{"id":27250,"date":"2015-11-17T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=27250"},"modified":"2015-11-15T11:44:17","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T15:44:17","slug":"when-courtship-means-regret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2015\/11\/when-courtship-means-regret.html","title":{"rendered":"When Courtship Means Regret"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Over and over and over again as a girl, I was taught that marrying through a parent-guided courtship would mean I wouldn\u2019t have any regrets. My mom used to talk about her past relationships, before she met my dad, with a great deal of regret. She wished she hadn\u2019t done things she did and dated the people she did. She regretted it, she would tell me, and she wanted to save me from having regrets of my own. And the magic relationship secret that would save a couple from having any regrets was simple\u2014courtship.<\/p>\n

Check out this paragraph from the Duggar\u2019s 7 Rules of Courtship<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The Duggars ask their daughters and their beaus to set their own boundaries on the physical side, and to share those boundaries with them. In Jessa and Ben\u2019s case, the couple decided to give each other hugs when they are greeting or saying goodbye, or posing for a picture. \u201cBut they have committed to waiting for the first kiss till marriage,\u201d Jim Bob says. They will also wait until they are engaged before they hold hands. \u201cWe believe it\u2019s best for them to save the physical part for marriage,\u201d says Michelle. \u201cThat way there\u2019s no regrets.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But today, I\u2019m noticing a bit of a pattern. Last month someone posted in a homeschool alumni group I\u2019m in about regrets she had about her courtship, and I watched, fascinating, as one after another hopped on to share their own regrets. They wished they\u2019d just kissed and had done with it, that they had been allowed genuine privacy, that they hadn\u2019t waited until marriage to have sex. Yes really\u2014I\u2019ve spoken with scads of homeschool alumni who regret<\/em> waiting until marriage to have sex. Even those who don\u2019t regret that in particular often regret other facets<\/a> of their courtship experience.<\/p>\n

It turns out that saving sex for marriage does not mean you will have no regrets. It turns out that going through a courtship process\u00a0doesn\u2019t mean you will have no regrets. It turns out that there is no perfect formula for having no regrets<\/em>.<\/p>\n

My own courtship was incomplete, in a sense, because I jumped ship and refused to follow the rules halfway through. Still, the things I regret have nothing to do with the parts where I deviated from the courtship model and everything to do with the parts where I followed<\/em> the courtship model. I regret that I didn\u2019t date before meeting my husband. I regret that I made our relationship so serious so quickly. I regret that I was so afraid of physical contact for so long. I regret that I gave my husband a hard time about having previous girlfriends. I regret that I made such a huge deal out of everything<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019m extremely glad I married my husband. I simply\u00a0wish our getting-to-know-you period had been less fraught. I wish we\u2019d simply dated. I regret courting. And you know what? That\u2019s something that wasn\u2019t supposed to be able to happen<\/em>. Still,\u00a0I\u2019m lucky. I know others who courted and went on to divorce. They explain that courtship made things too serious too fast, that courtship prevented them from actually getting to know each other by denying them privacy, etc. Courtship became a regret they had to figure out how to undo.<\/p>\n

For some, the regret is parental control. This<\/a>, from Melissa:<\/p>\n

Actually I can\u2019t think of a single benefit from the parental control and pressure we had throughout our relationship. Even after we were married, it took several years for us to truly \u201cleave and cleave\u201d. We had never been allowed to be our own persons, and old habits died very hard. We would consult our parents and make decisions (trivial or important) based on what they told us. Eventually we progressed to where we would make our own decisions and fret about how to tell our parents what we had decided. It took four years to get to the point that we made decisions and didn\u2019t bother to tell them at all!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For others, the regret is the overthinking. This<\/a>, from Hannah Ettinger:<\/p>\n

I missed a lot of the joy in various \u201cfirsts\u201d because I was so busy over-thinking everything and tense and afraid of doing the wrong thing.\u00a0And that\u2019s just silly. Dating is supposed to be about learning, not getting everything right the first time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love Hannah\u2019s point about dating being about learning, rather than about getting everything right the first time, because it brings me to a problem I have with the entire conversation surrounding courtship\u2014regret is not a bad thing<\/em>. Don\u2019t get me wrong, regret is an unpleasant emotion. Still,\u00a0regret is how we learn.<\/p>\n

Take parenting as an example. There are times when, as a parent, I make a mistake and regret it\u2014but those experiences are learning experiences<\/em>. I learn, over time, how to interact with my children in positive ways\u2014how to best deescalate conflict with this one, how to best explain a change in plans with that one\u2014but learning cannot take place without mistakes, and mistakes mean regret. Sure, I can read parenting books and child development manuals and try to get things right the first time, but my children are individuals and I am an individual and we have our own quirks. There is no failsafe way to parent without regretting something<\/em> at some point.<\/p>\n

Now yes, you say, but what about regret in big areas\u2014areas you can\u2019t just fix? That\u2019s how my parents viewed premarital sex, or dating\u2014these were regrets, they believed, that would damage your whole life. They weren\u2019t just things you could learn from and move on. The trouble is that here, as I pointed out, regrets can go both ways. Some may regret having premarital sex, but others will regret not having premarital sex. The same is true in other areas\u2014you may regret not buying that house you saw when it was on the market, but if you\u2019d bought it you might have eventually come to regret buying it.<\/p>\n

Regret is a part of life. If we spend our entire lives fleeing it, we\u2019re not truly living.\u00a0We shouldn\u2019t center our approach to relationships around never regretting anything<\/em>. There\u2019s no failsafe way to do that, and focusing on it\u00a0like a laser is stress inducing. Instead of centering decisions\u00a0on avoiding regret, we would be better off focusing on healthy relationship skills, informed choices, and tools for recognizing and avoiding abusive partners and relationship patterns. And, too, we need to give our young people tools for handling regret.<\/p>\n

Regret is better than not living to begin with.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regret is a part of life. If we spend our entire lives fleeing it, we’re not truly living. We shouldn’t center our approach to relationships around never regretting anything. There’s no failsafe way to do that, and focusing on it like a laser is stress inducing. Instead of centering decisions on avoiding regret, we would be better off focusing on healthy relationship skills, informed choices, and tools for recognizing and avoiding abusive partners and relationship patterns. And, too, we need to give our young people tools for handling regret. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[132,564,129],"class_list":["post-27250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purity","tag-courtship","tag-regret","tag-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Courtship Means Regret<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Regret is a part of life. If we spend our entire lives fleeing it, we're not truly living. We shouldn't center our approach to relationships around never regretting anything. There's no failsafe way to do that, and focusing on it like a laser is stress inducing. 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