Dating to engagement

In my last post, I talked about how there are steps to moving from dating to getting married. The steps in between those are very important. You have to court someone, which basically is when you are exclusively together and only have eyes for the other. During this stage you are still trying to impress the person and get them to really fall for you. You do things like hold the door for her, kiss her hand, more gentle touching or making things more special. This is a very important part of the process and is really the foundation of an entire marriage. I truly feel that the things that you do in the courtship/ exclusive stage is what you build your relationship upon. If the two of you fight a lot with you are supposed to be impressing each other, then how are you supposed to have a happy marriage. Contrary to common thought, getting married does not fix everything at all. If anything, it makes thing more difficult because you are now connected to each other. Although I am not married yet, I know that getting married is a big deal that takes a lot of thought effort, patience and a sense of humor but more than that it takes a strong foundation to be healthy. This foundation is commonly missed because no one is taught how to find a spouse, but they are told to do it. People aren’t taught how to look for a spouse or even how to decide if the other person is good for them. Some people become so desperate that they lose a lot of their “criteria” they have, and they settle for someone that doesn’t take care of them, doesn’t have the same life goals, or doesn’t have the same morals. So many people over look large things in the others life or personality just so they aren’t alone. I think that our society is so afraid to be alone but doesn’t know how to be in a relationship either. You can see how this is a problem. Now why would it be important to know how to be in a relationship? To be able to build that essential foundation! CORRECT!! Without a solid foundation that is built together, problems that come up during a marriage, can and will destroy a marriage. The foundation provides for turbulence but makes it so the couple can come back to something. There are many many many couples that allow for small fights to push them to divorce because they didn’t establish that essential foundation. Now what does it mean to build a foundation within a relationship. The next stop of this process is getting engaged. Now-a-days, people are doing what has been called “sliding” into marriage. They can almost miss the engagement stage. You might be asking what I mean when I say miss the engagement stage. It is believed by some that it isn’t good to discuss actually being married to the one you are with and if you do talk about it/ say things like “when we are married” or “if we get married”, then it can skip the engagement and the proposal can be overlooked and less significant. It is thought that couples can bring up topics that relate to marriage an ask what is important to the other in a marriage or what they think they want but not applying It directly to the actual couple. I think that maybe this isn’t the most correct of thinking. Just because the couple talks about these things, does not necessarily mean that they won’t put much significance on the engagement. I think that in some ways it can be helpful to talk about marriage and say “if we get married” because then you both understand that you are BOTH working towards a marriage and are serious instead of one thinking marriage and the other thinking that this was just a temporary thing. I know so many people that they are suddenly broken up with because the other person only saw their relationship as a stepping stone and temporary. There is much more success to be had by communicating that you see a future together. In my opinion. There are so many ways to go about relationships but there is one thing sure. There are steps to and stages to becoming married.