--from a Catholic Newspaper: On Dating Online and the Guide a Leading Catholic Dating Site Developed About Meeting Spouses Online

[mdgspencer]

see https://www.osv.com/OSVNewsweekly/A...-develops-guide-to-meeting-spouse-online.aspx

“First, there’s much more acceptance in the culture. When we started, a lot of people saw it as the online equivalent of weird, seedy personal ads. The integration of social media into everyday life, however, has changed that. Meeting people online — through Facebook for example — has become normal for most of us”…

“There’s also more acceptance from priests and the Catholic community”…

“More often than not, the people who surround you at work or in your neighborhood don’t share your values. As a result, the pool of potential spouses is smaller. Online dating gives people a way around those problems.”

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I mean, I have to say.

WELL DUH!

My husband and I met on CM. When we prepared for marriage we went back thinking there would be literature, devotionals and other things for engaged couples.

Nope.

There are very, very few materials out there for Catholic couples looking to work on their relationship in a Catholic pervue. Ok, almost none that can be easily obtained. There are some fancy-pants retreats and handouts from pre-cana, but almost no “here’s some good stuff” marriage prep that a couple can do themselves.

Shameful.

Glad CM is upping their game.

 

[Bataar]

A few good tidbits of info there. I might need to bite the bullet and try for a long distance relationship. That will be hard as traveling isn’t much of an option for me and I can’t expect the other person to do something I’m unable to do. But the Seattle area seems to be a barren wasteland when it comes to a dating pool.

 

[hwriggles4]

For several singles’ today, online dating can be a good outlet. I know at least 25 couples who between 2002 and 2010 met their spouse through Ave Maria Singles (I was a member there for a long time myself) and at least 7 couples who met their spouse through Catholic Match, one being one of my best friends. Still, it takes time to develop a relationship, and e-mail and phone calls are not enough - there needs to be some in-person time.

By the way, this guide was passed out last month at the National Catholic Singles’ Conference. For those who are single and reading this thread, I do recommend attending the National Catholic Singles’ Conference - you will be impressed.

The best advice I ever received about online dating was meet soon, and if you are just e-mailing back and forth, your not really getting anywhere. One site suggested for long distance relationships to meet within three months, particularly if the guy lives in say, Florida, and the girl lives in Colorado. Otherwise, if two of you live within say, a three hour drive or a train ride, make arrangements to meet up on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon within a few weeks after your initial e-mail. If you live even closer, arrange to meet for coffee or dinner one evening at a local restaurant.

These days, long distance relationships are more common, and the stigma of online dating circa 2000 is a thing of the past. My mom thought I was weird signing up for a Catholic online dating site in 2002, but I did meet some nice people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise. Don’t be afraid to try a long distance relationship.

 

[hwriggles4]

I have said this before, but my married friends tell me the best preparation they received in the Church was doing a “sponsored couple” program. This is where couples meet one-on-one with the engaged couple for a number of meetings. It’s a good time to share examples, and talk about things that need to be discussed.

Part of the problem with marriage preparation today is when couples officially start marriage prep, quite a few couples look at marriage preparation as a burden. Too much time is spent on the wedding details, particularly since a date has been set.

I have mixed feelings about the Engaged Encounter Weekends. There’s a lot of variance, and some are pretty good but others are pretty bad. The one my brother and sister-in-law attended seemed like a throwback to the 80s, but they were one of the only couples there who wasn’t cohabitating. However, there were some sessions on things like conflict resolution, finances, respect, etc.

By the way, a few years back, Ave Maria Singles put together a “Road to Cana” marriage prep series. This might still be available somewhere for order, and bits and pieces may be on You Tube. I do have some of this series myself - it was put together circa 2006. It highlights things like “what’s happened to marriage?” , “red flags”, “do looks matter?”, etc. My opinion was the series was pretty good, and a few dioceses endorsed it for marriage preparation.

A friend of mine recently got married and after being single for a long time. My friend tells me it is really a challenge to get used to living with another person. I haven’t given up on getting married, and I know that this scenario will be a challenge as well, but it’s something I’m willing to try. (I haven’t had a roommate in 10 years).

I’ll close with this: please pray for singles’ who would like to be married. If you are married, try to acknowledge the presence of a single person. The dating world today, people are scared.

 

[Xantippe]

I have mixed feelings about the Engaged Encounter Weekends. There’s a lot of variance, and some are pretty good but others are pretty bad. The one my brother and sister-in-law attended seemed like a throwback to the 80s, but they were one of the only couples there who wasn’t cohabitating. However, there were some sessions on things like conflict resolution, finances, respect, etc.

We did a series of meetings with the priest who eventually married us instead. We were working through the flagged questions in our questionnaires.

Pedagogically speaking, I think you get a lot more bang from your buck from coming, talking about an issue, talking about it some more between sessions, etc.

Spaced repetition - Wikipedia

I feel like we should have done more/something on certain issues (finances, chores and conflict resolution), but that wasn’t an issue of format.

Come to think of it, I think it might be useful to do some sort of check-in at the one-year point with regard to “what are we fighting about?” and see if some tweaks aren’t in order. I think that could have been really useful to us. Eventually, it gets hard to get away because of childcare, but in a perfect world, I think it would be a good idea to do some sort of marriage weekend at 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 15, years and 20 years. Heck, maybe even 25, because there are a lot of changes happening around then.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

We did a series of meetings with the priest who eventually married us instead. We were working through the flagged questions in our questionnaires.

Pedagogically speaking, I think you get a lot more bang from your buck from coming, talking about an issue, talking about it some more between sessions, etc.

I feel like we should have done more/something on certain issues (finances, chores and conflict resolution), but that wasn’t an issue of format.

My husband and I were really, really frustrated with our marriage prep. We wanted SO much more.

We did the FOCCUS test. Before we took it he told us over and over how it was not a predictor of marital health…etc. Both of us got only one “wrong” flag–and both of us only got it wrong because of learning disabilities (stupid double negatives)…when the priest talked it over we were able to answer “correctly”.

He was 70 and said in all his years no one had ever scored as high as us. We laughed and asked him for the advanced marriage prep. He said that while he had volumes to cover possible red flag, the church gave him nothing to talk about in cases like ours. But why? Since it was “not a predictor of marriage success” why was there literally nothing for us? He suggested we seek out some experianced couples.

And we did. We conversed with 3—one married 15 years 5 kids, one married 30 years 3 kids, another elderly couple married 50+ years with about a bazillion grandkids (our age) and I forgot how many kids.

And all we got was an ear full about how horrible the first years were. About how we would fight all the time. About how they fought during their engagement. We grew very suspect. What was wrong with us?

Our engagement retreat sent us into further despair. We drove because we went to what was considered the “best around.” We were the only couple in 50 who had separate residences. 3 of the 4 presenting couples had lived together before marriage. Two admitted to pre-martial sex. The ones who had not gave off the creepy vibe because the guy said that he prayed his wife would never have twins because that would “totally ruin her body”. The Benedictine priest who spoke was the only decent presenter they had.

Our previous parish had a renew marriage day and the whole advert was about distress and fighting. We asked the priest if it was worth us coming since we felt we were doing really well, were happy and didn’t fight…he said sure–we could learn things to teach our friends… FACE.PALM!!!

Surely there has to be other couples out there who don’t fight all the time. Right?

We’re getting the Jackie Francois Angel book on Marriage for Christmas. It seems much more up our ally than anything we’ve looked for before.

 

[Xantippe]

Xanthippe Voorhees,

Oh, wow.

The twin thing–double wow!

I kind of relate to some of the older couples, because I feel like if things are going well, there should be less and less to argue about as time goes by, as the couple has a larger and larger archive of solutions to problems. Husband and I were talking recently about how we mostly argue about just one thing (I tend to dawdle on the way to spousal evening TV), and I was pointing out that it was probably a good thing that we don’t argue about a lot of different things anymore, because we have over the years gotten to the point where there are larger and larger areas of agreement on how things ought to be.