You found her. She’s everything you could ask for. Sure, she has some quirks and some habits you wish she didn’t, but she doesn’t have any character flaws. She’s the one.
When you reach this seminal moment in your relationship, you’re in a unique place. You’ve been dating for an extended period of time. There is no specific “hard and fast rule” for when you should get engaged, but a good rule of thumb is at least one year. After a year, you’ve seen your girlfriend through all seasons, you’ve had a chance to meet each other’s families, and you’ve seen each other in both good and difficult times.
It’s important to understand what an engagement really is. It isn’t a “waiting period” before you actually get married, and it isn’t a “planning period,” although it may feel like it. It’s also not a way telling your friends how in love you are or a chance to buy your beloved a flashy ring.
A Sacramental Marriage has two parts: the contract and the covenant. This isn’t a contract in a purely legal sense, but it’s a mutual declaration of intentions. It’s you and your fiancée mutually agreeing to marry each other. This is what the Gospels were talking about when Mary was “betrothed” to Joseph. They weren’t married, but they had declared mutual intent. The Sacrament of Marriage is the covenant. Sacramental Marriage is when you confer the Sacrament on each other, blessed by the Church, and sealed by God. Forever.
Ok, cool theology. What does it have to do with a proposal? Simply this: proposing to your girlfriend isn’t a cute story you two share or a chance to post a life event on Facebook. It’s very difficult, particularly emotionally, to break off an engagement. You really need to do your homework, get above your emotions, and spend time prayerfully discerning this move.
You don’t need to do a 30 day silent retreat, but you also shouldn’t make the decision while drinking with your buddies. This is likely the first time you’ve had to make a decision requiring this much maturity. What we’re talking about is making a commitment for a lifetime. Don’t be an idiot and rush it. While “popping the question” should have an element of surprise in it, entering into an engagement should be no surprise. If it is, you’re doing it wrong.
In-depth preparation is critical to laying a solid foundation for your marriage. You need to talk with your fiancée about four critical areas of life: religion, children, finance, and in-laws. You will hammer these out further during your engagement, but you at least need to know that on a basic level you are compatible together.
You want to drill into these conversations to establish a starting point to work from. You can’t predict the rest of your lives, but if you aren’t starting with mutual understanding, you’re off to a bad start.
That’s not to say that you need to be in lockstep with each other. There will be differences. You’re different people with different life experiences. What you do with those differences is key. You need to understand both how they will affect you and how you will deal with them.
Each of you will enter into your marriage with a different view on what marriage is and what it means. These world views will be based on the previous experiences you’ve had with marriage. You each need to understand how you’ve both seen marriage play out in the real world. For example, if one of you has had divorce in your family, you’ll want to deeply explore that. What did you perceive as the main cause? What was the actual cause? How are you going to live your marriage differently so you can protect it? You’ll need to explore these topics more during your engagement, but make sure that before you enter into the contract, you know who you are getting into it with.
