Helping Them: Them

Is it a problem that people aren’t getting married anymore? And if so, what can we do about it? Oh, wait, ooops, I meant to say ‘What can they do about it?”

Well, no, that isn’t what I mean to say. What I meant to say, what I mean to say, what I think we all should be saying is, “What can we be doing about it? What should we be doing about it?”

Introduction

So, got involved in a big comment thread the other day about getting people married. One group was shouting that it was too late, marriage was too hard, we should just all go crawl in a hole somewhere in Canada. Well, no, but it was close.

Another group seemed to be merely castigating those unmarried people. “They should just get married!”

In answer to which the cry was raised, “But what can they do? Look at all the hard things!”

And in the middle of the answer ‘do hard things’ I proposed a rather radical solution… maybe it isn’t just the unmarried people who need to do hard things. Maybe it is the rest of us who need to get going and do hard things. Maybe we need to… get them married.

Me

Which caused at least one person to suggest, or agree with my suggestion, that I should write a post telling them, or us, what we should do. How should we, the married contingent, go about helping the unmarried contingent, get married.

To put my cards on the table, without revealing any particular details, I have been there, done that. I have helped several unmarried people become married people. It took a lot of work, over a lot of years, but I have done it. So this isn’t just blowing smoke. These ideas work.

Them

Now, the first thing I have to say may cause howls of anguish. I may be accused of cheating, of bait and switch, of sailing under a false flag. Because my first bit of advice, instruction, experience from someone who has been there, will be to… the unmarried people themselves.

Now, before you throw a shoe or a rotten tomatoe at me, let me hasten to add… this is only my FIRST advice. It is the advice that makes all of the rest of the advice, the tons and tones of advice that I have for the married people, possible.

So, if you’re still reading (or if you are a married person reading and are all ready to tell an unmarried person to read this post) the advice is this… you have to let them help. Nay, you you have to want their help. Indeed, you have to ask for their help.

And, follow me here, you have to… accept their help. No, stop, don’t try to translate that into ‘think about accepting their help’. You can’t “Take their advice into consideration.” You have to accept their help. Indeed I will go so far as to say you have to obey them. You have to learn from them, listen to them… and do what they tell you.

The Elephant in the Room

Because there is an elephant in the room. A huge elephant in a small room. A very small room.

When I made this suggestion on the thread, I received the reply, “Meddlesome matchmaking is a healthy hobby.” And that comment was very revealing.

Now let me hasten to say that it was revealing in a good way. I think the person who made the comment had his heart in the right place. But read the word: meddlesome. Read it as an unmarried person, surrounded by married people, in this culture. Read it and realise that that word ‘meddlesome’ represents the tip of an enormous iceberg of cultural antipathy.

I believe that unmarried people need to go through the following cultural transformation:

1. I believe that need to come to realise that being unmarried is a bad thing. (For over 99% of all unmarried people).

2. They need to realise that our culture is actively keeping them from being married.

3. That they need allies.

4. And that our culture actively militates against them getting allies. It says they shouldn’t want them, it says they shouldn’t want to be allies, and it castrates them when they try.

5. THUS You will need to go way, way, way beyond a mere passive quiet unstated idea of ‘well, if someone, without me encouraging them, were to do something, not to overt, that I, after I had judged it, determined to be really super obviously wonderful, I might take it into consideration, without saying anything to anyone…’

I believe (and have reason to believe) that the unmarried person will need to repudiate the ‘anti-allies’ philosophy root and branch, state publicly that they want to get married, state publicly that they are looking for allies, and state and act and reassure publicly and privately that they won’t make the allies look like idiots when they try to help. That they will thank them. Profusely. Even when it doesn’t work. Even when it doesn’t work the twenty-seventh time. Profusely.

Moving On

As soon as I hit ‘publish’ on this post I am going to start writing the twenty-seven follow up posts on what father, mothers, brothers, sisters, pastors, and cousins living in another state can do to help people get married. And they will have to read this post too. Required reading.

But if the unmarried person rejects this post then there is nothing… well, no, that’s not true. One of the roles of the married people will be to hammer unmarried people over the head with the truths in this post… but until the unmarried person ends up accepting the ideas here, then the alliance will not work. It will fail to launch. It will be useless.

We married people need to be actively and abundantly helping our unmarried brethren to get married. Male and female, old and young. Young men marrying young women, older men marrying older or younger women. All of our men and all of our women getting married… men to women, in case anyone wanders here that believes the modern perverted idea of ‘gay’ marriage.

The culture is full throatedly in opposition, we cannot be merely mildly in favour.

---

---

Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!

Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.

If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!

If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.

Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,

Von