Engagement is for marriage:
Engagement is intended for marriage preparation!
I was asked many times: When did you know you wanted to marry Joshua?
Though we dated for nearly three years before getting engaged, I 100% knew I wanted to marry him within the first couple months. We talked about our expectations and desires. Neither of us felt anxious about waiting those years to move our relationship forward. We knew plenty of people who got engaged before us. However, we remained committed to our intention to wait until our last year of college to be engaged for one simple reason:
So What is Engagement:
This seems to be an increasingly lost concept. According to 2022 statistics the average length of engagement is one or two years. Along with that, 70% of newlyweds cohabitated while they were engaged. It seems people spend more time wearing rings and less time being chastely committed to their partners…. Does it surprise us that divorce rates continue to skyrocket!
Engagement rings are not intended to be “commitment placeholders”. The term fiancé is not an excuse to “play house” or practice marriage. Dating is for discernment, prayer, chastity, and growth. Engagement is for moving forward into marriage.
My Engagement:
Joshua waited until our last year of college to propose because I didn’t want to get married in college. We set our wedding date as soon as possible after our graduation because we didn’t want to waste another day not being married. Neither of us needed those three years to know if we wanted to marry each other. However, we need those three years for our lives to catch up with our hearts.
We lived those three years with marriage at the forefront of our relationship. The choices we made, the commitment we had, and the struggles we endured were all with the end goal of marriage. Marriage was our intention! This meant we could say no to temptation and we could grow into who we wanted to be together.
When to Get Engaged:
If you and your partner are wanting to get engaged, please first talk about when you want to get married. Don’t find yourself caught off guard by being asked when you want to get married. Understand what your expectations are. Every problem, conflict, and temptation gets a million times worse when you have a ring in the mix. Engagement is one of the hardest times you will ever go through in your life because you are sooo close to being married- but you’re not. Don’t make it worse by getting engaged before you’re ready to plan your wedding!
