Marriage without attraction?

[chevalier]

This is a reaction to modern dating, we don’t trust anyone anymore.

Dating is a broken concept. 19th century courtship isn’t perfect, either. What people seem to refer to as courtship these days often seems to be somewhat healthy.

Trust in God and it will happen similarly to what I’ve stated. It does not have to be in defined phases but a natural progression. If you look at all successful marriages you will see the same pattern.

I’m not entirely in agreement with the last part. There are even married couples who claim it was love from first sight. As you say - natural progression. Natural progression precludes repression of feelings. If we repress feelings (not feeding them is one thing, positive repression is another), it stops being natural and it becomes some kind of artificial construct in which rules are more important than people. Speeding up distorts natural progression, but so does scheduling. Ideally, I’d leave things to their natural course.

“Dating” is about too many choices which logically we can’t even close to comprehending or making a judgement on.

“Dating” is broken, period. I don’t mean any offence to anyone who went through it with a Catholic mind, but the concept is broken.

Yes we should follow our hearts. If she has a good heart by showing it with her actions, then get to know her. If all goes well share prospects of your future. If all goes well marry her. By then most will be in Love. The more faithful the more they will aline much more easily.

Many will earlier. I wouldn’t get engaged or even in any way officially become a couple with someone if I weren’t in love. Well, in a normal situation. Before then, friendship is sufficient.

Personally, I doubt I’d be able to kiss a woman if I didn’t already know she made no exclusions (I mean the goods of marriage - faith, sacrament, offspring), had no impediments, didn’t have some strange vision of marriage. This generally means I’d be having important conversations before going far romantically in a normal situations - obviously if you already knows she accepts the teaching and the authority of the Church, then it’s different.

But dating out of the blue and say well we talked allot and we get along great on “dates” and making our decision to move forward on that, makes absolutly no sense to me.

Yeah, it sounds absurd. Some people know so early, but it probably depends on how much information they got beforehand. Say if they start from a Catholic dating site or meet in a Catholic group, they have a lot of the initial weeding already done.

 

[mmch66]

*This is the kicker - The more devoted you are to God the more those compatibilities don’t matter. He likes steak she like vegetables but it does not matter because one will sacrifice for the other or make a compromise (no questions asked because they have been practicing for that since there acceptance of the Lord). *

Dear John,

Thank you so much for this. I am in a very difficult marriage and have been focusing on growing closer to God. This quote really hit home as I have been reading on humility lately.

I find your posts inspiring. You will make a great deacon and perhaps you should work a bit more on discernment about the priesthood.

God bless!
+JMJ+

 

[John_AH]

Please don’t thank me, thank the Lord for sending and making me. Thank him for the words and the keepers of his Word the church. Thank him for the good and the bad because each of them is making us ready for Him.

Fear of some kind is what holds people back from fully embracing the Lord. Let go and trust him and he will do wonderful things for you, your marriages, and your communities.

Truly I’m not really that special, what I’m doing is trying my best to walk in the Lords footsteps. It takes time but pray allot and open your eyes for goodness is always there.

One of my favorite quotes for humility (I wish I knew who says it) is “If you can kneel before the cross you can stand up to anything”. It not only speaks of great humility but of great strength.

Everthing is broken because we can’t truly commit anymore. As soon as it does not go our way we look for the easy button. Stay the course, what is at the end of the road is worth much more than anything that this world can offer. The closest we can get to Heaven is Love. We must sacrifice to Love, the more the sacrifices, the more Love we can give. Just look at the cross and you will know what I speak of. The perfection of Love removes all fears.

God truly gave us the greatest gift ever in Love because when we Love we recieve happiness (even if the person does not return it). It is so great that he commanded that we do it and made it the most important.

God’s humble servant,
John A.H.

 

[Magickman]

We might take an alternative perspective about the romantic tragedies that can befall any of us.

The disintegration of an engagement relationship is a harsh blow to the heart. It takes time for the wounds to heal. But please consider the big picture.

Let’s imagine an alternative universe, where the imperfectly matched young couple were to marry and have children. Only then did the misalliance become painfully apparent. Divorce would follow, with its terrible consequences for the spouses, as well as the children.

It would be much worse for the breakup to destroy an intact family unit.

Breakup of an engagement relationship is a blessing, in comparison to a life and family destroying divorce.

The dissolution of any serious romantic relationship is painful, but we are granted the will and ability to surmount our challenges, and to achieve fulfilling life.

The process of courtship has the purpose of testing the suitability of the partners for marriage to one another. If two people are not suited to be marriage partners, it is much better that this be determined prior to marriage.