Help! I know I'm called to marriage but i'm aging and my partner is far from ready!

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Misan

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Alright so I’m a woman age 27, about to turn 28, and I’m having a momentary crisis over here. I’m in this courtship with a man of age 30, we have been dating for 3 years and 4 months, from the beginning dating to get married. In the beginning of the courtship, we were far from catholics, i was muslim, he was newly converted protestant. Then I became protestant, and we started engaging in a typical girlfriend boyfriend relationship, but with a “christian touch”, thinking we don’t need marriage (some protestants believe sex makes them married already) and can have kids outside marriage. God spared us of this from happening, so no kids came, and shortly after my protestant church baptism, we both were hit by the truth of catholicism. For a year we were “wandering catholics at heart”, learning about the faith as we went, and slowly discovering that this whole “living like a married couple when you’re not” had to go. I have sworn celibacy since, it’s been almost a year, as we’ve both been enrolled in our catechumens in a traditional catholic parish. And I’m realizing more and more how urgent it is becoming that we need to get married! We are according to other parishioners (the priest doesn’t seem to make any comments otherwise) made for one another, we are supposed to get married, but he whom I am in courtship with is so far behind from being ready for not only fatherhood and marriage, but life in general. He is struggling with lots of things at the same time, and they’re not getting better anytime soon. I have been offering up numerous rosaries, I even am fasting now as a catechumens, every single day except sunday, offering the fasting up for his improvement. But nothing is happening, he is only falling more behind. I’m wondering, what on earth am i supposed to think at this stage when my fertility is decreasing as we speak? We need to be a catholic family, with solid believing kids, and many of them hopefully, in this day and age more so than ever before when the family is under attack. I’ve expressed the urgency of things, not only our conversion to be completed soon as possible which he is also falling behind on and even rebelling against, but our wedding gotta happen sooner than the “odds” present for us. By other words, if we want to live our vocation, we gotta make lots of effort now while i’m still fertile. What am i supposed to do? I know he’s the one, but could God be testing my faith? How long should I wait? I know i have nothing “better” to do by leaving him, it’s not like i can get married right now anyway since i’m still a catechumen. What are yours’s advice on this fertility anxiety?
 
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i was taught that until you’re done with the whole…confirmation, first confession thingie once the catechumens is finished, that that’s when you’re allowed to get married :0 Was i wrong on this?
 
I also thought that some things have to be made ready before marriage, like a secure life and such and such, especially on the man’s side of things, before we’re allowed to get married. Is this true?
 
First, are you baptized? If you are baptized, you are not a catechumen but a candidate.

Are you entering the Church this Easter?
Misan said:
I also thought that some things have to be made ready before marriage, like a secure life and such and such, especially on the man’s side of things, before we’re allowed to get married. Is this true?
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No idea what this would be.

For those planning a Catholic wedding (where one or both are practicing Catholics), there is usually 6 months of prep. instruction.

There is no rule about having a “secure life”. Even the poorest person can be validly married.
 
Oh my dear…your post has a lot of “I wants” in it. You are trying to change him and straining all your resources to do so. You are convinced he’s the right man. At age 27 you are quite sure you are aging and the kids you are quite sure you must have may not come.
You probably don’t want to hear this, but you need to let go of your “I wants,” “this must happen,” “it is time now,” etc. with which your post if full. God may have exactly those plans for you, or He may have a completely different plan for you. Back off, slow down, commit your way to God with trust that He will lead you. Don’t try to impose your will. Especially don’t try to change your boyfriend and don’t strain to convince God how it must be done. Pray for him, but do so in full acceptance that God’s timing for your friend, as for you, will be perfect. Let me assure you that any woman who sets out to “change” a man in the way you seem to want will meet with disappointment.
 
my priest said i am baptized, although not in the catholic church, it was still counted as valid he said.
 
Okay, then, you are a “candidate”. " Catechumens" are unbaptized persons.
 
… but, if that’s the case, why has the priest not even mentioned marriage? He’s seen us both, together, go to mass, he knows we are in a courtship, why is he pretending like the courtship doesn’t exist? XD
 
thank you, i know you speak the truth. But i gotta say the part that i am trying to change him, in no way am i trying to change his personality or way of being, i love him exactly as he is. I just want him to work on his major sins and weaknesses which causes him to be stuck in many different ways. I don’t see how that is wrong. Did i understand what you meant about that part? So i don’t misjudge you.
 
Are you in the U.S.? In the west at least, it would be uncommon to ask a couple about marriage or push for marriage, even by a priest. It is assumed that you yourselves can and will decide on when/if you should be married on your own.

It seems to me also that you may be imposing your own wants and will on your boyfriend. He obviously is not feeling the same urgency, for whatever reason. You will have to wait for him to be ready or decide when to say it’s been too long and you’ve had enough, and move on and try to find someone else who is marriage-minded.
 
No you got it. You just repeated that you want him to hurry up and change his spiritual life for the better. But that’s not your call. His spiritual life is between him and God. Yes, pray for him but the more you attempt to coerce him the more he naturally is rebelling (your word from your first post). It is human nature NOT to want to be pushed in the ways you appear to be doing.
 
he wants and wills us to get married and have lots of kids just as much as me, he’s expressed it numerous times, his need for a family with me, and he has never expressed any kind of word or even given off any impression that i’m wanting something he doesn’t.

Also, there are no others for me, i’m surrounded by old people. XD
 
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