Fr. McCloskey: Putting Off Marriage

I knew I wasn't crazy! I had these exact things in mind when I finally ended a nine year relationship about 5 or 6 years too late.

I had someone that I met in college and fell in love with and wanted to marry. We kept putting marriage off, putting it off, putting it off, in favor of getting our lives started and our careers started. We probably shouldn't have waited so long, because we fell into sin. After a few years I said to him, let's just jump in. I don't want to not be married to you anymore. I don't want to be apart anymore, and the impatience and unnaturalness of waiting around for life to be perfect was driving us into sin.

But he didn't see it as sin anymore, and he kept putting me off, saying he wanted to marry me but that he didn't have his life together yet. I said I didn't care. I would be willing to take him as he was and work with him to get to where we needed to go. All I wanted was to be with him. I had faith that though things would be really tough financially for a while we were both educated people and God would see us through. I just didn't see the sense of waiting anymore, even if our first years together would be a bit of a struggle.

He disagreed. I broke it off when it became clear he just didn't want to marry me anymore. His excuses spoke louder than his claims of wanting to marry me.

Now I am single, 30, and regretting all the time I spent waiting around for someone who had no intention of marrying me. This man really strung me along, and now the thought that I might be too old to have children by whenever I do get married is horribly depressing to me.

And all because I couldn't see the truth as it was staring me in the face, because I was so deeply entrenched in love, and in sin, to see it.

I no longer believe in long premarital relationships or in long engagements. If both parties know what they want and are ready, there is no reason to wait except for procrastination and fear of commitment.