so that is not always the end of it. Or you might date and find that you really don’t like relationships. But you should not decide based on your parent’s marriage. You are not them. Learn from their mistakes, yes. But do not assume that your marriage would be like theirs.
 
The Actions of your parents are not and should not be the anchor in your life and the ultimate factor of your fate. I am living proof of that.

I am 25 and My parents divorced when I was very very young. I only have faint memories of when theyw ere together. My mom “married” (I use that term loosely since it was in an office) 3 times and is now working on a 4th one. She had a total of 6 kids, 2 for each marriage. You can pretty much tell that she is the last thing I want to emulate or turn up as. My Mom believes in God and is a Catholic but hasnt really made concrete efforts as far as I can see from my own eyes of coming to mass with me, enriching me in my faith. For the most part she can be indifferent, judgmental and too stressed on her current boyfriend in prison to worry on her faith and anything else.

I know what its like to grow up in a broken or dysfunctional home. At times I wonder exactly why God put me here in this one of all the billions of home in the world. I currently live at home too and I took a couple years off from school to find myself, now that i have a decent idea of what i wanna do I can only focus on work and school. I’ve have had my dabbing in relationships, good, bad and in between. I made the mistake of hooking up a few times and lost my virginity. Looking back I wish I hadn’t. I pretty much completely eliminated all possibilities of the priesthood (Even though the desire or thought of it left me years ago)

We can be a product of our environment but ultimately we have the free will to change the course of our lives even if it means making drastic changes and cutting out toxic people from our lives. I highly recommend you just live everyday in humility and quietly asking the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother to guide your footsteps in the right direction. Marriage has become so barren and watered down in today’s modernistic and sexualized society, I share the same concerns on my own future marriage and wife. But Marriage - the bond between man and woman becoming one, bringing a child into the world in faith and love is so sacred that God elevated it to the dignity of a Sacrament. Have faith, talk to your local priest or a priest that you trust, and get a second opinion from both nuns and friars. Youre still very very young for someone who has the rest of their life to live. Do not fret or worry. What I have learned is if you live in simplicity and learn to listen to God’s whisper in your heart eventually everything will come together. If you need anyone to vent to or any advice I’ll do what I can to listen and help if you wish 😁 God bless you
 
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First, I think it’s important that you focus on the fact that your parents worked through their differences and stayed together. That is HUGE. Many of the adults I know were children of divorce and much worse dysfunction, such as being abused by a step-parent, or having Dad end up doing life in prison, or having one parent just disappear and rarely or ever bother to contact the children again. Your parents, on the other hand, worked things out. Although parents are never perfect, they set a good example for you in staying together.

Second, you can think about things you might do to try to ward off similar difficulties in your own life. For example, I’ve always thought it’s important for both spouses to be prepared to step up and earn money, in the event that the other spouse should lose their job, become injured / disabled, or even die. I made sure I got the necessary education, abilities, career path etc to do that. You could do the same.

Third, I think it would help if you saw a Catholic counselor to discuss some of these things you’re concerned about, since you don’t feel you can talk it over with your parents and you’re obviously carrying around some trauma. Maybe your priest or the diocese can provide you with a list of appropriate counseling resources.

Fourth, when you actually do meet a potential marriage partner and things get serious, I would suggest you do an Engaged Encounter program or similar. I think you would find it helpful. It addresses things like how to handle conflict in marriage and the fears people have about marriage.

I know this will sound like a huge cliche, but your marriage is going to be YOUR marriage, it will not be exactly the same as your parents’ marriage (especially if you take steps to avoid the pitfalls your parents fell into) and meeting the right person to marry takes care of a lot of these concerns.
 
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MD1 said:
This is not something I can talk to my parents about
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I think it would be a good opportunity for you to talk to your parents about it now when you’re not dating anyone and marriage isn’t something that your parents think is going to happen in the near future. As long as you’re parents are reasonable people then it will be a big weight that could potentially be taken off of you.

I’ve known people who needlessly drag around that ball and chain for their a lot of their lives.
 
1Lord1Faith said:
As long as you’re parents are reasonable people then it will be a big weight that could potentially be taken off of you.
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Not all parents are reasonable, though… this really may not be possible for the OP. But if it is - yay!
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Fourth, when you actually do meet a potential marriage partner and things get serious, I would suggest you do an Engaged Encounter program or similar.
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Yup! And you can even supplement with other materials if you want. We did engage encounter and then also bought a marriage prep book by Greg and Lisa Popkeck and went through it on our own time. I’m not a big fan of all their books, but the marriage prep one was helpful.
 
There was exactly one person on this earth who had a perfect mother, and He ended up tortured and dying on a Cross.

Every human being has bad memories from childhood. When those memories are interfering with our ability to move on, it is time for counseling. Your anxiety from your childhood can be overcome with the help of a professional counselor. Colleges have counseling available, take advantage of it!
 
I am one who is discerning marriage (somewhat passively).

I would ignore the statements that it was just your parents marriage and focus on the overall statistics of how many marriages go horribly wrong. Since most divorce is filed by the female, and you are a female, your marriage won’t end in divorce since you are resilient to the pressure. If you where a man on the other hand, I would say good luck since the statistics say divorce is contingent upon her.

I fear those exact same things in paragraph
 
My mother got an annulment when my dad left way back when I was a kid, they would fight and it stuck with me for some time. However she ended up marrying my step dad and he is such a blessing to have. They both are involved in the church and have been together for more almost a decade now.

I’ve been praying about matrimony as well, the Lord is preparing us for his will. Humans are imperfect and we can be stubborn people. However, we shouldnt discourage ourselves about what the future could have for us.

Finding a significant other is one thing, lots of discerning there. A good marriage, from what I hear, is having God in between the marriage. God tells the husband to love their wives and family with all their life. So finding someone in the church who is very devout, I would say, would be the best possible choice first hand. If both are on the same level spirituality with the church in their hearts, the bumps will be easier to get through. Im not married and I’d like to with a girl I see at mass, although its not of my will but of the Lord’s. He is preparing me for whatever is to come, just like all of us.
 
I have been to professional counseling for over 5 years and still not have had healing.
Sometimes it can take decades. It isn’t a quick overnight fix unfortunately. It’s a lot of work that only ultimately God can fix
 
Stick with it! Yes, sometimes healing takes time. Prayers for you!
 
I would consider neither religious vocation nor marriage at this time. Devote yourself to the Lord in prayer, become active in your parish, and let things heal. Regard the events in each day as an opportunity to become sanctified by God. I agonized and prayed every day over getting married until mid-30s age, and actually married in my mid-40s. I look back and thank God that he postponed my marrying age because I had too many bad vibes from my parent’s marriage.
 
MD1 said:
I know the end result of serious dating is marriage.
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In this current culture, I would be very careful with that assumption.

There are millions of young ladies wasting three to five years of their lives (sometimes more than once), not dating with purpose.

Date to discover. Yes have fun while doing it, but stick to a plan and timetable.
 
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Yes.
My parents’ marriage was quite troubled, and I was afraid of winding up in a bad marriage.
Then I met the man I wanted to marry and took the plunge, even with my fears and trepidation.
 
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