Engagement advice please!

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Argh

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Hey’all,

So last week was the “second year anniversary” of my GF and I dating. About a year a go, I basically told her that when she graduates from college, and if we’re still together and going well, that I’d propose to her. She’s currently a junior and on track to graduate next year while I am on my way to graduate school.

That’s all well and good, and I’ve been recently reminded of St. John Chrysostom’s teaching on not to wait too long to marry, but we’re a little demoralized in that we are both planning on continuing on to grad school - she for her masters in psychology and I’m still hoping to get into a PHD program for history. There’s little to no chance we can go to the same school, but I’ve so far been accepted into Iowa State and University of Chicago (:extrahappy:). Our tentative plan is to be engaged for a while, possibly until she graduates with her masters.

Soooo, I have a couple question maybe y’all can help me with, maybe some of you went through something similar:
  1. Are we crazy? Can an engagement reasonabley “thrive” in a somewhat long-distance relationship? My confessor told me that either it’ll break us apart or bring us together…
  2. Uhhh, how much does a reasonable engagement ring cost? I kinda planning on going to a rather expensive grad school and I have college loans as they are :o.
  3. How might the pre-marriage counseling go if we are maybe a hundred miles apart normally? I know she wants to be married in her home parish, would we have to go there for it?
I can give you guys some more background on us if you think that might affect your advice, but I wanted to keep the post short initially.

If you can just help me out a bit, I’d appreciate some moral support (ohh, pun) since my parents didn’t exactly get married for all the right reasons, got divorced for many more, neither of them is exactly a practicing Catholic, and we’re a bit shy when it comes to asking matrimonial advice.

thanks
 
You have no idea how familiar this sounds.

My now wife and I were together in undergrad. Same year. She was a history major, I was psychology. We were together for 3 years before we got married. We were lucky in that, while we are going to seperate schools, they are in the same city.

Now, for your case.
  1. I think waiting is good. It helps test whether your commitment to her is solid.
  2. I think long distance is bad. During grad school, you need the support from your gf and vice versa. Try to find a compromise, or delay one of your educations, or something. That mutual support has been crucial to my wife and I.
  3. You can have a different priest do the pre-Cana training. My wife and I had a former priest do the wedding, but our current priest did the pre-Cana training.
I wish you both the best of luck in your future together. feel free to contact me privately for further info/questions at biggritt2000@yahoo.com
 
i think you’ve alread gotten some good advice, but wanted to throw my 2cents in also, specifically on the ring.

while standard may be 2months pay, as a guy who got engaged in undergrad i know that can be a small sum. so my advice is pawn shops. in a good market they have some nice stuff, right now you can probably find whatever you want.

personally i spent $50, because it looked pretty to me and i thought it’d fit(she didnt know it was coming and i couldnt find a ring of hers to compare to). i was only off by a half size, when we got it resized i had it appraised, they said $1500.

so basically dont limit yourself, like any major purchase shop around and good luck.
 
Derwin_James said:
  1. I think long distance is bad. During grad school, you need the support from your gf and vice versa. Try to find a compromise, or delay one of your educations, or something. That mutual support has been crucial to my wife and I.
Click to expand...
I’m going to disagree here- that a person is not physically near you doesn’t mean that support can’t be there. Talking to each other, as one must do when they’re in a long distance relationship, can be very supportive. IM conversations and phone may not be the same as touch, but it’s still quite close with our technology. Toss in a webcam and trips over long weekends and breaks, it can work quite well.
 
IMHO-
make the decision now if you are going to marry the girl or not. Long drawn out engagements do nothing to help the chastity in your relationship. Also- long distance is not healthy for a relationship at all. (remember, this is my opinion based on my experiences and observations)
If you want to marry the girl, why wait?

Also- what are your plans after marriage? Have you discussed this? How long will you be TTA? Are you TTAing to pay off the student loans? How will the children be raised? Is she going to stay at home? If she is, why the advanced degree? Advanced degrees add more student loans, which means working longer, which means more time avoiding having children.
Remember that marriage is to help your spouse get to heaven and to be fruitful and multiply. Sex is unitive and procreative. The longer you TTA, the less unitive and procreative your sex life will be, because you will be focused on avoiding and not on each other.

The ring- my beloved bought me a lovely ring that was not a diamond, it was an aquamarine. Far larger than he would have ever been able to afford if it was a diamond. What is her favourite stone? Get that instead of a diamond. Look at the “big box” jewelers for sales on wedding band sets, this is often cheaper.
 
Long distance relationships are indeed difficult. Personally, I’m not a fan of long distance relationships. If she can get into the same school, or one close by, it would make a huge difference. And the problem of student loans has already been brought up. What would happen if, after all is said and done, you can’t get a job that pays enough to support that much debt?
 
My dh and I had to do the semi long distance thing right after the wedding as my job did not transfer me until two months after the marriage. 😦 Needless to say it was rough but we did it and we were stronger for it but I believe the grace of the sacrament helped us through immensely.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything said above.

As far as the ring - another option is to see if there are any family heirlooms around. It saves money and it often means more. I am wearing my grandma’s engagement ring. They were married 66 years when he passed away. She wore it until her death a couple of days after her 90th bday.

Good luck and God bless,
 
Well that was sure fast, thanks!

Here’s what I’m thinking for each concern, maybe you can tell me how this sounds:

Long Distance:

If I end up in Chicago, which is my top pick right now, we’re reasonably certain that we’d end up within a few hours drive time. It’s not ideal, obviously, but there are not too many schools who specialize in the sort of psychology she needs.

I was in China (中华人民公和国) for almost two months leading up to the Olympics, and we managed quite well just with AIM and email - hurray for love letters. It gave me, I know, a chance to step back and appreciate what a wonderful girl she is and a good time to cool off, so to speak.

The One Ring:

My father is an antique collector and knows a fair amount about jewelry and a fair amount of jewelers. I can ask him for a little bit of help and advice, but I’m dreading asking him - he’s not too keen on the whole idea of marriage in general,

She’s already told me she doesn’t want anything expensive or fancy, hehe, but social pressure and all.

Family heirlooms, that’s not a bad idea, but we’re both worried how our parents will take the news - again gotta get up the courage to tell my family about it.

Money - its a hit:

My GF wants to be a counselor (family, marriage) so that requires a masters. Good news is that many Christians out there are looking for a good therapist that won’t tell them they’re just sexually repressed and throw condoms at them!:rolleyes:

I love smilies…

I want to serve society to the best that I am able and I am hoping for a career in the FBI, State Dept., or possibly an intelligence agency as an analyst, special agent, or Foreign Service Officer.

In the meantime, we’re trying to improve our relationship by staying chaste, praying together, and talking about what we might want in marriage: she wants to work, is honestly afraid of having kids (pain wise:o), wants to live in quiet suburbs/country, and has a certain supper club picked out for the reception while I want to delay having kids (via NFP, of course) until maybe our 2nd year of marriage to get out all the arguing over silly things like what kind of milk we’re going to drink, would like to eventually go into academia, and just want to figure out how I’m going to get my mother, father, and stepfather, with all accompanying relatives, to our wedding safetly.

'till then I just gotta trust God =)

But here’s a new question for ya: how in the world do I tell my parents about this? Do I tell them BEFORE I propose or AFTER? I mean, I don’t think my father has ever let go of his divorce and all the bitterness it created. I don’t know what my mom would say or do, to be honest. All my family likes my GF, taken her a couple times to family get-togethers…but I’m still worried.

On the other hand, her aunt basically told her not to wait too long, her grandmother didn’t have the chance to see her other granddaughters get married!
 
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