Geez, on the polygyny websites, couples would complain about women doing that so that is why I let them come to me. I mean... Couples have less to lose than me. I have everything to lose.
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Courtship?
- Thread starter Obedient Christian girl
- Start date
Geez, on the polygyny websites, couples would complain about women doing that so that is why I let them come to me. I mean... Couples have less to lose than me. I have everything to lose.
Oh I know but I am a person who was raised to have her heart on her sleeve and... It hurts when I am 100% myself and all of that gets rejected. Over... And over and over.
I’m sorry, that’s why Yah had a system where females are to be under protection. Virtually nobody follows this anymore and females suffer.
I pray that you find your proper head and have the protection that you need. In the meantime it’s a bummer.
And that's what the lesbian feminists have wanted for over 170 years.
I guess that is why they would see us and go "You're anti-patriachy? Reee! How toxic! You're the problem."
I'm like "Well sorry that I am comfortable with who I am and have to feel like a victim. Or looking for things to be a victim." <.<
What follows is one of those discussions that demonstrates how varying perspectives can produce crystal-clear truths.
And collectively as a culture, we have been fools to treat their agenda as having legitimacy; it's analogous to ranchers taking advice from vegans about how to raise cattle.
@Philip, there is also no way my wife and I would be sitting here with 34 years of marriage and four children under our belts if she hadn't been not only the one to initiate things but insistent that we get married 4 weeks after our first date when I both thought I wasn't ready and was initially certain that marrying an 18-year-old coed at the strict Roman Catholic university where I worked and lived on campus might be the biggest unforced error of my life. I wasn't opposed to women being forward back then, but no one could now convince me that women are not permitted to initiate relationships. Kristin and I have wrestled with tremendous marital challenges, but few of them can be blamed on our age difference (in fact, the age difference can be more properly credited with giving us the resilience to soldier through our difficulties), and none of them can be traced back to some failure on my part to make the first move (which would have never happened -- not with her). So thanks for your perspective.
@USDutchkitty, my heart hurts for you that you have experienced so much rejection, but at the same time my head and my heart are chiming in with, "So now you have some idea what it's like to be a man every day of the week, every week of the year, and every year of one's life." Most aspects of our culture task us as males with the full burden of making all the firsts moves. This puts women in the position of being the gatekeepers, and I can promise you that the vast majority of them range from insensitive to callously humiliating in their responses to men's entreaties to dance, date, diddle or just do coffee. It's why a rather large minority of men can't even be bothered to seek a partner. It sucks to be turned down, and being told it's not personal doesn't help. Again, I'll return to the theme that we are not to seek approval from the world but to seek it from our Creator -- but there's also this: each sting, if you don't let it take you out of the game altogether, mounts up to become part of the contrast that will make you appreciate all the more the one who down the road doesn't reject you. Each of us has hir own individual challenges when it comes to the dating marketplace, so while tropes like it not being lady-like to make the first move may reflect some general truth, they don't apply across the board. The question trying to shout its way out of my brain when I read your post was, "Which do you want more: to be seen as a lady or to have a husband?"
@steve is pointing toward one of the dynamics back in play when polygyny is considered as an option: women have many more possibilities open to them, because a woman doesn't have to limit herself to just the leftovers, but we aren't living in Nirvana and instead are still in the current cultural construct, which means that with having the option of marrying a man who already has a wife, any given woman considering such a man has to recognize that the dynamics about who should do the approaching are turned on their head because the culture is still so virulently opposed to accepting polygamy. You may not realize it, Kitty, but the cultural penalties for participating in polygamy are far greater for the men than they are for the women. The feminists may feel sorry for sister wives, but they are just one small subset of our culture that has true fury toward men who would be married to more than one woman. Yes, you have to face the sting of rejection, but, again, that is something for which men also have to be prepared. If you're rejected by a plural family and you seek sympathy, you will get it from just about anyone, and the worst that will be added to it is some encouragement to see that you dodged a bullet by not getting into one of those weird cults. For men who are already married, though, on top of the rejection they have to juggle the risk that being rejected by any particular woman can lead to actions on that woman's part that will threaten the peace and tranquility -- and perhaps even the safety -- of the family over which they have headship.
When, as a single woman, you indicate your interest in being part of a plural family, you provide something the man you're waiting to pursue you can never provide: alleviation of a significant degree of the fear that you might enlist others to bring trouble to that man's family.
I know: it hurts to be rejected, but the only ways to prevent those who do the pursuing from having to experience rejection are (a) arranged marriages; and (b) insisting that anyone who is propositioned is required to consent. Absent those options that take freedom of choice out of the equation, when one approaches another person with one's romantic interest, one has to honor that that person has a whole host of preferences and consideration that aren't personal but may indeed rule one out. I therefore encourage you to give yourself a 'moment' to fully grasp the sting of the rejection but then refocus your energies on whatever all the motivations were that propelled you to risk the rejection in the first place, keep those motivations front and center -- and go back out and risk rejection all over again.
Because the motivations are what makes the world go round.
And collectively as a culture, we have been fools to treat their agenda as having legitimacy; it's analogous to ranchers taking advice from vegans about how to raise cattle.
@Philip, there is also no way my wife and I would be sitting here with 34 years of marriage and four children under our belts if she hadn't been not only the one to initiate things but insistent that we get married 4 weeks after our first date when I both thought I wasn't ready and was initially certain that marrying an 18-year-old coed at the strict Roman Catholic university where I worked and lived on campus might be the biggest unforced error of my life. I wasn't opposed to women being forward back then, but no one could now convince me that women are not permitted to initiate relationships. Kristin and I have wrestled with tremendous marital challenges, but few of them can be blamed on our age difference (in fact, the age difference can be more properly credited with giving us the resilience to soldier through our difficulties), and none of them can be traced back to some failure on my part to make the first move (which would have never happened -- not with her). So thanks for your perspective.
@USDutchkitty, my heart hurts for you that you have experienced so much rejection, but at the same time my head and my heart are chiming in with, "So now you have some idea what it's like to be a man every day of the week, every week of the year, and every year of one's life." Most aspects of our culture task us as males with the full burden of making all the firsts moves. This puts women in the position of being the gatekeepers, and I can promise you that the vast majority of them range from insensitive to callously humiliating in their responses to men's entreaties to dance, date, diddle or just do coffee. It's why a rather large minority of men can't even be bothered to seek a partner. It sucks to be turned down, and being told it's not personal doesn't help. Again, I'll return to the theme that we are not to seek approval from the world but to seek it from our Creator -- but there's also this: each sting, if you don't let it take you out of the game altogether, mounts up to become part of the contrast that will make you appreciate all the more the one who down the road doesn't reject you. Each of us has hir own individual challenges when it comes to the dating marketplace, so while tropes like it not being lady-like to make the first move may reflect some general truth, they don't apply across the board. The question trying to shout its way out of my brain when I read your post was, "Which do you want more: to be seen as a lady or to have a husband?"
@steve is pointing toward one of the dynamics back in play when polygyny is considered as an option: women have many more possibilities open to them, because a woman doesn't have to limit herself to just the leftovers, but we aren't living in Nirvana and instead are still in the current cultural construct, which means that with having the option of marrying a man who already has a wife, any given woman considering such a man has to recognize that the dynamics about who should do the approaching are turned on their head because the culture is still so virulently opposed to accepting polygamy. You may not realize it, Kitty, but the cultural penalties for participating in polygamy are far greater for the men than they are for the women. The feminists may feel sorry for sister wives, but they are just one small subset of our culture that has true fury toward men who would be married to more than one woman. Yes, you have to face the sting of rejection, but, again, that is something for which men also have to be prepared. If you're rejected by a plural family and you seek sympathy, you will get it from just about anyone, and the worst that will be added to it is some encouragement to see that you dodged a bullet by not getting into one of those weird cults. For men who are already married, though, on top of the rejection they have to juggle the risk that being rejected by any particular woman can lead to actions on that woman's part that will threaten the peace and tranquility -- and perhaps even the safety -- of the family over which they have headship.
When, as a single woman, you indicate your interest in being part of a plural family, you provide something the man you're waiting to pursue you can never provide: alleviation of a significant degree of the fear that you might enlist others to bring trouble to that man's family.
I know: it hurts to be rejected, but the only ways to prevent those who do the pursuing from having to experience rejection are (a) arranged marriages; and (b) insisting that anyone who is propositioned is required to consent. Absent those options that take freedom of choice out of the equation, when one approaches another person with one's romantic interest, one has to honor that that person has a whole host of preferences and consideration that aren't personal but may indeed rule one out. I therefore encourage you to give yourself a 'moment' to fully grasp the sting of the rejection but then refocus your energies on whatever all the motivations were that propelled you to risk the rejection in the first place, keep those motivations front and center -- and go back out and risk rejection all over again.
Because the motivations are what makes the world go round.
I don't disagree at all, I know it is a hangup and a lot of the time I know it is me thinking "Gosh, I don't want to come across to strong. They'll think I'm desperate." Yeah I know a lot of it has to do with approval from the world but again, how I was raised with the Witnesses had a lot. Even me saying "Oh I have a crush on someone." I was six years old btw, they took the boy from the class he shared with me and put him in another class. VERY strict, conservative Witnesses. This was the 90s and I thought it was my fault. I think it also has to do with how my parents hated my last boyfriend and the trauma he inflicted on me... He betrayed not only my trust but my parents' as well. I nearly died because of his chosen neglect. So taking 10 years for me to put myself out, especially within this, I think is very out of my field of comfort and I surprise myself every day.
I was originally going to respond to this in private but gave it another thought and decided to respond here.
You're right that it can't always be the man who's responsible for asking to have a relationship. It's got to come from us too.
And I think I come up short that way and what you wrote here encourages me to work on this. Thank you.
It does, absolutely, just wish I was told this a lot sooner.
That's funny, because you inspired some of what I wrote! Obviously, you are not in the market to join another family (!), but you are a tremendous communicator, @MeganC, and I find it difficult to imagine that, in such a hypothetical situation, either the potential husband or any of his family members would have much doubt about it if you expressed interest.
And it doesn't even require blunt straightforwardness.
@USDutchkitty, keep in mind that most men live in the Land of Just Give Me a Crumb, so one doesn't have to say something as stark as, "I would like to court you for the purpose of becoming your next wife." For example, in most cases a combination of verbally complimenting a man for his family and some mild flirting or offering of one's phone number along with indicating a desire to keep in touch would probably go a really long way toward jump-starting the attention of a man who has the potential to be interested in you.
In general, the men attending BF gatherings who are in their lives seeking additional wives outnumber the single women who show up who are seeking already-married men for husbands. However, in my own limited experience, there is usually at least one. At one such conference not too many years ago, one such woman attended, and I observed at least half a dozen men approach her expressing obvious non-verbal interest. I also observed her putting out signals to two other men during the course of the weekend (yes, I'll acknowledge envy in that regard), one of which I am certain as a result of her signals subsequently spent hours with her discussing the possibility of pursuing the possibility of bringing her into his family. I don't know what happened with the other man, and I also don't know what happened with this young woman, but I'm giving this to you as an example that one wouldn't have to be as direct as men are generally expected to be.
I'll end this message, though, by rephrasing my earlier cautionary warning: no approach is a guaranteed path to success when it comes to matters of the heart. For whatever reason, our Creator didn't design us with 1-to-1 reciprocal romantic attraction. I can't tell you how many times in my life I've been convinced that a woman and I would make a perfect match but, for her, I might as well have been chopped liver. I've even experienced the same thing in reverse, situations in which I couldn't imagine why a woman had become convinced that I would reciprocate her interest or how in the world she'd concluded that I'd be good for her. Attractions, preferences, even pheromones, are funny that way. I learned a long time ago -- and I've taught my children the same thing -- that coming up short in the realm of approaching someone for the purpose of initiating a dating sequence isn't only a success when the response is a Yes, because when it's a No it still functions as part of the practice one needs along the pathways toward establishing and sustaining a long-term relationship.
I need to say 3 things more:
1) Most of the people on the so called poly dating sites are not interested in anything biblical, so I'm not surprised that they are lacking in kindness.
2) Is it really so bad to be or to appear desperate? Before recent times, wasn't it normal for all girls to be desperate to be married? Should biblically minded couples expect that, especially since they are even more desperate?
3) There is a huge difference in rejection, when it comes to a man rejecting a woman vs a woman rejecting a man. When a man rejects a woman, it is usually a quiet and gentle thing. It hurts of course, but you only have the hurt of being turned down. When a woman rejects a man, she is much more likely to be mean about it, probably will avoid him forever after, usually tells all the other females she knows about it, which then in turn causes all of them to avoid him forever after, and she likely will complain to leaders in the fellowship and try to get you banished. In other words, for a man, a single rejection can very quickly snowball into being rejected by everyone, even other men. A woman rejecting a woman can go the same route though. So going through the wife is risky if you don't know her well or where she stands.
1) Most of the people on the so called poly dating sites are not interested in anything biblical, so I'm not surprised that they are lacking in kindness.
2) Is it really so bad to be or to appear desperate? Before recent times, wasn't it normal for all girls to be desperate to be married? Should biblically minded couples expect that, especially since they are even more desperate?
3) There is a huge difference in rejection, when it comes to a man rejecting a woman vs a woman rejecting a man. When a man rejects a woman, it is usually a quiet and gentle thing. It hurts of course, but you only have the hurt of being turned down. When a woman rejects a man, she is much more likely to be mean about it, probably will avoid him forever after, usually tells all the other females she knows about it, which then in turn causes all of them to avoid him forever after, and she likely will complain to leaders in the fellowship and try to get you banished. In other words, for a man, a single rejection can very quickly snowball into being rejected by everyone, even other men. A woman rejecting a woman can go the same route though. So going through the wife is risky if you don't know her well or where she stands.
You're inspiring some more thoughts relating to this discussion, some of which I've written in the past but which apply here as well.
On top of the now-typical implementation of polyamory reflecting a lack of caring for others, there's almost a total correlation between progressive wokeness and meanness.
Ironically, though, aside from some straight-up scammers, the people on Ashley Madison were almost entirely nice to me, even though I wasn't looking to have an affair, the primary purpose of Ashley Madison. I also got a lot of interest, including a woman I met with a few times. She and I have purposefully and mutually lost touch in the last couple years, but of the women with whom I had a mutual interest, she probably came the closest to becoming part of our family.
Amen, @Philip. I would add that this has increasingly become an issue among the non-polygamy and non-patriarch mainstream culture: the worrying about whether one appears to be desperate. It's almost become more cool to be desperate to make sure one got the right extra flavor added to one's Starbucks concoction, as if desiring a strong connection with someone is something one should be blasé about.
Yeah, being taught "If you are actively seeking out someone, you're desperate and you're a... You know. For women, anyway. Even with me looking online, people see it as "bottom of the bucket" quality of searching. But I will say, saying to men "I am looking for a husband, not a booty call", they drop off like someone folding in at poker.
Yeah, well, did you know that the most popular online behavior is viewing porn? My point is that there is what people say, and then there is what people do! How many people do you know who brag about viewing porn at work (70% is done while on the clock supposedly being paid to do something else). The same thing is true for dating sites.
There's also this: culturally (mostly due to progressivism), we have systematically eliminated the top 4 means by which people found their mates:
- Workplace romances: traditionally, secretarial positions used to more likely result in marriage to one's boss than lasting long enough in the position to earn the gold watch.
- Bars: now eschewed by both feminists and conservatives as a place to meet someone for anything but a hook-up.
- Church: add the general trend toward corporatism to the secularization of our culture, and it's a done deal that almost no one attends church between the ages of 15 and already-married-with-children.
- School: between being programmed to believe that one is too young to marry as a teenager and the sexual-harassment-accusation dangers (not to mention that 2/3 of undergrads are now females), people now rarely meet their spouses while in classes with them. Universities are just Tinder Town these days, where the young women face great pressure to put out because they so clearly outnumber the young men. Long gone are the days like when I went to college and the majority of the young women there were very blatantly seeking their Mrs Degree. And that doesn't even take into account the near elimination of what was, 40 years ago, entirely common: girls (and even sometimes boys) marrying their professors.
I hate saying that “I agree just to agree” but I see nothing to disagree about. The church I go too, yes people think that is the way to go to meet people but in my age range? For marriage? Nope.
I bet especially if plural isn’t an option there.
What denomination do you attend?
Oh no but after I had sepsis in ‘08, a family friend introduced me to his wife who has Crohns and they attended a Nazarene church. Very relax in atmosphere, not stuffy. I mean, I say non-denominational because for me, I haven’t found where I am mentally, spiritually comfortable. Especially when in terms of my own beliefs but are they nice and don’t try to throw the Bible down my throat? No. I mean, for a long time I felt religiously homeless.
I read this and thought if the scene in the substitute wife where the widdow comes to dinner...and the man just says "I know why your here and you may as well know now I won't be marrying you. My wife is a good cook and your welcome to stay for dinner." Then he walks out.
The wife was upset, but as he explained "She didn't give me the tingles. "
My sis dated a guy she was sure would be a great husband and father, and he had a fun personality. She said there was no chemistry. It does have to have all elements to be really rewarding for all.
This is so true.