Forgive me for not having said this in the previous post but you don't need to answer all those questions here over the internet. These points and inquiries are for your consideration.
Rarely do we argue. We’ve only ever had two big arguments. One was this one and one was about two years back when our political differences were colliding. I’ve never screamed at her in an argument. My voice has definitely gotten louder in an argument but I try as much as I can to keep that to a minimum. Sometimes there is some attribution thrown around. My girlfriend has yelled sometimes but it is rare. She calls me names sometimes but that’s also rare. We resolved our first big argument well by coming to the conclusion that we can both talk about our ideological stances freely without the other saying that they aren’t allowed to think those things. While we have had few big arguments she can be quick to anger about various inconvenient things that pile up in her life.
Most of that sounds normal. Most everyone commits those errors but
what is normal is not always healthy. My chief concern is the reported lack of arguing. It is neither normal nor healthy to argue once every two years. That indicates a lack of engagement. The two of you are completely ifferent people with completely different beliefs and values who come from completely different families and you are different sexes. This is ready-made terrain for conflict.
Go argue!
Just do it well.
The book, "
Boundaries Face to Face," by Henry Cloud and John Townsend is a very good place to start with practical and basic communication skills. The whole "Boundaries...." series of books is all very good.
We each have things we do to show that we love each other. I may watch a show with her that I’m not super interested in but I’ll watch anyways because I know that show makes her happy. She says she appreciates me a lot which makes me happy. We walk around outside together often (we can’t now, but we used to). She gets me thoughtful and unique gifts and I try to do the same.
That sounds good... but rudimentary. Give Gary Chapman's "
The Five Love Languages" a read to better understand love as action.
We both definitely agree on marriage being something in the far future.
Dating less than three months or longer than three years is highly correlated to future divorce.
I didn't want to taint the conversation by starting our exchange with that little tidbit. So too is premarital sex. So too is cohabitation. Correlation is not causation. Dating for a long time does not
cause divorce. However, when scientists analyze divorce stats they find a significant number of divorced people dated short or long. I don't know whether the two of you are living together but so far you've got two of the worse three things that can happen prior to marriage.
Not saying you can't or shouldn't marry her but I am saying you need to look at this and get the underlying concerns addressed.
You guys getting your college degrees accounts for some of this....
We’re both college students studying for our bachelors degrees so that’s one of the biggest things on our minds right now. We both couldn’t really see ourselves having more than one child. We’re both going into entertainment fields (her acting, me music), so we know we will have to be very smart financially to be able to sustain ourselves. If both our careers pop off we will have little time for leisure, so we will try to spend as much of it as we can doing something we both enjoy or something that relieves our busy days
Hmmm...
So you are a (conservative?) Christian artist living in the liberal bastion of LaLa Land in a profession rife with extreme competitiveness and extremely licentious behavior where the divorce rates are among the highest in the country and infidelity is much more frequent....
....and you are thinking about marrying a woman with liberal political and social views who is going into acting....
...knowing that both acting and music generally (not always) entail travel and extended periods of time when spouses are apart from one another, which is a condition making infidelity easy....
...and
you, Brenden, hold to a view of marriage in which two people join with the purpose of becoming
one.
I would encourage you to put in some serious thought about all that and develop a plan for 1) picking a mate that can sustain marriage to a musician and 2) the two of you addressing the circumstance of your life if you're traveling in the field of music.
It is hard to see where we will be in 20 years, but I understand it’s necessary to think about. I definitely have to sort things out in my mind and with her going that far in the future.
Yes, if I might borrow a line from Dr. Dre,
youth is wasted on the young. Blessedly, learning is what life is for. I wish you well, Brenden.
When I do premarital counseling I often use an inventory called "
Prepare and Enrich" (P&E). It's an online Q&A; takes about 30 minutes. Costs $35.00 per couple and helps the partners to understand their differences and how they can complement each other. It measures nine areas of compatibility.
Most of the couples I counsel have been married in the 6 to 10 year range. Most of them who have taken the P&E have two scores above 60%, two scores 20% or below, and the rest in the 40-50% range. Engaged couples sometimes look that good but on occasion I'll work with a couple who do not score well.
Never, in all the years I have been working with couples, have I ever had an engaged couple that would choose not to marry no matter how bad their scores look.
Never.
There too giggles-and-spit falling-head-over-heels infatuated to be realistic. If they are young then they lack life experience that would inform their decision.
For the reasons in these many posts I do encourage and exhort you to speak to at least three people about the matters discussed here: One should be your pastor. Another should be your father. I would normally tell you the third is a close friend of same sex and approximate age because of your youth that may not be the best third person so I will suggest an older woman who knows you; someone whose counsel you trust and will speak plainly to you. I also suggest you begin involving yourself in marriage preparations individually or together. Seminars, Youtube vids, books, books, books, TED Talks, ..... you get the picture.
I'll post a reading list for the two of you. later but I gotta go.
Blessings,
J~
