Culture Let us Down Again

A friend of ours said something the other day that was a major surprise to me. Not necessarily because it made a huge difference in how I am approaching marriage but was just something in contrary to what I've always been used to hearing.

He said: "Dating does not prepare you for marriage." Again, not some earth-shattering revelation but definitely not what I've been hearing from society since I was old enough to be told I was too young to date.

I always thought dating was an experience of learning (apparently by process of elimination or luck) what type of woman I should end up with and then learning how we live life together, all while considering the possibility of doing it forever, barring some major difference or event. It was practicing a marriage relationship for the time when I would enter into the most important one of my life. Or so I thought.

But now my not-really-a-big-deal-at-all dream was shattered and I was left with the new, more truthful perspective on dating.

Not that there's anything wrong with dating necessarily but if more people knew that it wasn't a preparation for marriage, I'm sure many more couples about to be wed would take their pre-martial steps much more seriously knowing that dating was simply the means to find the person, not learn how to love them in marriage.

Marriage is now this completely new animal where all the baggage from past damage from our parents and ex's slowly and suddenly rears it's ugly head to reveal the fact that true love, complimenting each other, marital happiness takes a great deal of work.

This actually makes me look at our dating time with a higher degree of fondness. Now, instead of dating being a less cool version of marriage (aka: marriage without the sex), our dating relationship is something completely on it's own. While it will be wonderful when things change, I find some nostalgia in things like driving home from her house at midnight or arriving and leaving parties in separate cars or talking on the phone while laying in bed or texting as we wake up or remembering things to tell her when I see her next.

We'll never have those things again. What's replacing them I'm very excited about but I still feel a new sense of joy when looking back at our dating season. Maybe in part because it's the last one either of us will ever have.

- D