Imagine you are a college student who wants a spouse but doesn’t know where to start. What do you do?

In this post, I will discuss the four steps that will prepare you for marriage, and they are date, courtship, engagement, and marriage. I am doing this because love is very important to our psychological, physical, and spiritual way of being; we truly need affection, intimacy, and romantic relationships.

Dating

Most people are hanging out and then hooking up. This is not an effective way to date.

There is a concept called casual dating that I would suggest we do, where a man and a woman make a plan to go out for a time, get to know one another a bit and enjoy time together, and then go their separate ways to their homes. Sounds pretty basic right? What is different about this type of dating is that there is no pressure on either the male or female to think of this person as someone to marry. This type of dating is focused on becoming friends and learning more about each other. Many people believe that males and females do not ask the other out on dates because they are afraid that the person they are asking will think they want a permanent relationship. Casual dating helps rid of fear and make dating fun, not scary.

Dating also doesn’t have to be for a long time nor expensive. For example, for Prom, many high school students make it an all-day event starting at 11:00 am going to almost midnight where the food and activities are quite expensive. Some of the best dates I have been on have been to get a $1 ice cream cone and walk around the park for an hour.

Dating is supposed to be a fun way to get to know what you would like to have in a future spouse and how you would like to grow and change before you are marriage-ready. Dating is not the time to commit to marriage. Dating is also not the time to commit to being with someone in exclusive dating; this comes later. When dating, it is good to go on dates with a variety of people to see what you like. When dating a variety of people, it is best to stay away from kissing and holding hands, as this can be misleading.

Dating like this is better than hanging out because it is clear who you are with and where your focus should be. A date is also meant to be planned while hanging out often does not tell you when it is meant to end. Having an ending point makes dating less stressful for both individuals.

Courtship

After dating comes courtship. This is the time when, after you have gone on a few dates with someone, you decide you really like them and they really like you, so you both agree to date exclusively. This is when you don’t go on dates with anyone else; you go on dates with and focus on getting to know this particular person more in-depth. This is the time when you start to date for the purpose of marriage; you are trying to see if this is the person you want to one day marry. It is not a commitment to marry, but a consideration to marry. It is important to not touch or be physically intimate with a person more than you know them. In short, spend much more time going on dates and talking than kissing or holding hands. Remember this principle: it takes 3 months for you to just begin to know a person. It takes a while to really get to know someone, so be careful with how much trust, reliance, commitment, and attachment you give this person until you know them better.

Engagement

After courting this person for a while, you decide that this person has all the things you want in a spouse, so you propose and she says yes! Engagement is a crucial step; it formally states to each other and all else that you are committed to marrying that person. Now, you can still break off an engagement if you feel need be, but an engagement tells the other individual that you are working toward marriage with them, so strive to be sure with yourself and the Lord that this is the person you desire to marry.

Marriage

The last step is marriage. After getting married, be sure to continue to date your spouse -ACTUALLY date. Be sure to put even more commitment into your marriage than you did in your courtship and engagement. Give 100% of yourself to your spouse and to God, and your marriage will be rewarding and happy. Not easy, but definitely happy.