work toward marriage ASAP. I didn't put effort to date in college (I was busy) and suddenly I'm 28 and any dating prospects my age are ran through. I'm not marrying those.
The only "easy" era for dating is High School, where options are plenty and there's still quite a few who aren't ran through. College gets harder because of hookup culture and entitlement. After that, well, there's not many fishing holes in the desert.
Don't cohabit or fornicate, it ruins future relationships. It's the biggest lie society has sold to the young. If you want to, it means your view on marriage and sex is corrupted and you should look to fix it. Avoid it even if you both think you'll marry. If you wanna speed things up, just do a really small budget wedding. It can still be big with the amount of people, especially if you ask people to help with things like food or cake but definitely don't do a party hall.
If you make it past college single, best of luck. It's best to just plan out life as staying single for the rest of your life. That doesn't mean don't put an effort, but you're going to have to deal with being alone for a long time.
Don't date former cheaters even if they say they've changed. I've never met anyone who has; there's a reason they say once a cheater, always a cheater. If they repent, good, that's between them and God, but you don't have to risk getting screwed over (because you probably will).
I couldn't agree MORE. I am 23 and discerning marriage right now (with a very holy and good man, thank You Jesus!) but I think that even as a 23 year old I am still growing up, learning, and changing SO much. I cannot imagine dating when I was in HS when I was just trying to get through life and enjoy it with my friends. If I had added boys to the drama I don't think things would've ended well for me. (Also I'm a guest teacher in public schools now so I see teenagers dating all the time and let me tell you, the hurt and the sadness that they go through is intense. I always want to tell them: "just don't date until you're ready to think about marriage!!")
As a teenager in high school, I didn’t believe in dating because I wasn’t mature enough yet but then I had no experience when it came to college. Although going to an all boys prep school didn’t help either but it worked out for the best to keep me out of trouble as a teenager that I would have gotten into as a teenager. I was very rigid in my teenage years about refusing to get into the sex drinking and party culture. But my ultimate failure as a teen was getting hooked into pornography and masturbation during my teen years until the goodness of God freed me last year on Divine Mercy Sunday. My parents were Catholic yes but knew absolutely nothing about Scripture and the catechism and the faith except just go to Mass for worshiping Jesus in the Eucharist.
"No fear mongering" except you should fear fornication. Sins are against nature and thus have consequences. Even if the consequences aren't obvious. Fornication destroys marriage, which is the bedrock of family, which is the bedrock of society. It will always be a rift in your future relationships. How do you think we got to 50% divorce rates? Mass abortion? Daddy issues everywhere? Proliferating singleness? The commodification of sex (the sexual revolution) made a mockery of marriage and is destroying society from the inside out. You're lowering your chances of a successful marriage with fornication. Personally, I don't think you can ever have a true marriage after fornication because it doesn't make sense logically. Maybe if it's to that one person, but things need to have a spiritual origin before a material expression.
On the spiritual level, your marital vow is the union of your lives. Sex is the material/physical culmination of that. With fornication, later when you do get married, you already have that physical culmination of union with someone else. When they say "in the eyes of God, you're married" isn't an exaggeration. That's how natural law works. You undeniably got married (marriage means union) on the physical level. You'll have a spiritual and material reality mismatch and that can't be undone, only forgiven.
I am so thankful that my parents didn’t allow me to date as a teenager. I was so busy as a college student, that I didn’t date there either. I grew up Catholic but I didn’t truly develop my faith until I graduated from college. I met my husband soon after and we have been happily married for 8 years. Our 3rd date was going to Mass and walking around the ground for 2 hours talking about our relationship with God. My husband was Pentecostal but I told him that I wanted 5 children (open to life) and my children will be raised Catholic. He understood and converted. We always attend Mass together.
I am raising 3 girls and one boy and I will have the hard conversations about not dating in high school and just enjoy being a teenager! The teen years are meant to be fun! Going out with friends, studying for exams, participating in extracurricular activities. This is the only time in your life that you can do this! Dating will always be there!
I think peer groups matter too! If most of a teen’s friends are dating, that teen will feel pressured, so picking the right friends with similar backgrounds/faith/ morality matters more than anything.
I LOVE that unpopular opinion. I would love to understand that when I was teenager …
My advice:
work toward marriage ASAP. I didn't put effort to date in college (I was busy) and suddenly I'm 28 and any dating prospects my age are ran through. I'm not marrying those.
The only "easy" era for dating is High School, where options are plenty and there's still quite a few who aren't ran through. College gets harder because of hookup culture and entitlement. After that, well, there's not many fishing holes in the desert.
Don't cohabit or fornicate, it ruins future relationships. It's the biggest lie society has sold to the young. If you want to, it means your view on marriage and sex is corrupted and you should look to fix it. Avoid it even if you both think you'll marry. If you wanna speed things up, just do a really small budget wedding. It can still be big with the amount of people, especially if you ask people to help with things like food or cake but definitely don't do a party hall.
If you make it past college single, best of luck. It's best to just plan out life as staying single for the rest of your life. That doesn't mean don't put an effort, but you're going to have to deal with being alone for a long time.
Don't date former cheaters even if they say they've changed. I've never met anyone who has; there's a reason they say once a cheater, always a cheater. If they repent, good, that's between them and God, but you don't have to risk getting screwed over (because you probably will).
I couldn't agree MORE. I am 23 and discerning marriage right now (with a very holy and good man, thank You Jesus!) but I think that even as a 23 year old I am still growing up, learning, and changing SO much. I cannot imagine dating when I was in HS when I was just trying to get through life and enjoy it with my friends. If I had added boys to the drama I don't think things would've ended well for me. (Also I'm a guest teacher in public schools now so I see teenagers dating all the time and let me tell you, the hurt and the sadness that they go through is intense. I always want to tell them: "just don't date until you're ready to think about marriage!!")
As a teenager in high school, I didn’t believe in dating because I wasn’t mature enough yet but then I had no experience when it came to college. Although going to an all boys prep school didn’t help either but it worked out for the best to keep me out of trouble as a teenager that I would have gotten into as a teenager. I was very rigid in my teenage years about refusing to get into the sex drinking and party culture. But my ultimate failure as a teen was getting hooked into pornography and masturbation during my teen years until the goodness of God freed me last year on Divine Mercy Sunday. My parents were Catholic yes but knew absolutely nothing about Scripture and the catechism and the faith except just go to Mass for worshiping Jesus in the Eucharist.
I WISH I FIGURED THIS OUT 4 YEARS AGO
ahem
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DO NOT
"No fear mongering" except you should fear fornication. Sins are against nature and thus have consequences. Even if the consequences aren't obvious. Fornication destroys marriage, which is the bedrock of family, which is the bedrock of society. It will always be a rift in your future relationships. How do you think we got to 50% divorce rates? Mass abortion? Daddy issues everywhere? Proliferating singleness? The commodification of sex (the sexual revolution) made a mockery of marriage and is destroying society from the inside out. You're lowering your chances of a successful marriage with fornication. Personally, I don't think you can ever have a true marriage after fornication because it doesn't make sense logically. Maybe if it's to that one person, but things need to have a spiritual origin before a material expression.
On the spiritual level, your marital vow is the union of your lives. Sex is the material/physical culmination of that. With fornication, later when you do get married, you already have that physical culmination of union with someone else. When they say "in the eyes of God, you're married" isn't an exaggeration. That's how natural law works. You undeniably got married (marriage means union) on the physical level. You'll have a spiritual and material reality mismatch and that can't be undone, only forgiven.
Wish I had this video as a teen! I was so lost. Thank God, the Holy Spirit brought me home.
I am so thankful that my parents didn’t allow me to date as a teenager. I was so busy as a college student, that I didn’t date there either. I grew up Catholic but I didn’t truly develop my faith until I graduated from college. I met my husband soon after and we have been happily married for 8 years. Our 3rd date was going to Mass and walking around the ground for 2 hours talking about our relationship with God. My husband was Pentecostal but I told him that I wanted 5 children (open to life) and my children will be raised Catholic. He understood and converted. We always attend Mass together.
I am raising 3 girls and one boy and I will have the hard conversations about not dating in high school and just enjoy being a teenager! The teen years are meant to be fun! Going out with friends, studying for exams, participating in extracurricular activities. This is the only time in your life that you can do this! Dating will always be there!
I think peer groups matter too! If most of a teen’s friends are dating, that teen will feel pressured, so picking the right friends with similar backgrounds/faith/ morality matters more than anything.
As a 20 year old, I found this helpful. Thanks!