On relationships

The American Catholic has an interesting post up about the difficulty young men have these days in finding the right woman and settling down. Different women have different expectations, and they change from day-to-day, and today's young men have grown up in a world that has confused them about their masculine roles and made them afraid to take charge of their lives.

I call BS. To me, it just sounds like immature dudes enjoying every minute of their freedom and wealth and selfishness, and conveniently blaming women for their “confusion”. Mommallama and I met in high school. The high school love was obviously not completely mature. I suppose we were as much "in love" as kids can be. We thought it was something special, and we had enough common sense to maintain certain boundaries and allow ourselves to grow up. We learned a lot about our faith in college and seriously discerned what sort of spouse we ought to be looking for, and we considered religious vocations. By the second or third year, we knew that the ideal partner was the person we were already with, and as soon as I had a degree and a job, we were ready to marry.

So, our "courtship" lasted five years, but I honestly believe that if we hadn’t met until we were 25, it would have taken me all of three months to propose. That’s not to say there wouldn’t have been other women to date and discern. But when a confident young Christian knows what he’s looking for, and knows where to look for it (NOT in a bar), it should be pretty easy to discover pretty quickly whether someone would be a good wife. I mean, really, how difficult can this be? Maybe I'm missing something because I've been married basically all of my "adult" life, but what else do you need to know? Do you have:

-Common interests
-Have fun/sense of humor
-Common faith
-Common ideals for roles as husband and wife, father and mother
-Physical attraction (This does not mean "sexual compatibility". That's a stupid notion. Especially for men - trust me, you're "compatible". You'll like it, and if you remained chaste while single, your wife will always be the best you've ever had.)

It's not rocket science, young ladies. Does he meet all of your criteria, or doesn't he? He's an adult and he's not going to change much, so if there's something that disqualifies him as a spouse, move on. Don't hang around waiting for him to be "ready" for marriage. Putting yourself on the Pill so that you can be a "strong, independent woman" that he can use for physical pleasure will not help the situation. He might eventually get attached enough that your begging and threats will get him to propose, but eventually the novelty will wear off and it'll be a miserable marriage.

And that is all there is to it. Hopefully our boys will take our advice and keep their heads on straight during their young adulthood.