Being engaged when getting engaged



Studying and learning more about marriage and dating is just confirming that I pretty much did all the don't's. You can hear about what not to do, but actually experiencing it and then having that to look back on and compare to, is rather effective as a learning experience and sure as heck motivates me to do something different. Knowing so blatantly what I've done wrong about it makes what the right thing to do stand out more.

So I already talked about some do’s and don’t with dating, but we’ve now transitioned into engagement and marriage. I think I mentioned it before but the common dating trend is to slide into everything without taking the appropriate steps and defining the relationship. Same things go with engagement. I’ve always noticed that LDS proposals and the process of engagement are different from what you see as the “typical “ proposal. It appears that half the time it’s a big surprise for the girl. Whereas for us(and with the ridiculous dating trends we’ve adopted) a couple has probably already discussed what they want their wedding colors to be by the fourth date. (I’m not even joking) Other couples have already made the consensual commitment to each other by cohabiting so there's more room for a proposal to be a bit more of a surprise. But here’s the thing, and I did talk about it a bit before, LDS young adults these days practically cohabit before marriage. They very early on decide they want to get married, and then they are in this limbo “practically engaged” state for a while. They see each other 24/7, spending just about every waking moment together and half the time just hang out like they did while they were in the dating phase(and no they didn’t really go on dates). Again with the sliding! It’s just one big slew of hanging out with loose milestone titles slapped on. This doesn’t prep you for marriage! Each stage of getting married has much more than just a title. Let's pretend for a second that we are a very picky kid, nothing on our plate can touch! Same with the marriage steps. Dating, courtship, engagement, and marriage. None of them can touch! Each stage has components and experiences that are unique to it. The biggest issue with this sliding thing is that commitment is out. Cohabiting is a cheap and actually ineffective way to “test the waters”. And by sliding all the important steps together we are essentially doing the same thing and keeping defining relationship and commitment at bare minimum. In the individuality and uniqueness in each step you have various ways of making sure this is someone you want to marry naturally built-in them if done right.
In our class we also talked about the process of engagement, planning a wedding and more importantly, a marriage together. It’s usually the girl and her mother or female relations enthusiastically planning the wedding while the guys tend to step back and just say it’s her thing. But the girl and her mom aren’t the ones getting married, it’s the couple! So shouldn't it be planned by both? Planning a wedding together is an excellent opportunity to experience planning, budgeting, compromising, etc. with each other. I know a guy who, through a very smooth and happy courtship, is now having a bit of a relationship crisis with his fiance due to disagreements and her mom and grandma trying to plan everything the way they want it. This is the first experience they’ve given themselves to actually run into some real-life situations which they need to learn how to work with each other.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pride Cake

Pride. We all know what this word means and we all know people who we would use this word to describe. There are those people who we think are the pride posterchild with their haughtiness, arrogance, selfishness, and a high score on the jerk-ometer. We have a certain vision of pride and we almost make it seem like you’re either a prideful person or you’re not. Those who have pride are stuck up jerks that just look down their nose at you. But pride has many different facets and manifests differently in people, and we all have it one way or another. That’s why Ezra Benson, a former president of the Chruch of Jesus Christ of Later-days Saints, called it the “Universal sin”. I’m going to be drawing on quotes from an address he gave to the church in 1989. “Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. There is, however, ...
Read more

Fathers and Daughters

Fathers and the roles they play are so important! Usually, when we think of father roles we think of the direct good and bad effects a father has on his son. And there are so many connections that a father and son have.  But I wanted to focus a little more on the effect fathers have specifically on their daughters ​Fathers help their daughters to be more self-reliant and assertive.  They can help to push their daughters in healthy ways to succeed. Studies have shown that girls who had a good relationship with their fathers were more likely to graduate from college.  Many female athletes also attribute their success to their father's encouragement to work hard and pursue their goals Also if a girl has a healthy close relationship with her father she is more likely to have much more healthy and fulfilling relationships with men that she dates. She is also less likely to turn to other men for emotional support in dysfunctional needy ways. One study also said that girls ar...
Read more

Big Bad Wolf

Image
Elder Bruce C Hafen wrote an article entitled “Covenant Marriage”.  In his article, he spoke of three “wolves” that test a marriage, Natural Adversity, our own imperfections, and excessive individualism.  I find the last wolf really interesting because I feel like individuality is a really fine balance.  On one end you have those who believe marriage is a ball and chain and once they tie the knot they’re individual identity gets sucked into the glob of marriage.  On the other, you have those who have little concept of self-identity and wish to jump headlong into marriage hoping their “better half” will give them identity.  Neither scenario is good and it’s hard to find the right balance. When I was younger and much more insecure, I fell into the latter group.  I craved relationships because I didn’t feel like enough on my own and I needed someone else to give me worth.  That is just a bad co-dependent relationship ready to happen.  Instead of comp...
Read more