S.M.A.R.T. Dating: Marriage-minded
By Nina Atwood
At the end of the day, dating is about marriage. It’s about choosing someone special to share life with, for a lifetime, and that eventually means getting married, for most people. But let’s make a clear distinction: “marriage” as a goal vs. “wedding” as a goal. Last night I heard the story of a friend’s daughter whose wedding is going to cost $60,000. Wow. She’ll have a fantastic party for that kind of ticket price, but will she have a good marriage? Clearly, there’s no correlation between the two. What we’re concerned with here is how to date so that you’re most likely to make a good marriage choice, and that’s what being marriage-minded is all about. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
Leslie thought that bringing up “the M word” early in a relationship would be the kiss of death, so she instead used terms such as “friendship” and “good communication” to indicate what she was looking for with men. This gave men the impression that she was not marriage minded, so the guys who were looking for a wife steered away and the guys who were looking for a good time felt relieved. That led to frustrating relationships with the inevitable tug-of-war: she pulled for more commitment and they pulled for less. Finally, Leslie got some good counsel and she changed her tactics.
Instead of steering away from “the M word,” she used it as soon as she felt she was sitting in front of an attractive guy with the right set of values whom she could potentially get close to. The result? The commitment-phobic guys ran for the hills. Leslie said “next”! and kept going. One day, she found herself talking to a marriage-minded guy. He loved her bold statement of intention to find someone to marry combined with her complete lack of neediness or desperation. She let him pursue her, and today they’re happily married.
Go to this post for the next step in dating S.M.A.R.T.
Entry Filed under: Dating
