My Engagement

[Aloysius]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Dec 5 2005, 01:29 AM']What if your family arranged you to be married to some militant feminist crack addict who worshipped godesses and volunteered at Planned Parenthood?
I respect you.
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: thanx, I was just feeling disdainful stares from dark corners

I'm thinkin in the ideal situation there'd be an opt-out for the arranged couple... kinda like the parents arranging them is the baptism of the relationship and then they gotta confirm it when they're older...

[toledo_jesus]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 4 2005, 05:37 AM']If my fiance ends up coming to my college (she might, she's not deciding colleges based on that though, on my advice... though I definitely wouldn't mind if she pulled a Topanga) I'm thinkin our engagement might last a year or less, and our betrothal might last a year or more, well, probably until we're both out of college or something, I want to bend over backwards to attempt to make sure we won't even have to use NFP!

If she doesn't end up coming to my college, our engagement will probably last a bit longer, maybe 2 years or more, and our betrothal will probably last until we're both out of college or beyond that.

Anyway, I absolutely postively love her, even when I dont love her I love her.  haha, it's paradoxically true! 

"Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline" -G.K. Chesterton
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Here's a tip: Don't get married til you have both worked for a year or so OUT OF COLLEGE. If you rush into it right out of college (or during college) she will not know if she can make it on her own. She might not even WANT to be an independent woman right now, but there may come a time when she regrets not finding out if she could have done it.

Speaking as a college senior who just got this from his girlfriend, buddy you are definitely jumping the gun.

slow down or you [b]will[/b] lose her. It might take 20 years, but there will be resentment. Trust me.

Oh yeah, and you're 18? I'm with Cow of Shame, as usual. [u]Grow up[/u] first, then get married.

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 5 2005, 12:21 AM'][b]since when is L_D taken [/b]

anyway, yeah sure I suppose it's all some sort of number game

I'm not expecting some sort of perfect compatibility for all our lives, I mean I know I'm an idealist and all but I understand reality a little better than that....

it's not about testing around and finding the ""best"" match in the world, you'd have to test out billions to be sure of that, it's about a man and a woman making an act of will-- one of the most unique acts of human will as it is almost like an act of angelic will in its longstanding reprucussions. 

anyway, I feel like I ain't gettin no respect... probably because of the little thread where we were just having fun after hours and now everyone thinks I'm a crazy drunk (even though I've really never been drunk in my entire life)... but yeah: my ideal situation would've been that my parents had pre-arranged my marriage at birth-- because any man and woman can make it work.  it is a modernist lie that there is only "one perfect match" et cetera et cetera.  I understand fully the imperfections of a life-long relationship, I expect it to be hellish at times (well, actually, not hellish-- purgatorial).  anyway, yeah, I appreciate your concern but I think I have a better handle on the situation

however, there is this one priest I have my eye on for marriage prep- because he was talking about how he does that and he said that the whole time his goal is to convince the couple NOT to get married.  if anything he can say could convince the couple not to get married, then they're not ready for a lifelong committment.  so I either want him for marriage prep or some priest darn like him, cause something as trinitarian and beatific as a marriage bond ought to be entered in a purgatorial way
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i knew some people didnt pick up the little things but geez man where have you been?

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 5 2005, 12:29 AM']haha, yeah well in my situation the parent doesn't know the person as an adult, they know the family   see, I said, betrothed from birth   haha I think that'd be neat-o

but I also would trust my parents' judgement.  I get the feeling the girl I've chosen is probably the same girl they would've chosen :
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You must have good parents, then. Lucky you! My parents did a lot of cocaine in the 80's and they lived in hippie Northern California. If they were to betroth me to someone I'm pretty sure that he'd be some dude named April Rainshower or Sugar Magnolia. I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to build a domestic Church when your husband worships some pagan god from outer space and sells bongs for a living.

[philothea]

[quote name='hugheyforlife' date='Dec 5 2005, 12:37 AM'] i knew some people didnt pick up the little things but geez man where have you been?
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[Aloysius]

I could have sword L_D was single... I remember he was just complaining about how he had no one to enact his little betrothal research on....

[franciscanheart]

so he went to visit luthien twice in a matter of months for what? to borrow her color copy of the funnies?

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 5 2005, 12:31 AM']: thanx, I was just feeling disdainful stares from dark corners

I'm thinkin in the ideal situation there'd be an opt-out for the arranged couple... kinda like the parents arranging them is the baptism of the relationship and then they gotta confirm it when they're older...
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would the child be under pain of sin if they didn't marry the person they were betrothed to?

[quote name='toledo_jesus' date='Dec 5 2005, 12:34 AM']Here's a tip:  Don't get married til you have both worked for a year or so OUT OF COLLEGE.  If you rush into it right out of college (or during college) she will not know if she can make it on her own.  She might not even WANT to be an independent woman right now, but there may come a time when she regrets not finding out if she could have done it.
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I'm a woman about to finish school, and in 11 days I'm going to graduate and "make it on my own." But I don't think it's absolutely necessary to spend a year working to know that you can. I'm well aware that I can make it on my own. It doesn't take a genius to keep a steady job and live independently. I don't think I'd need to spend a year working to know that I can pull it off.

[scardella]

Al, BTW, I'm trying to respect you, buddy. Just trying to give a little advice because I've been in a similar situation which turned out horribly. I'm just glad we had our troubles before getting married.

I think everyone here who's critical is just trying to be helpful. I'm glad you're engaged, but rushing things is a way to screw up something that would otherwise work. The relationship is like a fine wine. If you open it too soon, well, it won't be as nice.

Anyway, gotta get back to saving the world...
One computer at a time.

[Aloysius]

that wasn't directed at anyone in particular, I was just feeling a sense (real or imagined) that people were looking at me like a fool. I appreciate the critical advice-- like I said I want a marriage prep that attempts to convince us not to do it. but that's what I want the marriage prep priest to do, everyone else doesn't really no the particulars of the situation.

anyway, no the child wouldn't be under pain of sin, though it'd be like: he'd need a really good reason to break tradition like that. there'd be a sort of scorn for anyone who would break the tradition without good cause.

arranged marriages that way do work out quite well, better than our dating and finding the most "emotionally compatible" concept works.

[Deeds]

This question is rather personal so please feel free to ignore it if you wish, but how are you going to support yourselves if both of you are in college, especially if your wife gets pregnant?

[Aloysius]

I'm working on it! the problem is I feel like I have a DaVinci-style ADD (and would never dream of wanting medication for it, it's just my personality)

Like I said: the ideal situation is that we don't have to use NFP. The ideal situation also includes probably: me writing a best-selling book, or me buying a large plot of land with a group of people and building a city on it, or me refining my piano skills and becoming a famous concert pianist, or uhhh what's that major of mine in college again? anthropology? yeah, or me becoming a big-shot anthropologist that discovers the bones of Adam and Eve frozen on the moon... or me getting some sort of journalist job, or me becoming a shepherd and selling wool sweaters, or a combination of any or all of those previously mentioned things or maybe something else...

[photosynthesis]

[quote name='Aloysius' date='Dec 5 2005, 03:58 PM']I'm working on it!  the problem is I feel like I have a DaVinci-style ADD (and would never dream of wanting medication for it, it's just my personality)

Like I said: the ideal situation is that we don't have to use NFP.  The ideal situation also includes probably: me writing a best-selling book, or me buying a large plot of land with a group of people and building a city on it, or me refining my piano skills and becoming a famous concert pianist, or uhhh what's that major of mine in college again? anthropology?  yeah, or me becoming a big-shot anthropologist that discovers the bones of Adam and Eve frozen on the moon... or me getting some sort of journalist job, or me becoming a shepherd and selling wool sweaters, or a combination of any or all of those previously mentioned things or maybe something else...
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you could be a beekeeper!

[Deeds]

Thank you for answering. What happens, though, if she gets pregnant while both of you are still in college? Or if it works out harder than you expected to get any kind of job that will keep you both? That's why I personally think people should have a reasonable level of financial security before getting married (and be aged 25+, but I won't go into that!)

[photosynthesis]

there's no such thing as an adveristy free marriage... i think there are a lot of people getting married at 25+ with more than enough financial resources... and they get divorced

[scardella]

[quote name='Deeds' date='Dec 5 2005, 04:06 PM']That's why I personally think people should have a reasonable level of financial security before getting married (and be aged 25+, but I won't go into that!)
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I want to second the financial security bit. I thought I'd be rollin' in the dough, so to speak, after graduating. That didn't happen. I'm a little better off now financially, but that's after being unemployed for two bouts of about 6 months each. In many ways, I'm glad that we wound up breaking up. It would've made the stress of finding a job much, much worse.

[Laudate_Dominum]

I consider an undue stress on "financial security" to be of the Calvinist ethic.

I understand and appreciate the practical concerns, but I still say the call to marriage trumps such things. If God is calling you to be married in total poverty, or even in a kind of radical providentialism, so be it.

[photosynthesis]

people also have different ideas of what it means to be "financially secure." i guess you can never be too "secure, since you can never have TOO much money. i think if Americans saw how people in the rest of the world lived people would change their ideas of what it means to be "making it"

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='photosynthesis' date='Dec 5 2005, 04:38 PM']people also have different ideas of what it means to be "financially secure."  i guess you can never be too "secure, since you can never have TOO much money.  i think if Americans saw how people in the rest of the world lived people would change their ideas of what it means to be "making it"
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wow, I give you my highest "amen".

[photosynthesis]

thanks, I'm flattered~!