Response #11

Hi Jonny,

Well, I am happily married, with baby #2 on the way. We are doing very well. I was just thinking the other day actually, that wow! I wasn't single that long ago, and it's amazing how fast things can change!

Anyway, that's an interesting question you posed in your email, and I'm not there's a cure-all answer to that. I personally think it's different for everyone, but I will share some of my thoughts.

In my opinion, I really don't think it's as much to do with "what you do or don't do" to get married...To me, it's more about your ATTITUDE about dating. Honestly, in the many singles wards I attended, I observed (and myself experienced) a lot of PRESSURE to get married. Sometimes, putting too much pressure on one's self or feeling too much pressure from others (including friends and parents) can be detrimental to the whole dating prospect. For me personally, I remember feeling I needed to not "TRY" so hard to find my spouse, but rather, just let it happen. Now, 'letting it happen' doesn't mean not doing anything or giving up. Rather, to me, it means, just simply being more accepting of life as you know it, including: being more accepting of yourself, first of all, and being accepting of others around you (being willing to go out with anyone and give it a try...i.e. have an open mind and not worry about what anyone will think when they see you two going out together!), and also, being accepting of your situation in life and God's will for you...i.e. always trying to maintain a positive attitude about dating and relationships (which gets harder and harder) and be willing to accept the Lord's will and timing for you, clinging onto faith (which again, can get harder and harder the longer you remain single).

Let me go back to the being accepting of yourself part, because this was a big thing for me personally. Being in the H4 or other 'singles ward hubs,' is a great place to be because there are so many people and there is always so much going on! I remember feeling a lot of pressure to go to every single activity and all the parties going on because I didn't want to miss out on meeting someone! But I remember often feeling very little satisfaction from some of those casual 'meet 'n greets' because much of the conversation was so minimal and superficial, and I never felt like I got any depth! One thing that I had to realize for myself was that not going to every single party around WAS NOT going to keep me from meeting my spouse. Honestly, I realized that I wanted to find someone like ME and someone who enjoys the same things as me. So because I didn't always enjoy going to every single party, my future spouse likely felt the same way (which he very much did, by the way), and so he might not be going to those parties either! Anyway, I'm not trying to say I stopped going to activities period...but I took the pressure off myself to always go. I only went when I was in the mood and when I had a desire to go. I found that going when I did not have the desire was futile. I had a bad attitude the whole time. Anyway, that is just to demonstrate that I had to figure out who I was and be confident in who I was and realize that as long as I was true to myself, the Lord would help me find my spouse. And He did. He was my roommate's cousin and met me when he came over to our apt one day!

Anyway, I have just one more thought about once you start dating someone. Again, you have to take the pressure off yourself and the person you're dating. Just go with it and see what happens. Keep an open mind...don't worry about what people think of you or how they view your relationship! (I.E. my cousin never really approved or thought highly of our match, even until we got engaged, but we both just kind of ignore her opinions and went with our own feelings instead, which can be difficult, but extremely important!). The counsel I continually gave myself in our courtship was to keep going forward and keep taking steps until there was a definite reason to STOP. I was always scared to take that next step and always nervous about it (as I didn't know if I wanted the relationship to go that far or not), but I kept taking those steps and it kept getting better and better, and those feelings just came and got stronger and stronger. It's hard to see the end from the beginning, and oftentimes we try to see too far ahead from the beginning, when we shouldn't!!! We need to focus on the moment and just focus on how we feel today and not get too caught up in what's going to happen in the future!

Anyway, I didn't mean to get on a soapbox and didn't mean to say that much. But I guess I feel strongly about those things because they were what I needed to learn!

Hope you can take something useful from all this!