r/CatholicDating

I am 36 and since the age of 18 I have had two serious illnesses. One was from 18 to 24 and the other from 28 to 34. This has had a seriously negative impact on my adult life, though I still managed to get an advanced education throughout that. In fact, today I have fully recovered my health and am finishing a PhD I had started before I got sick the second time. 

That being said, my PhD is in a very competitive field, and the state of my CV due to my years of illness means that my chances of getting a job in it are unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. I am mostly finishing my degree at this point because it is a major life goal and it's almost done. 

But if I don't get a job in my field, the odds of me having to start over in a completely different one in a low paying position are very high, especially with the state of my CV. So I would be a man in his late thirties with a fairly low income – not great.

God willing, I would still want to get married and start a family. But I am not sure if there will be a viable path to that given this state of affairs. I will certainly try to date and be open to surprises, but if the hand I am dealt with is poor I do want to face that and accept it.

I am currently trying to think through this, and I'd be happy to hear any insights you could share.

My girlfriend and I have been together for just over three years. A few months after we started dating, I moved about two hours away for college. We both knew that would happen from the start, and despite the distance, we’ve been going strong.

I know I want to marry her. The part I’m struggling with is timing.

I have about a year and a half left in my program, and after graduating I plan to move back to our hometown. Practically, waiting until then to get engaged would be easier because we’d finally be living near each other.

But that also feels like a long time to wait. We’d have been together about four and a half years by then, and part of me thinks that if I already know I want to marry her, why wait that long just because I’m still in school?

I’ve been thinking about proposing next summer instead. That would leave us with around one semester of long distance before I graduate and move back home. Then, once I’m finished with school, we could get married anytime after that, whenever works best for us.

Would you wait until the long-distance part is completely over before getting engaged, or does getting engaged during that last semester seem reasonable?

29M, 3 years unemployed but approaching 9 months sober in a 12-step program and have lost a little over 60 lbs (down from my all-time high of 285, which at 5' 10" was very very overweight).

I still feel far from being attractive to the sort of woman I want to be with, and there are plenty of reasons why dating is a bad idea for me right now. As I continue to work on my recovery and my job search though, one thing that strikes me is a new sense of urgency, something that I'd had to learn to reject earlier in my dating and recovery careers. I really do want to have enough time to actually enjoy life with my mate, and especially to not be on my deathbed by the time any kids we have are settled and independent.

Conventional wisdom in sex-focused recovery fellowships (like the one I'm in) is, if you're single, to not go on dates until you have a year of sobriety while you learn not to treat your preferred sex (not all are equally heteronormative, although my primary one is very much so) as a source of highs. Not having a job, living with my parents, and still trying to figure out some direction in life, any date I went on would probably go badly anyway. At least with the types of women I was meeting on CatholicMatch (which I had to delete my account on, again, in order to start getting sober).

Reddit's different. For some reason I can handle Reddit better than Facebook, dating sites, what-have-you. And I'm glad to know this sub exists for when I'm ready, especially since I'm also comfortable on Discord.

It's just hard, getting to thinking about that again while knowing I probably still shouldn't do anything yet.

I felt like telling yall. Telling someone usually helps.

Prayers appreciated 🙏🏼

As a single man (early 30s) in the UK, Christians is still the minority for most young adults and even lower for practicing Catholics (not just by title).

What do you guys do to increase the chances?

I have been in a serious relationship with different ethnicities and faith before, but not many since with the idea of date to marry, hence why I am very picky with my candidates too.

Sadly, things can also go bad for those partners. They're not even super devout to be honest, it is me teaching them and working with them.

Also, you can't just randomly go to another Church randomly, then ask a person whom you have no direct relationship to ask for their info etc. That is also wrong for the intention of going to Church in the first place 😆.

Sadly my options are low since I live in a town, so the population for those prospects are low.

I’m feeling incredibly embarrassed. I started talking to someone yesterday who honestly seems so perfect so far. He’s waiting for marriage and we seem really aligned when it comes to things like children, politics, and our values. We were talking on a video call and realized we have a lot of hobbies in common, so I kept saying things like “well if you teach me x, I’ll teach you x.” Later he basically said he doesn’t want to rush anything and wants to make sure we’re compatible as friends first.
Logically, I know that makes complete sense, but I’m so embarrassed and shy now because I feel like maybe I came across like I was already trying to rush into a relationship. I even apologized and said, “I’m sorry if I made you think I was trying to rush a relationship.” I know my anxiety is probably getting the best of me because we’re still planning to meet in person for the first time this week, but now I’m so nervous.
How do I balance genuinely already thinking he’s really cool and being excited to get to know him without coming across as naive or like I’m trying to rush things? Btw, for context, he’s almost a decade older than me.

Also our first in person meeting is during mass/dinner on Sunday

Hi everyone! How are you doing? I’d like to know what Catholic women/girls think about Catholic men who are bisexual. Specifically, whether or not they would date a man like that...

How am I supposed to keep trusting God when it seems like every man I meet who claims to be “Catholic” eventually wants sex before marriage? What’s the point of calling yourself Catholic if you don’t actually subscribe to something as fundamental as chastity?
I’m extremely upfront that I’m reserving intimacy for marriage. It’s literally in my bio. Yet I’ll talk to someone for weeks, get invested, and eventually hear some version of “I’m too sexual for you.” I’m honestly starting to wonder if some Catholic men see a woman wanting to remain chaste as some kind of kink or fetish instead of a serious religious conviction, and that’s fucking disgusting to me. I have sexual trauma, which makes this even worse. I’m genuinely trying to follow God, live chastely, and become a saint, not have something sacred to me sexualized.
It’s making me resent men, and I don’t want that resentment becoming hatred. And please, I’m not looking for “you’re putting men above God,” therapy, or “just stop dating.” I’ve done therapy and psychiatry for years. I’m in my mid twenties and genuinely want marriage and children.
How do I remain committed to chastity, trust God, and not become bitter toward men when I keep encountering this, even with Catholic men?

I’m not referring to things affecting a relationship in the present such as addictions, mental illness, physical illness or debt nor about things a partner directly asks about. I believe those should be disclosed and answered truthfully.

My question is more so about if there is something shameful in your history and no longer an issue you are facing in the present should that be shared unprompted?

For context:
5 years ago during the pandemic I was severely depressed with no friends and no partner. Therapy and meds were not helping. Out of desperation, I decided to pay for sexual services from escorts on a given day. I view what I did on that day as immoral and dangerous and I’m disgusted in myself for crossing that line. I was also only thinking about my pain instead of the fact I was exploiting someone for gain.
I was recently seeing someone for 2 months. We were moving ahead of the getting to know each phase towards a serious relationship. I decided to disclose this information to her and understandably she chose to immediately end the relationship.

Was it unnecessary to share this information with her or did I do the right thing ?

I am female, 28 years old. I feel like I’m genuinely obsessed with someone I dated when I was 12–14 years old, and I’m trying to figure out whether I need to let this go or whether other people have experienced something similar.

Every time I’ve gone through a major breakup, my mind goes back to him. I was in a five-year relationship, it ended, and I thought about him. Then I got into another relationship almost immediately afterward that lasted 4.5 years. That relationship ended too, and here I am again thinking about him constantly.

Recently, I added him on Instagram. He ended up messaging me, gave me his phone number, and we’ve been talking. He says he’s interested and says a lot of the right things, but his actions make me question it. He’ll regularly take 5+ hours to respond, and sometimes he literally takes a day or two. I understand that adults are busy and nobody owes me constant texting, but the overall energy just doesn’t feel reciprocated. I’m obviously much more emotionally invested than he is.

He’s also very attractive and probably has plenty of options. I’m currently overweight, and although people tell me I’m attractive, I know I’m not feeling or looking like the best version of myself right now.

The part that makes this so difficult is that I have always had this bizarrely strong intuition about him. Even when we were teens, I felt something with him that I have never experienced with anyone else. I’ve had two serious adult relationships totaling almost 10 years, and somehow I still come back to this person.

Now that I’m religious, it’s even harder to explain. I feel this almost spiritual, magnetic connection to him. When I look into his eyes, I feel like I see God. It feels like God walks alongside him. I know how dramatic that sounds, but the strange thing is that I felt something similar when I was 12 years old, long before I became religious in the way I am now.
For years, I’ve had this feeling that I’m eventually going to marry him. Not necessarily tomorrow or even anytime soon, but that somehow our lives are going to keep circling back to each other until we finally end up together.

At the same time, I’m trying not to romanticize someone who isn’t actually choosing me in the present.

So I guess my question is: how do you handle feeling spiritually or intuitively convinced that someone is meant to be your spouse when that connection isn’t being fully reciprocated right now?

Do I keep engaging with him and give this time to develop? Do I pull back because his communication is showing me that I’m not a priority? Do I completely stop pursuing it and trust that, if we really are meant to find each other again, it will happen naturally in the future?

I especially want to hear from religious people who have experienced that overwhelming feeling that God was somehow leading them toward a particular person. Did that intuition turn out to be right? And if the timing was wrong or the feelings weren’t initially mutual, how did you handle it without either forcing the relationship or giving up on something that might eventually happen?

Long story short: been with my girlfriend since June, long distance (I’m in England, she’s in China). Found out a few weeks back she’d been planning to sleep with her ex (she never actually physically cheated on planned to) - saw the emails myself, and she later admitted it outright in a group chat. Ended things that night.

Since then she’s gone back and forth - admitting it, denying it, saying cruel things to me, then begging to get back together, offering to change, even saying she’d give up her socials so I could check on her. Last night she spent hours trying to win me back, then in the middle of it said something to me about her ex that honestly made things a lot clearer.

I ended it for good. I know it was the right call looking at the facts. But I still love her, and some nights (like last night) it’s genuinely hard not to give in when she’s upset and pleading.

As a Catholic, I keep thinking about mercy and forgiveness, and whether walking away for good makes me a bad person, or whether protecting myself from someone who’s shown this pattern (twice before this she’d threatened to end things too) is actually the wiser and even the more loving thing to do for both of us.

There is also a fact, that her ex used to be severely physically abusive to her, and I know she really struggles with it to this day. I’m not trying to justify what she did, but there’s something about victims getting attached to their abusers, and not being able to move forward. I’m not sure honestly.

I haven’t fully blocked her or ended it yet asked for time to think, she today apologised for everything saying she regrets trying to meet him and everything and that she will never do it again. I’m really torn as to what to do, as I love her so much….

Anyone been through something similar? How do you square forgiveness with actually needing to let someone go?

20M looking for a girl who wants to be religious and have same Catholic values. Where do I start?

Hello everyone,

I'm 32M and have been using dating apps on and off for years now, with limited success. Lately I've grown so frustrated that I've decided to throw caution to the wind and start asking women out in person. The other day during a holy hour, I spotted a girl I know vaguely (through mutual friends) a few pews ahead of me, and I decided to just walk up to her afterwards and ask her on a date. Her face lit up and she said yes, and gave me her number. Much easier and more smooth than I thought it would be.

Well, fast forward to today, and she hasn't responded to either of my two texts I've sent her. Needless to say, I'm getting a bit frustrated. I'm doing everything I possibly can to put myself out there, and can hardly get a date to save my life. I'm decent-looking, groom myself, dress well, etc. Has anyone else had a similar experience? What did I do (or am I doing wrong)?

I’ve been opening with “Hello! How are you?” because I genuinely don’t know what else I’m supposed to say on dating apps like CatholicMatch, Bumble, and Hinge. My profile is popping off, I’m getting plenty of matches/likes, and yet somehow I’m STILL the one taking the initiative and messaging first… just for literally 99% of these men to not respond at all.
Like seriously, where are all these “alpha,” masculine men who say they want a woman who’s serious about her faith, dating intentionally, and actually wants marriage? Because I’m literally handing you the opening. I already made the first move! All you have to do is respond and show that you actually want to get to know me.
Men will talk all day about wanting traditional women, femininity, marriage, family, etc., but then when a woman who genuinely wants those things shows up AND messages first, it’s crickets. I’m not asking you to sweep me off my feet in the first message. Just respond and take it from there. Where is all this masculine initiative everyone keeps talking about? Y’all are NOT showing out when called upon 😭
Also, please don’t respond to this with “I’ll date you” or “give me a chance.” I’m specifically looking to date someone local to my area. And that’s not me saying I’m some career woman who would never relocate or that my career comes before marriage. I’m just pretty landlocked where I am right now because of work and my current life circumstances, so realistically I need to date locally. This is a rant/cry for advice, not a Reddit personals ad.

Do you consider and/or address prior trauma, triggers, or wounds before seriously dating someone? I'm curious. If you do, what does that look like for you? If not, why not?

To be clear, I don't believe a person has to be 100% healed to date, as healing happens in healthy relationship with others. :)

We met 2yr ago on dating app. I think he was interested in me at first for 3-4mth but I kind of only saw him as a friend. Then we stopped talking to each other.

We reconnected about 6mth ago and I started initiating catchup with him. He also sometimes ask me out. All these outings have been friendly and towards the last few outings I may have picked up hints/gestures that he like me more than a friend. I was also discerning if I should tell him my fond feeling.

Then, for some reasons I just found out (I found out a clue and ask him, not from him telling me directly) he has kids (divorced) and shocked me to the core. He answered my question but never offers more information than what I asked. And I’m the one who initiated to have a hard conversation so I can know more about why he never told me about his divorce and kids.

During his brief sharing, he admitted he was a bit interested in me. But his reason of not telling me was that he hasn’t really been interested in me. However, we’ve been going out almost 2x a month the last 6mth (dinner and walks, sometimes mass in between them) - we talked about friends building family, (objectively) on child bearing/family planning. Even as friends, I don’t think having kids as a fact should be concealed.

I told him I was really surprised and sad because we spent all these time tgt and he never thought of telling me. After all these, he didn’t even think he should say sorry. Left me disappointed and heartbroken when I think about this.

What are your thoughts about this?

Fair to not reveal such critical info when one is not interested in the other party/only see him or her as friend?

Do you think it’s pretty evil to purposely omit this information throughout the 2yr?

The question in the title is for specifically about theology about the catholic church. As someone who doesn't even know some of the basics of catholic faith how much do I need to know before starting to try to date? And please give a direction in which I need to go, what do I begin with and what do I end with. Thank you in advance. God bless.

i’ve (19F) faced over 10+ romantic rejections, with absolutely no success even after putting myself out there. i have truly tried everything. everyone around me has had people like them back and have had partners before, and they make it look so easy. yeah, they’ve faced rejection before but they at least have some romantic success that have made that process worth it. i don’t have that. it’s insane to me that people have that situation where the guy they like actually likes them back, that sounds so nice. i feel like men are incapable of true romantic love and attraction, but I know they’re not. i think i just feel that way, despite knowing it’s not true, as a defense mechanism because the reality hurts so much. i used to think all men were mean and bad (not an assumption, they were just always mean and bad TO ME) but then i saw how gently and kindly they treated beautiful women. i’m trying to find my identity in God and my love for Christ, not my looks or achievements or validation from others, which has made me so much more happy but sometimes i think about these thoughts and it makes me cry. at first, i reflected on why guys rejected me, worked on myself, i was always working on myself and i tried to figure out what lesson they taught me, despite them rejecting me. but i feel like i’ve not learnt anything about myself or life in last rejections, and i’m trying to figure out what God is trying to tell me or if the devil is working through these men which is why I’m so hurt. i thought that this was a sign that religious sisterhood was for me, but i really don’t feel called towards the celibate life. it seemed that i was searching for God’s love in the men i liked but now i’m accepting God’s love and still crave romance. i don’t think i could become a religious sister without crying over how i could never get married. someone here said that God’s messages are never confusing, so this must be the work of the devil. does anyone have any advice?

I’m 24M and I’m really downtrodden on the idea of waiting for marriage. Just giving you a heads up, but this is a a long rant of post so if you don’t want to read all that I don’t blame you.

A little background about me:
I grew up in a very rural area in a dysfunctional family. I was homeschooled(until high school) and raised on a farm with five older siblings until the age of 8, when my mom finally left my abusive dad who had bipolar disorder. Point is, all my siblings have trauma and varying degrees of low self-esteem (that’s important for later). My dad was the youngest of his family so he favored me, and in my time spent with him growing up he ingrained in me two things: 1) I’m smarter and have bigger and better things to look forward to than pretty much anyone else. 2) Women are problems, and avoid them if you can. The 2nd point in particular, because all I heard growing up is story after story about a really smart guy who had everything going for him and was on his way to becoming an astronaut, doctor, lawyer, etc., but then he got a girl pregnant and now works in his hometown as a construction worker and essentially ruined his life.

Me and my siblings all went to a Baptist church. However, we quit going at some point in my high school years. Point is, I got the background of the no-sex-before-marriage idea from church. In junior high, I looked at the data for those who committed premarital sex, and as y’all know might know, it wasn’t good for those who want long lasting marriages. Point is, between the two things my dad ingrained in me and the premarital sex data, I made the choice that sex and women weren’t going to happen until I “had it made.” I went through high school and college with the mindset that women were just a waste of time until I was financially set. So I never dated once through all those years and turned to porn to alleviate my sex drive. Granted, I didn’t think my high school had any good dating options anyways (small high school of about 100 total kids). Plus, in college I was in chemical engineering school and competed in college golf, so I didn’t have much time for social outings anyway, but my point still stands.

Fast forward to the beginning of 2025:
I’m in my final year of chemical engineering school and I listened to this podcast that had a priest as a guest, which really made me interested in the Catholic faith. Point is, the podcast made me look into theology and the existence of God, which led me to converting to Catholicism, and that’s when I quit porn. When I got my first job a year ago and “had it made” is when I finally started dating. With my newfound belief in Catholicism, I started, and still am, dating with the intent of waiting for marriage.

Today:
The reason I made this post is because my oldest brother recently came out with essentially a sex addiction. He had alcohol issues (the low self-esteem thing I mentioned earlier) and mentioned he had slept with countless women. He doesn’t even know the number. He also said his best friend has slept with well over 100 women. My best friend in college also had slept with countless gorgeous women (one was a Catholic who was planning to wait before sleeping with him too, and he personally told me about how bad she was in bed because of her lack of experience). Additionally, my last girlfriend (with whom we broke up because of this) had slept with someone just months before we met.

My point is, I am discouraged by the idea of waiting. I truly believe sex is for marriage. However, hearing and experiencing these anecdotes, I’m really struggling with the idea that someone out there (who I find attractive emotionally and physically, and meets my standards when it comes to how they handle money, intelligence, practicing their faith, etc) has waited for marriage. Living in a rural area doesn’t help either, as there are very few Catholics my age, let alone Catholics who are still single, have waited, and ones I find attractive and can convince to date me. All the stories I see of “people waiting” are those who got married at like 18 or 19. Quite frankly, I don’t know if it’s happening. I’m all for praying about it, but reality is she ain’t falling from the sky. I gotta go find her if she even exists. I know someone might say to lower your standards, but I’m too introverted and my conviction over this topic is too strong that I don’t think I can.

The point of this post is to rant, but also to ask: is there anyone else in a similar boat?

Also, I am on CatholicMatch already, and if there was a Catholic young adults group in my parish I’d already be in it.

I’ve met the perfect man for me on catholicmatch.com. He’s Catholic, empathetic, intelligent, hardworking, understanding, patient, and so so so attractive. I keep looking at pictures of him. He even likes me back and is so cute about it.

But, at the same time, I keep thinking about this talking stage (lasted many months, we chatted after i had finished my alevels and was going into my first year of university) i had last year before i reconverted that ghosted me this year but i still feel physically attracted to him.

I’ve always been very inexperienced and thought that guy was going to be my first boyfriend, and everything. up until recently i was following him on Instagram because i still felt physically attracted to him even though he ghosted me after I told him that was basically my worst fear. i was delusional and hoped maybe he’d reach out as he’d look at my stories. i’ve blocked him now but why do I still think about him even after we haven’t spoken in months.

Don’t get me wrong, i really like my current talking stage. I look forward to his messages all day, i always want to call him, and he even said i looked at him in a way that showed that i liked him, and i sent him a letter with loads of cute stickers, and after I vented to him once about a friendship breakup, I nearly said ‘I love you’ but i just can’t stop thinking about that one guy.

I don’t know why i still think about him when i genuinely like the guy I’m currently talking to and want him to be my first boyfriend instead. I don’t know how to forget this guy who would never ever EVER care about me ever, and if he did he would have brought me so far away from God.

this is also making me feel like a bad person. my current talking stage is literally too good for me, and wants to commit to me and yet im thinking about another guy. I really wish I could erase him from my memory so I could just enjoy the amazing Catholic guy I’m much more likely to have and will be so good for me. what is wrong with me? please please pray for me and help me out i want to forget that guy so badly.

I (21f) have been dating my boyfriend (22m) for about 1 1/2 years now including a month long no contact breakup this May (long story short, it was a needed break for both of us; we had some unhealthy communication and conflict resolution and it clouded what was really important. We’re doing really well now, and the relationship is healthier than it’s ever been).

I’m a cradle Catholic and I attend a TLM church, he was raised Baptist but is curious/desirous about converting. He knows that he would have to convert for the marriage to be sacramentally valid, but he still has some qualms about it. That being said, he believes it’s “the closest thing to a perfect church” that you can get. The whole conversion process is a different topic that maybe I’ll ask at a later time.

We both knew pretty early on into dating that we wanted to get married; we have such a connection that I can’t imagine having with anyone else and I believe together we can lead each other in a holy life. Now, he is getting ready to buy a ring and wants to hopefully propose by the end of this year. Part of me is really excited, but another part is kind of worried that maybe it’s too soon? But I think some of that hesitation is fear of what others may think. I don’t really know. We’re both still in school (both in our senior year) so money is obviously going to be a concern, but he has a good job and is advancing/getting promoted within this semester.

Any advice? I wanted to ask on this forum because the advice I normally get on any advice forum is to wait until I’m at least late 20s to settle, keep my options open, date around, and have fun. That’s just not my style and that advice doesn’t really align with my moral stance.