Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E149: I Share 4 Principles To Find ‘The One’ To Marry

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E149: I Share 4 Principles To Find ‘The One’ To Marry · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
I'm looking for a man in finance the trust fund 65.
0:05
If that's your like a standard for attractiveness, they need to
0:08
be like blue eyed 65 and finance with a trust fund.
0:11
Good luck. I'm not sure you're mature
0:12
enough to get married. Remember that your vocation
0:15
today is to love, to love God and love His will and to love
0:18
other people. The very first thing to do
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before going out to try to find the One is to ask yourself the
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question, am I the one? Hey guys, welcome back to the
0:29
Lila Rose podcast. All right, in this episode, I
0:31
want you to sit down with me and we're going to explore the
0:34
question of how do I know whether or not this person is
0:38
the One? Now wait before you tune this
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out because you're already married and you already have
0:41
found the one. Or maybe you don't care about
0:43
this topic. Pause for a minute.
0:45
This content, I think, can help somebody that you know, that's
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why we're creating this episode because a lot of people are
0:50
asking this question, how do I know that the person that I'm
0:53
dating or how do I know when I'm dating that person in the future
0:56
is the one. So tag this episode.
0:58
Send it to a friend who might be contemplating this or a daughter
1:01
or maybe your grandparent, a granddaughter, whatever it might
1:03
be. Or if you are in these shoes,
1:05
stay with me because this is going to be a series of
1:07
principles that I think are going to help you in the future.
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Now, first of all, coming from personal experience, I am
1:13
married. I've been married now six years.
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I think it is going on six years.
1:16
And yes, my husband is the one. The number one reason I know he
1:20
is the one is this. We exchanged rings.
1:23
We married each other. If you are married and if you
1:25
went into your marriage freely, you chose it freely.
1:28
You knew the person you were marrying.
1:30
It wasn't like they were tricking you into marrying them.
1:32
And you went into it with the intention to be exclusive and
1:35
permanent until death do you part.
1:36
Be open to life, all of these things.
1:38
You are married to the one. This is not a marriage help
1:41
episode about how to improve your marriage.
1:43
We're going to do that in the future, future.
1:44
We're going to do that with experts on the show.
1:46
If we have in the past, that's going to be coming down the
1:48
Pike. But starting out, if you are
1:50
married, if you've exchanged rings, it really is that
1:52
beautiful and that simple. Then they are the one God is not
1:56
a trickster where you accidentally marry someone
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because you thought they were the 1.
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Then you wake up five months later and you're like, they're
2:01
not the one anymore. Now caveat there, obviously, if
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there's abuse or some other significant thing that was
2:07
hidden during the marriage, that's a whole other question.
2:09
We're not talking about that today.
2:11
Today, it's a question of when you are trying to date or you
2:14
are actively dating. How do you know that they are
2:16
the one? Look, today's dating landscape
2:19
is chaotic. I don't have to tell you that.
2:22
You can see it, especially if you're in it.
2:24
And it's tough out there too, to find people that can be of a
2:28
similar shared background in terms of values, in terms of
2:31
life experiences, someone that can really compliment you.
2:34
So with all of that said, I get it.
2:36
It's hard. That's why we're creating this
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episode. When you get married, you should
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be freely choosing it because you want to love them and be
2:44
loved by them and help build a family with them.
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I believe for the glory of God, you should not be marrying
2:49
someone to complete you or to fill this massive hole in your
2:53
heart. You want to go into relationship
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and into marriage from a place of contentedness in your love
2:59
that you have with God and in the community and the lifestyle
3:02
that you've been developing for yourself.
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Now, this is not to say that when you're single and you're
3:07
just longing for that love and that relationship, you can't
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have that deep, deep seated longing in your heart, but you
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want to be entering dating and you want to be entering
3:14
ultimately marriage from a place of personal peace and personal
3:18
growth yourself. If you're going into it thinking
3:21
that the marriage is going to fix your problems, the marriage
3:23
is going to solve your problems, the marriage is going to finally
3:25
make you feel OK, you might wake up and discover, no, that's not
3:28
what marriage does for you. Marriage is a relationship where
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you love the other person, you serve the other person.
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It's not some magical trick to make you feel better about
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yourself. So I think that's important
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first step that you go into marriage not to complete
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yourself, but you go into marriage to find someone to help
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you journey and grow and hopefully, hopefully build a
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family with. All right, So let me start with,
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we're going to do a few things. We're going to talk about
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personal basics. We're going to talk about
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relationship basics. We're going to talk about red
3:54
flags or things that can go wrong that are important to
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note. And then we're going to talk
3:58
about discernment principles. So there's four categories we
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are going to get it into in this crash course and how to know if
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they are the one. First thing, personal basics.
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The very first thing to do before going out to try to find
4:10
the one is to ask yourself the question, am I the 1:00?
4:15
AM I the one for the one that I want to marry?
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Am I the man or the woman that would make a good spouse for
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that man or that woman that is in my dreams or in my heart that
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I'm seeking out? You need to start from a place
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of self-awareness to really identify how am I growing?
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Am I focused right now on my personal development, my
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physical health, my emotional health, my spiritual health?
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And I am working hard and growing in virtue in my life so
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that I can be that good spouse, that good future mother or
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father, that good future husband, husband or wife.
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That always should be the first question.
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Because love, the root of love, is about wanting the good for
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the other. And it's about self gift.
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It's about wanting to be a gift for another person and receive
4:55
the gift of another person. Nobody is entitled to get
4:59
married. Nobody is entitled to the love
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of another person. We are seeking out an offering
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of ourselves and also we're seeking out to be able to
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receive that other person. And so to be able to do that
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right, you want to be in a position where you are seeking
5:12
health yourself and you are seeking growth yourself.
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That is a beautiful position to be in, to be able to meet
5:19
someone, ultimately fall in love, marry them and grow
5:22
together. Because ultimately, marriage is
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about helping each other get to heaven, helping each other in a
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journey of building a family, Lord willing, and building a
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project here on earth as you prepare for eternity.
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So number one question under personal basics, ask yourself,
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am I the one? And what are you doing to
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prepare to be that one for your future wife or your future
5:45
husband and regardless of whether you end up meeting that
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wife or husband? In the near.
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Or far future, regardless of what happens tomorrow, this is
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always a good question to ask, period.
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Am I doing what I can today to be a better person, right?
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To be someone that has more virtue, to be someone that has
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more love, To be someone that is seeking the will of God in my
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life? That is a good question for all
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of us to ask whether we are married or not married,
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regardless of our state in life. I think sometimes if we're
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thinking. Am I the one?
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We might want to feel 100% we are in the best shape of our
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life. We are healed from any childhood
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wounds we may feel we may have. We have all this money in the
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bank with this great job that's just skyrocketing towards
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success. I mean, we might have these
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unrealistic expectations about what being the one looks like.
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You want to be seeking out good stability in the career that
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you're pursuing. You want to be seeking out
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health in your physical and emotional life.
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You want to be working on prayer.
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But you're not perfect. Nobody is perfect.
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And yeah, you're seeking the best you can be, but you don't
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need to be perfect in order to get married.
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In fact, the reality is, marriage is a journey.
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It's the beginning of something. It's not the destination.
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And it's the beginning of a life hopefully lived growing better
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with somebody else. Like this clip that I saw
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recently? Person is someone who comes
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along a time in our life where we're working on our stuff.
7:07
We haven't fixed it all, We're still working on it.
7:11
They understand the DNA of our particular trauma or healing
7:17
journey or maybe through conversation, they come to
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understand it. They have enough compassion and
7:21
enough empathy that they come to understand it and and us theirs
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and you heal together. You go on that journey together.
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That to me is the right relationship is the one that can
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go on the journey with you. And it's a bit redundant to say,
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but if I was further along on this journey, I would have been
7:35
able to keep this person, but because I had still had too much
7:39
stuff, I lost that person. There's like a science fiction
7:41
element to that, that you know, then then it's not your person.
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Your person is someone who can meet you where you're at and
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grow and heal with you. I think this is great advice and
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Matthew Hussey is this popular advice giving guy on the
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Internet. And I think it's a really wise
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point because the reality is this, we're all in a journey of
7:59
personal improvement as Christians, of sanctity, of
8:01
growing and holiness. And we're looking for someone
8:04
that we can be matched with to continue that journey.
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And neither of us are going to come into that perfect as
8:09
perfect people, but we're going to come into that as people that
8:12
are seeking growth. And you want to be able to seek
8:15
that growth together. So when you are thinking, am I
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the one, you're not thinking, am I the perfect one?
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But you're thinking, am IA one who's seeking growth.
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And when you're looking for that one, you're not looking for the
8:23
perfect one. You're looking for that one who
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is also going to seek growth with you.
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Another important personal basic is this vocationally, you might
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feel if you're not married, you're listening to this, you're
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like, I'm just so wrestling because I just feel like I'm
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called to marriage. I'm called to marriage.
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Vocationally, we don't know that we are called to marriage until
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we actually get married. Vocationally, we don't know that
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it's God's will for us to marry until we're actually married.
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Just like we don't know that we're going to be alive
8:53
tomorrow. It's not like we have this
8:55
promise, this manual that God sent us with our birth that
8:58
tells us, you know, near 10 this is going to happen in year 20.
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This is going to happen when you're 3030 years old, you have
9:03
your first child, 28 you'll get married.
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That that we don't come with a manual where God tells us what
9:08
we're going to do. Occasionally, as you know in
9:09
Holy Scripture, sure, there's divine revelation where God
9:11
specifically calls someone to do something very specific.
9:14
It's very supernatural. But typically speaking for us,
9:18
we have freedom, we have our lives, and we are not promised
9:21
tomorrow. So our job in this life, our
9:24
basic vocation, our shared vocation as human beings and
9:28
lovers of God is to love. And to be loved is to love God,
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love other people, help share the gospel.
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That's the Christian job of on this earth and through love is
9:41
to share the gospel and do our best with the day that we're
9:43
given. So that's meant to comfort you,
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by the way, because I think some people feel like my life hasn't
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started yet. I'm not married.
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Yet think I'm called to marriage, My life must not have
9:51
started yet. No, your life has definitely
9:54
started. If you're listening to this
9:55
podcast, it's completely started.
9:57
You're listening to the show. And today can be your best day
10:00
yet if you're willing to give it to God and do your best to love.
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Even if there's tough stuff that comes your way, unexpected news,
10:06
whatever it is, make this your best day yet by putting the
10:09
maximum amount of love into the day that you're given today.
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And that's your vocation, your universal vocation to love.
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So that's an important place to start from.
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Ask yourself, am I the one? What are you doing to work on
10:20
your own personal development? We talked about that before in
10:22
the podcast. In other episodes, we'll be
10:23
doing future episodes on that. But you want to start from a
10:25
position of humility and reality of saying, what am I doing today
10:28
to grow? And then #2 remember that your
10:31
vocation today is to love, is to seek God in his will, to love
10:36
God and love His will, and to love other people.
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That is your vocation. And find peace and comfort in
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that. Lean into that.
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And that will help dissolve, I think, some of the anxieties we
10:45
can feel when we feel the pressure of, oh, I got to get
10:47
married. I have to be married.
10:48
Otherwise I'm not living my life.
10:49
I'm not in a vocation. Covenant Eyes helps men and
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addiction. Covenant Eyes is a special
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community for support. You can get 30 days of Covenant
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ice for free by going to the link in the description and
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using the code Lila at checkout. OK, Next up, relationship
11:28
basics. These are the basics that you
11:31
need in a relationship with someone for them to be the one
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number one. I think it's essential before
11:37
you marry someone and before they marry you that you are
11:40
attracted to each other. So this is like a basic
11:42
checklist. Now, some people find this a
11:45
little controversial because they think, oh, I just want to
11:49
love someone and find some really good.
11:51
Do it. How attractive do I really have
11:52
to be? You have to be attracted to
11:54
them. That is a fundamental principle.
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I think that anyone who's discerning whether or not
11:58
they're the one should have crossed off, have that box
12:01
checked. They should be attractive to you
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and they should find you attractive.
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Now, you might be thinking, well, how attractive?
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And you know, there's a lot, especially in today with online
12:11
dating and swipe left, swipe right.
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Do I find this person attractive on a first glance?
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I'm not talking about first glance attractiveness based on a
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profile picture on Tinder. In fact, I would argue that that
12:22
is a bad recipe for determining whether or not someone is
12:24
actually attractive to you. Attraction is more than your
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immediate response to them when you see them for the first time.
12:30
Attraction has to do with overall how you feel drawn to
12:33
them as you get to know them. So this is.
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Really important because I don't think we should be writing off
12:38
people that were not wowed by right.
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So if you see something you're like, oh, they're they're maybe
12:43
in your mind you're thinking, oh, they're nice, but I don't
12:46
know that I'm like thinking they're super attractive.
12:48
Well, if you got to know them, maybe you would think they're
12:50
super attractive. So you have to give space in
12:53
getting to know someone to see if that attraction can grow.
12:57
If when you first meet them, you're not attracted at all,
12:59
don't try to make them attractive to you.
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I think it's not. I'm not saying you have to go on
13:03
a date with every single person who might ask you or ask anybody
13:06
that you see if you think they're a good person, you
13:09
should just ask them out. Not necessarily.
13:11
I think there needs to be some attraction there, but physical
13:13
attraction has a lot more to do with and how someone immediately
13:17
looks. It has also to do how they are
13:19
in conversation with you, how they behave around you, how you
13:22
feel around them. There's a lot that goes into it.
13:24
Other people might call that chemistry, right?
13:27
So give it time to grow. But at the end of the day, you
13:30
got to be attracted to them. And some people will say, well,
13:32
how attracted? How attracted do I need to be to
13:35
them? Well, I think you need to be
13:37
pretty attracted to them. Like attractive enough to want
13:40
to build a family with them and make babies with them.
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Like that has to be that level of attraction and want not just
13:46
to make the babies with them, but somebody that you'd want to
13:48
raise babies with. So both of those things should
13:52
go into attraction. But I think sometimes it's a
13:54
tendency, especially in our comparison world of social media
13:56
and all these things are like have like, oh, are they A10?
13:58
Are they, are they, you know, attractive enough for me.
14:02
And I would caution that because I think sometimes we have these
14:04
unrealistic aesthetic standards based on unfortunately, media,
14:09
quite frankly, for how how exactly we want them to be.
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And that can be dangerous because that could actually opt
14:15
us out meeting, getting to know, falling in love with and
14:18
mirroring the the future love of our life.
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This is an ongoing conversation online too.
14:22
This is a clip right here that is going viral.
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I'm looking for a man in finance with trust fund 65 blue eyes.
14:31
Finance trust fund 65 blue eyes. I'm looking for a man.
14:36
I'm looking for a man. I'm looking for a looking for a
14:38
Looking for a finance trust fund 65 blue eyes.
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Finance Trust fund 65 blue eyes. All right, all right.
14:47
So like, yeah, obviously if that's your like a standard for
14:51
attractiveness, they need to be like blue eyed 65 and finance
14:55
with a trust fund. Good luck.
14:56
I'm not sure you're mature enough to get married like that
14:58
is my my tough love talking to you right here.
15:00
So obviously having these like very specific criteria to say
15:07
they need to be this tall, have this color eyes, this color
15:10
hair, this kind of a net worth that I don't think is a good
15:14
starting point for relational basics.
15:16
I think you need to give people a chance and if you feel drawn
15:18
to them, if they are a person that has good virtue, from what
15:22
you can see, they have similar direction in life in terms of
15:25
they want to build a family too. They're working hard, these
15:28
things and you're have attraction towards them.
15:30
I think you need to give it a chance to get to know them all
15:32
right, A couple more things. You need to share the same
15:34
values. You need to feel attracted to
15:36
them and be attracted, and you need to share the same values.
15:39
What do I mean by that? I think values is often
15:41
misunderstood. We think about values in terms
15:43
of, oh, are they a Christian or are they a Catholic or, oh, you
15:46
know, do they love kids? You know, do they love babies?
15:50
Yeah, of course. Those are key questions to ask.
15:52
But going a little deeper, what do they value?
15:55
How do they live their life? If there's someone that may be
15:58
on paper, they check the box of their Christian, right, They're
16:01
Catholic. They they want to have kids,
16:03
they want to get married and have a family, but what are they
16:05
valuing in their day-to-day lives?
16:07
Are they valuing partying and eating out a lot and spending a
16:11
lot of money? And that's just the way they
16:12
kind of operate. Are they valuing community
16:15
service, serving their family, serving their friends, being
16:19
that person that is generous and how they help other people?
16:23
That's a value. That's a way that they're living
16:26
their life in their value system, right?
16:28
Are they? Focused on material things like
16:31
they're always thinking about shopping or they're having the,
16:34
you know, nicer car or how they, they're really focused, hyper
16:37
focused on appearance and maybe they're overspending.
16:40
You know, they seem to be really free with money on all of those
16:42
things. And that's kind of a lot takes
16:44
up a lot of their time and their bandwidth.
16:46
Or are they more focused on things like learning and working
16:50
hard at their job or their career to become better at it
16:54
and to provide or make a good living or help serve people or
16:57
use their talents? Or are they more focused at
16:59
developing deeper friendships or investing time in their family
17:04
and their own mother or father siblings, or, you know, where
17:07
are they putting their focus right?
17:09
Values is really about how do we work operationally in our life?
17:12
What do we focus on in our life? Some people on paper could say
17:16
that their values are XY and Z. But when you get to know them
17:19
and you see how they operate in the world, you realize actually
17:21
they really value these other things.
17:23
And that should be a real bright line for how you determine.
17:27
Is this the person I want to become one flush with #2 in
17:31
addition to the sharing the same values, they should also share
17:34
the same faith and morals. So morals is a little more
17:38
bright line than values. It's less about maybe how you
17:41
spend your time and more about what you do or you don't do in
17:43
terms of good or bad things because you know, clothes and
17:47
cars and valuing your parents, things like that.
17:50
Those are not bad things necessarily, right?
17:51
They can actually be great things.
17:52
It's about how you value those things.
17:54
Morals are different. Does this person share your
17:56
morals? Some very clear bright line
17:58
morals that you should. When you're discerning of
18:00
someone is the one that they're going to respect the fact that
18:03
we don't sleep with people before we're married, we don't
18:06
lust after people, period. As Christians, that's our goal
18:09
is to not lust. And so we avoid lust, and we
18:11
also practice chastity before and after marriage.
18:16
And chastity means loving the person as a subject and not an
18:19
object. So not using someone for sexual
18:22
pleasure, but instead loving someone for who they are and
18:25
putting sex in its proper place. And the proper place of sex, of
18:28
course, is marriage. So that's really a deal breaker
18:31
If you're dating someone that doesn't see sex as belonging
18:33
within marriage, doesn't see sexual things as belonging
18:37
within marriage. That's a bright line.
18:39
They're not living a moral path that would make them a good
18:41
partner for you. Connected to that is faith.
18:43
I do think it's important. To marry someone who shares your
18:46
faith? Is it possible to marry someone
18:48
who doesn't share your faith and just still have a good marriage?
18:51
Yes, I think it is. But I think it is best to seek
18:54
out someone who shares your faith and at minimum they need
18:57
to be someone who supports your faith.
18:59
So this is a bright line. They are not going to be the one
19:02
for you if they take you away from your faith.
19:04
They're not going to be the one for you if they're not willing
19:06
to raise your kids in the faith. They're not going to be the one
19:09
for you if they are in any way going to mock your faith or be a
19:13
stumbling block to the faith. At the minimum, they need to
19:15
support your faith and at maximum, what you're looking for
19:18
is someone who's going to grow in the faith with you.
19:21
Last one, they need to know what marriage is for and be fully
19:26
willing to say yes to that. Now this is a little tricky for
19:29
people today because we've lost sense of what marriage even is.
19:33
A lot of people think marriage is an event.
19:34
Literally it's a wedding that you have and then you go back to
19:38
living with the person like you were before.
19:39
A lot of people are doing it that way, but marriage is so
19:42
much more than just living with someone or having a big party to
19:45
celebrate, exchanging rings with your friends.
19:47
Marriage is about complete self gift of yourself to another
19:51
person. For life until death, do part
19:55
exclusively. That means fidelity, just you
19:58
and them, emotionally, sexually. This is the person for life that
20:02
you're going to pour yourself into and invest in.
20:04
And that this is a marriage that is freely chosen.
20:08
You're not going in into it because you feel coerced or
20:10
pressured. You're freely choosing it.
20:12
They are freely choosing it. And finally, you are open to
20:15
children. You might not be given children
20:18
in your marriage, but you're open to being fruitful and
20:20
bringing children into this world.
20:23
And so for Catholics, that means no contraception.
20:25
We're not going to be contracepting.
20:27
You might use fertility awareness to space your
20:29
pregnancies or to space the time that you may be conceiving, but
20:33
you're not going to be preventing conception through
20:36
artificial means, through contraception.
20:38
And it means generosity, A willingness to bring life into
20:41
the world, and a readiness to raise those children.
20:45
So if the person that you're considering to marry isn't on
20:47
the same page about that, that marriage is exclusive, that it's
20:52
permanent, it's for life. If there's someone going into it
20:56
thinking that, oh, divorce is OK, If things get really bad
21:00
between you guys, you'd fall out of love, things get rough and
21:04
they think of divorce is OK, you can't marry them.
21:06
You're not going into a true marriage with them because they
21:08
need to be all in. And if there's someone who's
21:10
like, I'm not sure if I want kids, I don't know if I want
21:12
them. That's not someone, that's not a
21:15
spouse. That's somebody that maybe wants
21:17
to be a partner in terms of just like live with you and be
21:20
together with you. But that's not a spouse who's
21:22
willing to be fruitful with you and open to fruitfulness with
21:24
you. Now, again, none of us are
21:25
promised children. Some of us have fertility
21:28
issues. But you, the openness has to be
21:30
there. The openness has to be there.
21:32
So are you attracted to them? Do you share the same values,
21:35
morals, and faith? And are you both on the same
21:38
page about what marriage is? And are you both ready and
21:41
willing to say yes to each other?
21:43
If those things are in line, you're good.
21:46
That's a very good foundation to work off of when determining if
21:50
this is the one. Love your neighbor.
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22:07
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Some more red flags to run through in your discernment
23:36
process. All right, we talked about this
23:38
earlier, but it is possible to have standards that are too high
23:41
and unrealistic for a person, especially when you're first
23:44
meeting them that prevent you from getting to know them.
23:46
You know, certain superficial standards about how they have to
23:48
look or things they have to be interested in.
23:51
You might think, oh, I have this type.
23:53
My type is that they're a musician that has tattoos that
23:57
is really reckless and loves to ride motorcycles.
24:01
I don't know, right? Or my type is, you know, some
24:03
someone who's really, you know, wearing a suit and like has a
24:06
job in finance, trust fund, 65 blue eyes, whatever, right?
24:10
Or my type is somebody that's really into reading and loves to
24:15
study and is really theological and philosophical and you know,
24:19
you might have these ideas of what your type is.
24:22
I would caution you about your type because the truth is many
24:27
of us, for all of the self-awareness we think we have,
24:30
we're not perfectly self aware. And if you feel a sense of
24:33
drawnness to someone, if they match you when it comes to your
24:36
morals, to your faith, if you have an attraction towards them,
24:39
don't write them off just because they're not your type.
24:42
Don't write them off because they have a tattoo.
24:45
Don't write them off because they don't have tattoos.
24:47
Some of these things I think are very arbitrary and you got to be
24:50
wary about maybe biases that you have against certain things or
24:55
for certain things that are not really that important.
24:58
In the long run now motorcycle, I'm not a huge fan.
25:01
My husband was riding a motorcycle.
25:03
Now we have little kids. Be like too much risk.
25:04
I don't like it. That's different, right?
25:06
But I'm more talking about when you're getting to know somebody,
25:09
OK? When you're getting to know
25:11
somebody, be open. Be open because you might be
25:15
just. You might be surprised by
25:18
finding out down the line that you've come to love this person
25:21
and want them to be the one. And they might look different
25:25
than what you expected or what you thought you wanted when you
25:28
first went into dating. A couple good red flag questions
25:32
to ask to test as a stress test. Your discernment process.
25:36
Would you want this person to raise your child?
25:38
Would you want this person to be the mother or the father of your
25:41
child if, God forbid, you passed away?
25:44
Would you entrust this person with your future offspring?
25:47
Another red flag. And this is especially for the
25:50
ladies or the guys out there who I can relate to this because I
25:53
was like this in the past, where you get very drawn or excited by
25:57
very intense people and intense experiences.
26:01
And there's something almost tempting about someone who is
26:05
hard to get, or there's someone tempting about somebody who
26:08
seems mysterious and kind of goes dark on you or something.
26:11
Something about someone who's themselves pretty troubled and
26:14
maybe rough around the edges. You know, sort of that edgy,
26:17
edgy thing which has very intense experiences that
26:20
accompanies it. And if you're drawn to that, it
26:23
might be because you have a wound in how you were attached
26:26
to your parent as you were growing up.
26:27
Now, we're not going to get into all the details on this.
26:29
There's something called attachment styles.
26:31
You might have grown up thinking that love involved people that
26:35
disappeared and then came back, or loved involved people that
26:38
were unpredictable, or love involved somebody who was quite
26:41
frankly, technically maybe abusive, or they would yell.
26:44
And your view or your experience of love has been a little bit
26:47
twisted. So you got to be on guard with
26:49
this, no? I don't think he's right.
26:51
For me, it's a pass. He's so direct, you know?
26:54
There's no surprises there. There's not a lot to discover.
26:57
It's nice to be so physically, emotionally attracted to
27:02
someone, but that's not what life is.
27:06
Life is about challenges and shadows and corners and feeling
27:10
weird. All right, I mean, there you go.
27:12
It's like they're this guy. Really.
27:14
She's like looking for it to be weird and intense and hot and
27:17
cold and oh, they're too emotionally stable and the
27:20
relationship almost feels too good.
27:21
So I'm going to run from this. It feels too normal.
27:24
You. Want to leave the person that
27:26
you are falling in love with with a feeling of peace?
27:29
Someone compared it to me once when I was in my 20s and going
27:32
dating and everything. You want it to be like the same
27:34
way you feel after you have hung out with your grandma.
27:36
If your grandma's a sweetheart, right?
27:38
But the idea is like you want it to feel peaceful, not feel like
27:42
you. Don't know what to expect.
27:43
There's all this. Tumult and torment.
27:45
It's hot and cold. That is not recipe.
27:47
For a healthy. Relationship and that is
27:48
definitely a red flag. Other red flags.
27:50
You want to. Avoid complexes that you might
27:52
bring into dating. Number one complex could be a
27:55
Messiah complex or a missionary dating complex where you're
27:58
going into dating to fix somebody.
28:01
You're going into dating because you feel really bad for somebody
28:04
and you just love them and you want to take care of them.
28:06
You're going into dating because you think that dating and
28:11
marriage marriage is just hard and this person is going to be
28:14
your cross. And so there it's just really,
28:16
you know, you feel like there's just like a lot of spirituality
28:20
wound up and oh, I have to sort of suffer through this thing
28:22
with this person, but that's going to help me become a better
28:25
person. No, you shouldn't be choosing
28:27
marriage with a person so that you can suffer.
28:30
Suffering will come in life period.
28:33
And you shouldn't of course be running from any suffering, but
28:36
you need to be careful about complexes that might arise
28:38
because some people go into it feeling really drawn to.
28:41
To someone who's deeply wounded or maybe because of the wounds
28:44
that you might have, you might go into a relationship and feel
28:48
that there's this excitement with the relationship because
28:50
the way that your wounds, both of you are interacting with each
28:53
other. There's a lot more to say about
28:55
this, by the way. A lot of it has to do with how
28:58
we attach to other people and our attachment disorders we
29:01
might have or the way that we're drawn to people.
29:04
We're not going to get into all of that right now, but suffice
29:07
to say for today, you want to ensure that when you're
29:10
discerning of somebody. Is the one you're thinking
29:13
through, Am I going into this from a place of health or
29:16
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American Meat Delivered. Principles for active
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discernment. All right, you have your
30:36
personal basics down. You're, you're working on
30:38
personal development, you're working on your spiritual
30:40
growth, you're working on your relationship growth, your
30:43
emotional growth. In addition to that, there's
30:45
also relationship basics that are checked off, right?
30:47
This is someone who shares your morals, your values, your faith.
30:50
This is someone that has the same view as marriage that you
30:53
do. So much of discernment, I think,
30:55
can be boiled down to the simple recipe.
30:57
And I got this recipe from my spiritual director back in the
31:00
day, and I've given this advice to countless people.
31:02
I know a lot of people have used this and it's really helped
31:05
them. And it's very simple.
31:06
I like that. Discernment about whether or not
31:08
someone is for you should start in the heart.
31:10
You should feel drawn to them. You should feel an attraction
31:13
towards them. It needs to go to the head where
31:17
you go through this. Yeah.
31:18
It involves, in a sense, a checklist of getting to know
31:20
them, understanding them. Is this somebody that I would
31:23
raise children with, that I would entrust my life to?
31:26
This is where you ask those questions about do they share
31:29
your values? Do they share your morals?
31:32
Do they share your faith? Is this somebody that has the
31:34
same view of marriage as I do? Is this somebody that is also
31:38
ready to freely commit to a marriage and everything on a
31:40
marriage entails, right? You go and do that relational
31:44
homework, so to speak, and really getting to know someone.
31:46
And by the way, that process should not feel like some big
31:49
chore, OK? You should enjoy yourself, I
31:52
think as best you can in dating and getting to know someone.
31:55
This is a human being, a beautiful soul that you're
31:57
getting to spend time with and that hopefully you can edify and
32:01
they can edify you regardless of whether or not you choose to be
32:04
with each other. So the whole process of your
32:07
head, when I say checklist, yes, it is a checklist in many ways
32:10
to ensure that this is the right person thinking through, if this
32:14
is the right person experiencing it through with them.
32:17
But it's also a beautiful soul, a friend that you're deepening a
32:20
relationship with that you can hopefully learn from and they
32:23
can learn from you. A nice principle here is you
32:26
want to leave people better than you found them.
32:29
I really thought about this a lot in my 20s when I was dating
32:32
a lot. That I hope that I could be left
32:34
better than I was found when I got into a relationship with
32:37
someone and I want to leave them better than I found them. 1
32:41
surefire way to ensure that that's possible is to avoid
32:45
having sex with them, getting sexual with them, protecting
32:48
chastity with them so that you're not objectifying them and
32:51
instead you're seeing them as the soul that God is giving you
32:54
this time with. That is a good way to put a
32:56
firewall around the relationship so that you're not sabotaging
32:59
yourself. And then?
33:01
But you want to be edified by them, you want to learn from
33:04
them, you want to be able to share experiences with them.
33:07
All of that is normal and healthy.
33:09
It starts in the heart, it goes to the head.
33:10
And then if it checks out in the head, send it back to the heart.
33:13
Is this someone you really want to say yes to, or is this
33:16
someone, if you're the guy that you really want to ask?
33:19
And some people wrestle with that like, oh, I don't know, do
33:21
I really want it? Do I want it enough?
33:23
There's real discernment inks that can come there.
33:26
Because different people have different issues or different
33:30
temperaments. And that's where it's really
33:32
important to have good community and a good guide, a spiritual
33:36
mentor that you can talk about the relationship with or wise
33:40
people that you can talk about the relationship with because
33:43
they will know you. You want people that know you
33:45
and get to know you because maybe you're the kind of person
33:47
that needs to be kind of nudged to do the right thing.
33:50
Maybe you're like struggling with paralysis or a nurse.
33:52
You're like, should I ask them or not to marry me?
33:54
I don't know. And you need someone to be like,
33:56
you got this. You're you're 90% of the way
33:59
there. You you love them.
34:00
The time's right. You're ready to get married.
34:02
Just go for it. Jump off the Cliff.
34:04
Or maybe you're the kind of person that's really impulsive
34:06
and you're jumping off too many cliffs and your advisor in your
34:10
life or what are your mentors is like, you know, you're kind of
34:13
rushing into this. You're being impulsive, you're
34:15
super attractive. It's only been a couple months.
34:17
Like, Are you sure you're ready to get down on one knee?
34:20
Or Are you sure you're ready to say yes if they got down on one
34:22
knee? So having those voices in your
34:25
life of people who know you and love you and are wiser than you,
34:28
at least in certain areas, is really, really helpful.
34:32
I don't think we're meant to discern things all by yourself.
34:35
I think we're supposed to have other people guide us along the
34:38
way. Now, this doesn't mean you have
34:39
a committee of like 50 people that you get their votes on
34:41
whether or not you should move board of the relationship.
34:43
No, don't do that. But have people in your corner
34:46
who love you, who want you to succeed, who have wisdom, who
34:50
understand you at least understand you pretty well.
34:54
And that could be sounding boards for you as you're making
34:57
such a huge decision as whether or not to marry someone.
35:01
But if it goes back to your heart and the heart ultimately
35:03
is a yes, I want this. And if the other person wants to
35:07
marry you too, you are golden. You are now on your path to
35:12
marrying the One, and they will officially become the One after
35:17
the vows have been said. There you go, there's your
35:20
primer. I think sometimes we
35:22
overcomplicate discernment. We're looking for these special
35:25
signs from God to tell us we should do something when a lot
35:29
of the time God is going to work through our desires.
35:32
He's going to work through the people that are wise, that we
35:35
know, that love us. And He's going to work through
35:37
the relationship that we're exploring and discovering with
35:40
another person to give us the confirmation both in her heart
35:44
and her head that we can move forward and say yes.
35:47
In the end, the beautiful thing is this, you can't go wrong if
35:50
you're practicing these basic principles, if you're going into
35:53
it understanding what marriage is with enough of your own
35:55
self-awareness, you're seeking someone who shares your values,
35:58
your morals, your faith, and you're truly getting to know
36:01
them. If they want to marry you and
36:03
you want to marry them, there's no significant reason why not to
36:06
get married. You should go for it.
36:08
That's the beauty of this is that we have the gift of freedom
36:10
that God has given each of us. And it's not like God is waiting
36:14
for us to accidentally marry someone to make some big mistake
36:17
in our life. That's not how God works.
36:19
He works through our reason. He works through the events of
36:22
our life. He works with the wise people
36:23
that might be in our life, and He works through the desires.
36:26
Of our heart. I hope this episode was helpful
36:28
for you. If it was, please send this to a
36:30
friend. I want to spread this
36:32
information far and wide because a lot of people are wrestling
36:35
with these questions. And as always, thank you so much
36:37
for listening to the Lila Rose Podcast.
36:40
We'll see you guys next time. A huge thank you to our partner.
36:43
EWTNEWTN is the world's leading Catholic network, reaching
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millions with the truth about the faith, entertainment and
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news. Check them out at ewtn.com.