Dating and Courting

“Don’t wait for the perfect prince charming to come pick you up. Be productive and proactive. Sanctify yourself, be the kind of spouse you want to marry.”

Did you know that it takes about 3-6 months before you become completely yourself… before your “shiny wears off”. Think about how many marriages take place during that time (meet, engaged and married within 6 months)

Be conscious and intentional with How you date.

“You don’t only marry who you date, but how you date.” What is this, “who” and “how” business? First “who”- obviously you are going to marry someone whom you dated…. But it’s not talking about that. It’s talking about the kind of person you will marry. For example you can’t say, I want to marry a farmer and then only date city-slicks. Or a better example, for those of you who are religious, it is unwise to say, I am going to marry a Christian, or someone who can take me to the LDS Temple… and then only date atheists, or vice versa. The point I’m trying to make is that the kind of people you have close associations with, are the kind of people you will find yourself marrying.

Now for the “how”-If your relationship is purely physical, then once you are married that is not likely to change. If your relationship is a very “open” relationship (i.e. you can still flirt and date other people) before your marriage, expect only infidelity and heartbreak after marriage. If your partner doesn’t respect the opposite gender, don’t expect that to change because “I’ll be his wife”. It doesn’t work that way. If you have trouble communicating with your fiancé, or you can’t open up with each other… you better change that now.

So what influences who you date? I think it would be safe to say these following three reasons:

·        Propinquity-nearness, ability to communicate, access (i.e. location, or means of communication)

·        Physical Attraction-Subconsciously we connect positive attributes to those we think are physically attractive.

·        Similarities-Are you compatible enough, but not too closely the same?

But “dating” doesn’t just happen. There are three things we call the “Know-Quo”. It’s what it takes to get to know someone.

·        Time (Takes 3-6 months minimum to get to know someone fully)

·        Togetherness (A variety of shared activities)

·        Talk (Mutual self-disclosure- i.e. “This is how I feel about….”)

Often young couples will come in for counseling and say something along the lines of “He doesn’t every talk to me about how he’s feeling.” Or “She doesn’t tell me what’s going on.” And when traced back to their dating… they didn’t talk and verbalize those things. They always, however, feel like the communicated a lot. “We talked all the time! We were always together...” But when questioned about their conversations it’s more about movies, games, food, schoolwork… and not about emotions. Before marriage you need to be sure that you have that mutual disclosure with each other.