
Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one!”
-C. S. LEWIS
We made it to ten months! Ten months since he asked me to court him!!! Courtship flies when you blog about it constantly . . .
Also, as of this post, I think I’ve finally exhausted our (rather large) resource of six-month courting milestone pictures, so we’re really going to need to take a new batch of couple pictures over the next month or two. (Yay!!!) I can hear The Dash now . . . When it’s not so hot. And I can only agree (it’s bad) . . . still, I’m itching to drive out to some prime local location and let my brother take new pictures of us. Our six-month photos are precious, but they were a long time ago and reflect a stage of our courtship that we’ve moved past as we’ve matured, been challenged and continued growing together.
But anyway. Back to the present moment ❤
Ten months . . . that’s over three hundred days . . . and that’s a long time! Needless to say, I’m even more head over heels with this amazing, amazing man than I was to begin with. (Did I mention that he was amazing?)
Ten months has been an ample amount of time to discover how much I know him, and how much I still don’t. Because a person is always going to be sacred, always a mystery . . . always going to be God’s in a way they can never be mine.
With that in mind, I’ve spent ten months now of being slowly introduced, by God, to The Dash on a daily basis, so often being allowed to go deeper into his heart than I did before. It’s been such a privilege. And through God’s gift, The Dash has had the same privilege (ahem) of coming to know my colorful and messy heart, and so many of my quirks and inclinations and deepest thoughts.
I write a lot here about the fundamentals of courtship. Because yes, courtship is about rationality and discernment, self-control and direction (dancing, and chocolate truffle ice cream . . . I digress).
But above that irreplaceable foundation flowers other things. The “chemistry” as some people call it. But really, it’s the chaste sweetness of close friendship and, yes, romantic love. The affection, excitement, sheer happiness, and peace you are given in their presence, as well as the naturally growing desire for marriage. Those intangibles become (permit me an amateur’s metaphor) a thriving ivy that flowers around the indomitable castle of faith and reason in courtship.
You see, courtship is the prologue and early chapters of initiating a beautiful unity of heart and mind with another person, rooted in Truth: a unity that will, God-willing, last for life (and eternity, because everyone in Heaven is totally unified in mind and heart! Won’t that be sublime?!).
But even so, it’s unity with an adopted son or daughter of God, who ultimately belongs to Him and is destined to adore Him forever with all his/her body, mind and soul. This beautiful unity (in Truth) that comes through courtship, and eventually betrothal and marriage, is simply a means to an even more beautiful end: the Beatific Vision . . . union with God. It’s such a gift.
In thinking over these past ten months of courtship with The Dash, it struck me that it would be a lot of fun to write about ten things I didn’t expect about courtship. (I like it when I can make significant numbers align.) However, each one became so long and rather multi-faceted that I felt six would do.
I assure you, ten months of being in a wonderful relationship is ample time for a girl to encounter things she didn’t anticipate. More than six, actually, but this post can’t go on forever . . .
I didn’t expect . . .
1. God uses our courtship to draw my heart to Him
The other day, I was reading an interesting quote from an article (unfortunately, I can’t remember the source . . .), stating how marriage isn’t difficult, per se: rather, life is difficult, and marriage (because of its obligations and responsibilities) simply limits where you can run to when things get hard.
Courtship is somewhat similar. It forges an intensely specific perspective within you, especially when you go through hard times, because you’re already in the stages of growing in unity of mind and heart with another person. The emotional stakes of your heart are simply far bigger when you love someone else in that way. It’s how Our Lord made things to be. And, ultimately, He uses that as a tool to bring you closer to Him.
In courtship, you begin suffering together. Occasionally sufferings arise that wouldn’t arise at all if you weren’t courting, because you encounter and care for the other person’s difficulties and sorrows as well as your own. But that’s a part of life. Embracing suffering is part of the Catholic life, and is part of Catholic courtship, too.
As a matter of fact, when you desire to do something amazing, such as 1) have a pure pre-marital relationship 2) intellectually, spiritually, emotionally & materially prepare to begin a holy family, and 3) one day to live in chastity and charity as a married couple for God’s glory while raising children to be saints . . . it’s very likely you’re going to fall under attack, even during courtship, and/or Our Lord is going to send you suffering to refine and strengthen your love for Him and your readiness for marriage. Even during courtship. Especially during courtship! You will be challenged as an individual and as a couple to put God first and to cling to Him during confusion, worry or pain.
Only, I didn’t expect this to manifest itself so clearly during our courtship, with the result of me being forced to rely on Our Lord in ways I hadn’t before. Because it’s all about Him.
The ten months I’ve spent in our courtship have experienced stretches of intense growth, pain, fear, and necessity for sacrifice unlike any other time in my life. I didn’t expect that. Of course, the patches of pain have been far outweighed by joyful times and happy, loving moments.
But the suffering has helped me the most, because (in spite of my weakness and spiritual complaining), it has thrust me (and, collectively, The Dash and I) back onto God, back onto prayer, and back onto the reason of our courtship: God’s glory.
2. “Being myself” in courtship still sometimes means being awkward
I liked The Dash from the very beginning. I fell in love with him early on. By the time he asked me to court him, I was more than ready to say yes, and yet I had all the natural shyness and butterflies that came from being attracted to a wonderful man and friend who I, nevertheless, had so much left to learn about. Not to mention figuring out how to help him get to know me.
Ten months in, and it’s hard to recognize the nervous, bashful girl who started courting The Dash. Most of the time, that is.
But . . . building a relationship takes time, work, and patience. It occurs gradually and gently over a long span of time. When I compare the (still relative) newness of The Dash and I’s love for one another with the seasoned love of, say, my parents–the closeness doesn’t compare. And The Dash and I are close. So often we are natural and ourselves with one another . . . but even seeking to be completely and always “ourselves” around one another (in the normal, healthy sense of the term, like giving our honest opinions and not being a little awkward from time to time) is still a learning curve that will continue even after we’re first married!
So for now, in our courtship, there are still times when I get awkward, don’t know what to say, don’t know what to do with my hands, or just giggle bashfully. I didn’t expect that, ten months in. You marry your best friend (or so the saying goes), and I know that will certainly be the case for me. The Dash is already my best friend. But at the same time, I know The Dash and I have so much room to become far better friends than we are now. There is a richness, knowing-ness, and peace that we are still waiting and working to attain, and that, honestly, we’ll be cultivating for the rest of our lives.
And that’s entirely fine with me.
3. Routine is a deeply integral part of our courtship
Routine! A beautiful and necessary aspect of an ordered life in general, I really didn’t expect how much routines would factor into the healthiness and growth of our relationship.
Most specifically, our normal routines are: attending Mass every Sunday together; attending Adoration usually once a month together; talking on the phone every day; praying specific daily prayers together; seeing one another one or more times a week; setting aside time for at least one in-depth talk per month; making a point to acknowledge and celebrate each new month of courtship . . . these are the prime examples of the routine The Dash and I have built our courtship around.
Yes, spontaneity is beautiful, too (and we have definitely had our share of fun, spontaneous moments!). But routine becomes the skeleton around which you can contribute to the order of your courtship. And sometime, spontaneity gives birth to a new routine, like when The Dash, on a whim, invited Lena and I over to his apartment for lunch after First Saturday Mass and choir practice a few months ago. That quickly became a tradition ❤

4. My biggest struggle has been patience
No, my biggest struggle hasn’t been waiting to do things like holding hands (although that’s hard sometimes, too…). It hasn’t even been learning how to communicate well (although that was and is a huge learning curve!).
Rather, it’s been patience, and humbly surrendering to God’s timeline for our courtship.
The intentionality of courtship, in its traditional sense, means that it’s going to be a relatively streamlined relationship that won’t last long as a courtship, either way. Because, after all, it isn’t appropriate to simply linger in a romantic relationship that either 1) isn’t right, or 2) has all the earmarks of a potential successful marriage, but without pressing forward to betrothal and marriage, if you don’t have a valid reason for waiting.
However, at the same time, I’ve learned that courtship isn’t a race to see how little time you can spend discerning marriage and preparing for betrothal, either. It’s important to have a workable timeline for your courtship (“by around this {reasonable} time, we should plan to decide if we think we’re ready to get betrothed, if we need more time, or if this isn’t working”).
The Dash and I set such a timeline from the beginning, and it gave us the purpose and sense of direction we knew was important. But at one point, Our Lord saw fit to show us we needed to extend our original timeline for our courtship. And so, I learned it’s important to have a healthy and humble attitude of surrender to God’s Will as to when you’ll actually move forward to betrothal–especially if you’re of the naturally impatient type. (I believe sanguines are numbered among these. Ahem.)
When confronted with the need to extend our timeline, I quickly realized how interiorly possessive I’d become over what I thought would be the “end times” of our courtship. But when I was reminded that The Dash and I’s courtship was God’s possession, not mine, then things grew spiritually clearer.
However, I will note that, for a woman, patience is very difficult (really, nearly impossible) if you don’t have clear and consistent communication about your timeline and where you both are in regards to it. Especially as a female, I think it’s far easier sometimes to be patient about a “known” than an “unknown.”
5. Expecting him to always make me happy equates to turning him into an object
Now, there hasn’t been a decisive “learning moment” for me in relation to this, but rather, there have been numerous small realizations of this truth along the way. I didn’t necessarily expect to have to learn this.
But while you should rightly expect emotional health out of your relationship, and a caring reciprocity of love and selflessness between one another, that still doesn’t mean you should look to the other person to always make you happy and at peace. The Dash, as miraculous a creation as he is, can’t make me happy and at peace all the time.
He wasn’t made to do that. Only God can do that.
I have seen how I have needs The Dash can satisfy, and needs that God alone can satisfy. I must approach The Dash with selflessness. Now, this doesn’t mean that I refrain from being honest about if I’m feeling upset, blue, sick, or what have you, and accepting his compassion . . . quite the opposite!
Rather, this means that I resolve to be honest with him about my needs, accepting of his love and help, but always turned towards God to reach the places only He can penetrate within me.
It’s a real womanly temptation to expect a man to know how she’s feeling and to feel resentful if he doesn’t pick on things. Now, if he’s the right man for her, he’s often intuitive and can pick up on the fact that something’s not right (The Dash is great at this, by the way). But this doesn’t always happen. Or it does, and perhaps he doesn’t know the best way to probe deeper. For my part, I’ve learned that if I interiorly expect The Dash to know how I feel, but avoid telling him, it always tempts me towards resentment that he doesn’t know how I’m feeling and, therefore, isn’t helping me. (Nonsensical Award, anyone?) While I’ve never done this consciously, I have noticed it as a recurring female tendency I have to combat.
This kind of irrational, instinctive expectation on my part demands that The Dash be a “Make-Me-Happy-At-All-Times” object . . . but even more deceptively, it also demands that he somehow be omniscient. Hmm, that sounds like God, doesn’t it?
It’s irrational but very real, and it can become a vice if I’m not careful. However, if I commit to communicate to The Dash whenever I’m not feeling right, and receive whatever love and help he can give, that opens my heart to loving him selflessly and valuing his compassion as a treasure: because I’m no longer expecting him to be God.
6. Maintaining our physical boundaries is both easy and hard
It sounds contradictory, I know . . . but I really didn’t expect how easy it would be to maintain our physical boundaries . . . and I didn’t expect how hard it would be, either!
I’ve mentioned our guidelines for physical boundaries here and here, but suffice it to say that any exclusive physical expressions of affection shouldn’t be a part of Catholic courtship (for surprisingly coherent moral reasons listed in those aforementioned posts). The Dash and I have brief hi/bye/thank-you hugs like we would with family members. But as long as our courtship lasts, we’ll refrain from anything else.
I didn’t expect how easy it would be, but I attribute this to several things:
1. Courting a virtuous man who is loving but self-controlled. I have to brag on The Dash here. There is a deep, mutual agreement between the two of us as to these boundaries; I’ve never been in doubt for a moment that The Dash is leading us both in these commitments, simply because of how he conducts himself. The security and peace that comes from that is beyond words. He’s amazing!
2. Regular prayer and special consecrations, as a couple, to Our Lady and St. Joseph. We pray every day to Our Lady to “keep our courtship pure and chaste.”
3. We both belong to the Angelic Warfare Confraternity and without a doubt receive huge graces from it.
4. We maintain the use of chaperones, and we keep to our commitment of not being completely alone together for more than brief, unavoidable moments of time (like Chaperone has to go to the bathroom when it’s just the three of us . . .) — although, again, this doesn’t preclude private conversations.
And on the opposite side of the coin . . . well, it’s still hard. Concupiscence means you have to keep custody of your thoughts and desires whether you’re in a relationship or not. When you are in a relationship, the responsibility to take care is doubled (at least)! And I couldn’t have expected how hard it is, sometimes, to abide by our boundaries, because of the natural affection that’s there. You want to express your love for the other person physically; and one day, in God’s good time, you’ll be able to. In the meantime, the waiting is beautiful, because sacrificing for something good is beautiful.
Anyway . . . I think that’s enough of my rambling for one post. (My wordcount informs me that I’m at nearly 3000 words. Yikes.) But it’s not every day that you get to celebrate ten months of courtship with your best friend, so I think that warrants something . . . well . . . rambling 😉 I have the feeling I delivered!
In reflecting on all the beautiful and unexpected things that happened to bring The Dash and I together into our courtship (which I do quite a lot), I think my favorite quote from Pride and Prejudice sums up my side of it quite eloquently. Although The Dash is my Mr. Darcy (though he never seemed pompous and he did dance with me at our first meeting) . . . Mr. Darcy’s words are my words.
Elizabeth’s spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her.
“I cannot fix on the hour,” he said, “or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
-Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

God bless, and a very happy feast of the Seven Holy Brothers, Martyrs!
