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joshrp
Guest
I’ve never been married once.
- Status
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joshrp
Guest
I spend a lot of time worrying I’ll fall for someone that God doesn’t really intend for me to marry.I’m married but I find this a very interesting thread, hope no one minds me posting this…
I started being VERY concerned as to whom I would marry at the fragile age of 13-14. Concept of dating never appealed to me unless it was my potential future husband. The problem was that for years on end I considered EVERY hot guy my potential future husband, thank God many of them were either pop stars, older men or just guys I would spot on the subway once so they were mostly undateable material lol.
Anyway, after some casual dating I actually got in a serious relationship at 19 and thought " now, this really is IT". 10 months later we broke up and for the first time in my life I thought being single was great. I made a pact that I will never again worry about whom I would marry but that if I’m still single at 30 then I would join a convent.
In case you’re wondering… 3 days later I met my husband , sometimes I think God just wanted to get me to that place where I would stop with this husband obsession of mine and leave it to Him) at any rate, those were my good 3 days of singlehood and now I look back and think of how much better I could have prepared for the married life and parenting if I didn’t waste my single years looking for a husband.
What I’m wondering is if anyone else used this ultimatum or deadline method?
And 2. I pray you use this time wisely so that it serves you in your vocation, so much preparation can go into being a good spouse and parent and both DH and I wasted it so we had some SERIOUS making up to do. Not fun getting your training in the middle of the war…
Lots of courage and strength to all of you. May you have blessed marriages when the time comes and a fruitful season of " singlehood" until then!
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JSAD
Guest
Nobody wants to be alone…but i guess it happens and you make the best of it…what else can you do:shrug:
It does get hard to watch…but God has favorites…to some he gives a lot…to some very little.
But i trust God…as all his purposes are for the greater good
It does get hard to watch…but God has favorites…to some he gives a lot…to some very little.
But i trust God…as all his purposes are for the greater good
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Luvz2travel
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I don’t know if he has favorites in the way you think. Maybe it’s something in his plan we just can’t see with out human eyes.
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Dakota_Roberts
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There is a huge difference between choosing to be celibate and missing the boat
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purplesunshine
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Zoloft should put together a mailing list based on this thread. The despair is stifiling. Seriously people life cannot be that bad.
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jesuspsr
Guest
Oh life is not bad at all. I just have a broken lady picker, thats all. I’m 48 and still single. Anybody out there have a woman picker repair kit?
God bless
jesus g
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Dakota_Roberts
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Being celibate is great!
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Norseman82
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Maybe you should spend some time in a person’s shoes before criticizing their feelings.
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Norseman82
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If I knew I could handle lifelong celibacy there’s a chance I’d be wearing a collar by now…
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purplesunshine
Guest
I’m about you’re same age if 82 indicates birth year and my life is more “ripped from the headlines” thrill/shocker than it is “Tom Sawyer”. I know people with more incredible stories but they’re the Lost Boys of Sudan. And YET they still find happiness EITHER single or married. So I truly believe that most of the problems among singles are flaws that make them …not everyone else…unmarriagible.
While I wrote what I did in lighthearted fashion, I mean it.
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Dakota_Roberts
Guest
A collar?
Some are called to celibacy, but not the priesthood.
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JSAD
Guest
Are you saying that the reason a person is single is because they may have a ‘flaw’ ?And that Married people do not have such a flaw…hence they are married?
I think life is much more complicated than that and certain scenarios do not play out how one would have hoped them too.I come from a country that is 97% non-christian…i want to marry someone that has a similar background as me…but yes the odds are against me…especially since i am not back home…lots of friends/relatives i know have married non-Christians…i do not want to do that
But that is why we pray and ‘Leave it to God’… and yet things do not seem to move…and that is where the uncertainty sets in…
I have a variety of interests- playing sports, reading, hiking…meeting new people,traveling,politics,new technology, i love the career field i have chosen and the job i am at…all that can be fulfilling…but i know deep down that is not enough.
I am 28…so i have not given up yet…and neither has God…but trying to live a pure and chaste(not just celibacy mind you) life is extremely challenging, especially doing it alone.
And Add to that -after i came to the US…it became very apparent that chastity and celibacy are pretty uncommon(as compared to my home country)
If i did not recognize such emotions i would only be fooling myself. That is why i try and let it out from time to time…i ‘wrestle’ with God in my daily prayer…but because of this i feel i am having a more honest prayer time with God…I know God has placed this desire to get married in my heart…so i will wait for him… and i know he will answer…
God bless!
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chevalier
Guest
Yeah, the longer you stay without a wife, the less happy you are to live with shoe shopping. But on the other hand you are more willing to try and live with it anyway.
(Myself, I’m just incompatible with everybody.)
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beckers
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Despair? I think most people on here have said they are happy even though they are single. Remember no one is happy 100% of the time. Maybe the problem is married folks don’t think us single folks can be truly happy without a spouse bc they themselves had problems being happy while single?
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chevalier
Guest
Not as much a flaw as something that makes others pick a different partner or just simply bail out. Girl next door and boy next door do tend to be married by thirty. If someone’s non-standard, he’s going to have compatibility problems, it reduces his pool. Just like if you have a non-standard size, then it’s going to be harder to buy clothes.
I live in a country where like 90% folks are at least baptised Catholic (plus another 1% or so for other Christians). Drops to 30% if you go for practicing. Now let’s think about sexual ethics and bioethical issues… Ooops, math’s getting nasty.
Experiment: Let’s go to a local used-to-be-Catholic dating website (doods are still keeping a Christian logo and endorsements from the clergy to boast). Stuff has has over 320 thousand folks of either sex. Let’s narrow it down to active accounts held by unmarried women (of any age) that reject contraception, reject premarital sex, list attendance as every Sunday or more frequently, want to have children. One thousand and sixty-six (1863), failing to filter attitude on divorce and remarriage (available question enables no divorce or divorce only in exceptional cases as answers but doesn’t address remarriage, so I didn’t use it). Let’s lose all of the aforementioned criteria except for unmarried woman, active account. Wee… 7935. That’s a 23% rate at a place that used to be tax heaven for Catholic singles, almost (or perhaps actually) advertised from the lectern.
Now let’s put the bioethics back (where it was 1863), make it my default age range, more or less similar education, within a foot of my height… Houston, we’ve got a problem. That’s 77 (please no jokes about seventy-seven infinity, thank you). If we tighten the criteria up a bit but nothing fancy, that’s 47. (Which did narrow down to 0 shortly anyway.). We started from like one hundred and fifty thousand.
That’s actually worse than I had predicted on the basis of UN demographical statistics (which already resulted in a range of values somewhat conducive to soulmate theories).
Naturally, I only need just one but merry hunting with these kind of numbers.
All of the traits you mentioned tend to be well appreciated by the kind of woman you’d look for. Including the last part.
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Norseman82
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No, 82 indicates the year I graduated from HS, so I’m old enough to be your father (had I lived an immoral youth).
And whereas you see flaws that make them unmarriageable, I see many Catholics having their brains screwed on backwards when it comes to picking a spouse, whether it be virgins rejecting their fellow virgins in favor of non-virgins, dating/marrying divorced people who are ineligible due to lack of annulment, cohabitation, getting corrupted by unorthodox views on contraception, etc., etc., etc. The dating pool is poisoned, and as Chevalier pointed out, the numbers of “non-poisoned” people who actually do have their brains screwed on right is a low percentage.
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Dakota_Roberts
Guest
Hey, you make it sound like being single is worse than marriage. If we listen to St. Paul then being a eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven is definitely better than being married.
It’s not so much despair, that’s way too strong. It’s more to do with being tired of doing everything by myself or not doing things because I don’t want to do it alone. From simple things like going out to a new restaurant to more lavish things like going on a cruise. If you don’t want to go by yourself, your outta luck.
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Luvz2travel
Guest
I’m happily single for the most part. I have my moments like everyone else but I’m far from sad. Reading all the posts from married folks in this forum makes me wonder just how great marriage really is. I mean I don’t have worry over relationship issues just my own. I guess my most difficult decision lately was which new phone to go with. If I was married I’d have to worry over someone else concerns as well. I guess there are pros and cons to both being single and married. I quit the dating circuit it was a great frustration to continually see guys I liked fall for other ladies and ignore me while guys that I could care less for were the only ones interested.
I just gave up and am much happier. It would be nice to have the companionship though but relationships these days seemed to be filled with so much drama I’m happy as I am for now.- Status