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Daniel Staddon and Kathryn Neely: the most convoluted courtship story ever


usedbicycle

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Daniel Staddon and Kathryn Neely are engaged and tell their loooong story on their new website

Both parties spent a whole year trying to figure out if they were meant for each other BEFORE SPEAKING EVEN ONCE! Dads played intermediary with lists of stupid questions, and lots of praying and magical Bible signs happened, but girl and boy never spoke once until the girl finally accepted he was the "one". Meanwhile, their families still hung out together and they just pretended nothing was going on! Holy awkwardness!

They are going to marry only 4 months after their very first phone conversation. 

This fundie courtship thing has to be the most convoluted, complicated, and irrational process to find a mate in any existing culture on Earth. Even arranged marriage seems easier and less hypocritical than this. They pretend these are love marriages, but how can you fall in love without ever speaking to someone? It's lust at the very best, always originating on the guy's side (because girls can't pursue). Every inch of the way, they're wondering what God thinks or looking for a sign from God, which makes absolutely no sense to me.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

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Are they just trying to make things difficult for themselves on purpose? 

It's like someone picked the worst aspects of both love match traditions and arranged marriage traditions just to make it more difficult for kids to leave home and get married.

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I got through his first part and half of her first paragraph before I wanted to vomit. Ugh. So dramatic and saccharine. And foolish. 

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I, as a girl and now as a woman, love my father. We are very close.

But I cannot fathom a universe in which it's *not* weird that he would ask to "guard [my] heart" and talk about "the one" God has for me when I was a little girl. I was raised Southern Baptist so church was always important, but my dad wanted me to be a good person, get an education and make my way in the world a lot more than he wanted me to nab a man and pump out babies. 

I mean the whole thing is just so odd but that part really sticks with me. 

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What an utter snark-fest - and how unbelievably sad.  

Cut out the God-speak.  Shit, kids.  You saw each other across a crowded room and each decided the other one looked hot.  You weren't allowed to talk and the scratch and sniff test was verboten - but you managed to get close enough geographically to get a whiff of each other's pheromones and decided they weren't obnoxious.  Let's go from there.

This need to go through Daddy is disgusting.  I really want to see the questions and answers.  You should publish them for others to use as cheat sheets.

I suspect Kathryn called it off (temporarily) to struggle with the mysterious personal problem because either:

1.  She got understandably cold feet and wanted to know who the other guys were who were courting Daddy's approval, or

2. She got understandably cold feet, plus she had sneakily left the card in Deuteronomy (a message form the LORD), and had accidentally on purpose snooped and found the email from Dad to Daniel.  Oh, yeah.  She didn't read it.  Right.  Major struggle with conscience.

These poor kids.  Engaged one month after the first phone conversation and about to get married 4 months later.  I hope it works out for them.

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Like I said in the "Dillard" thread, I never believe fundie courtship stories. Every single courtship story is the same. The courtship stories have to be godly, they just cant say they like each other.

1 . I don't believe Daniel and Kathryn didn't communicate before their courtship.

2.. Look up Dorothy Morton and Noah Sanders' courtship story. They were clearly not telling the truth about their relationship( There families  are very close, yet they wanted us to believe Noah and Dorothy never had a conversation prior to their courtship)

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Jeez, the Staddons certainly have a way of finding reluctant women. Kendalyn's story was epic in its lack of enthusiasm, and I can't really tell if this one is any better.  I love how random all of his "signs" are (he borrowed a book from her house and it had her name in it!!!). Meanwhile all of her messages from god are like "what if we broke it off?" And then just when they're about to make it official, she suddenly remembers a "personal issue" that she urgently needs to resolve and goes AWOL for a few months?

 

Also a huge WTF that they were essentially ignoring each other IRL for a year so that they could guard their hearts while everyone emailed their survey responses. Their other family members didn't know about it? Their phone call was when they spoke "for the very first time?"

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I cannot get through that bore-fest of nonsense. Daniel seems cut from the same cloth as his big bro Robert, by which I mean verbose and full of himself. 

They have a Rubik's cube on their registry, which amuses me greatly.

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11 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

I suspect Kathryn called it off (temporarily) to struggle with the mysterious personal problem because either:

1.  She got understandably cold feet and wanted to know who the other guys were who were courting Daddy's approval, or

2. She got understandably cold feet, plus she had sneakily left the card in Deuteronomy (a message form the LORD), and had accidentally on purpose snooped and found the email from Dad to Daniel.  Oh, yeah.  She didn't read it.  Right.  Major struggle with conscience.

 

 

5 minutes ago, NachosFlandersStyle said:

Jeez, the Staddons certainly have a way of finding reluctant women. Kendalyn's story was epic in its lack of enthusiasm, and I can't really tell if this one is any better.  I love how random all of his "signs" are (he borrowed a book from her house and it had her name in it!!!). Meanwhile all of her messages from god are like "what if we broke it off?" And then just when they're about to make it official, she suddenly remembers a "personal issue" that she urgently needs to resolve and goes AWOL for a few months?

"nothing relating to him at all, but rather to a certain direction in which I had believed the LORD might have been calling me"

I wonder if she's alluding to a personal career aspiration like Kendalyn had, or some kind of mission work? Maybe she's always wanted to travel? Going to live in Big Sandy with an IBLP accountant is not the most exciting life prospect. 

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Holy Cow!  You weren't kidding about the Christian-speak.  Their writing is so dense with  platitudes and Christian cliches that it is almost impossible to read:

Quote

..purpose and calling...train me to walk in the light...serve the LORD in complete freedom....the focus to remain on the LORD and His character... love for Him and His Word...fear and admonition of the LORD...the ONE the Lord would someday bring to me....brothers and sisters in Him....encouraged me to seek Him....allowed me to see His power through numerous answers to prayer...His purposes in our lives....He delights in giving them the desires of their hearts...the LORD would grant me the gift of marriage, if that was His will.

They are unable to write clearly and simply about how they met and decided to marry which makes their story unbelievable to me.  It is a cliche-fest of inhumane activities and emotions all serving to make them appear more pious then the next person. I feel sorry for them.  I have no doubt that one or both are going to lose their God-Goggles some day and realize they are trapped in a marriage with a dull stranger who gives all their love and attention to a mystical being.

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...They color coded their portions of the post with pink and blue text. I don't even know if I can get past that to read this. 

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4 minutes ago, Antimony said:

...They color coded their portions of the post with pink and blue text. I don't even know if I can get past that to read this. 

Don't bother. It's mind-numbingly stupid.

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37 minutes ago, Kak said:

They have a Rubik's cube on their registry, which amuses me greatly.

Seems oddly apropos.  If you don't know what you're doing with a Rubik's cube, you go round and round and get nowhere.

1 hour ago, usedbicycle said:

This fundie courtship thing has to be the most convoluted, complicated, and irrational process to find a mate in any existing culture on Earth.

If any extraterrestrials are watching, they're probably laughing too.

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1 hour ago, Kak said:

They have a Rubik's cube on their registry, which amuses me greatly.

Will God send them signs about how to solve it? Or will she have to supervise his google searches for help so he isn't lead astray?

Edited to add: Why do they insist on using all caps for LORD? It makes me read it in an even snarkier way than normal...

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10 minutes ago, Geechee Girl said:

They're a photogenic couple. Any idea on her chosen colors?

Her hair is a beautiful color.

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Obviously there was no audible voice, but it was almost like I heard the LORD say, “Kathryn, what if I DON’T want to end it? Is that still okay?” 

So, God always asks the godly if something's OK before He puts the God-machine in first gear? Add me to the list of those who call bullshit on this badly written "story" of how they "met."

Could this be some kind of bizarre PR thing for IBLP wherein the Staddons are trying to somehow redeem the courtship model? 

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They are going to have blue-eyed, long-winded, completely insufferable children together. Awww, how... cute?

 

His boasting about the diamond he got her is hilarious. 

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24 minutes ago, The limit does not exist said:

Will God send them signs about how to solve it? Or will she have to supervise his google searches for help so he isn't lead astray?

Edited to add: Why do they insist on using all caps for LORD? It makes me read it in an even snarkier way than normal...

Iirc the KJV uses LORD in the Old Testament for Yahweh.  Fundies use it so we'll know they're talking about God and not some other deity that his followers happen to call Lord.  Because that happens so often. 

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2 hours ago, usedbicycle said:

What are your thoughts on this?

It makes me sad. Some time after we left our former church, we were invited to a wedding. You'd think we could have sat through a wedding, for goodness sake, but no. We got all dressed up and ready to go and then while driving on our way, we stopped off for coffee... and just stayed. People don't like self-diagnosis, but my anxiety was through the roof and I had some of the feelings our teens (actually diagnosed with PTSD) have described in a panic attack.

What the ever-lovin' F??? How can people/lifestyle/social group hurt you so bad, you have a panic attack/PTSD symptoms a year later at the prospect of seeing them again?

(I heard from other ex-church families that went that it was pretty true to the courtship model at that church. As in, the bride and groom had only spoken with each other less than a dozen times or so, during their short courtship. And the fathers did all the vetting and actual control during the courtship. The families were quite proud of it, actually.

I sort of bought into the idea when our kids were still little. I mean, they made it sound so good. Our kids would never suffer the heartbreak that we did, going steady and then breaking up. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Only it's not true. It was just an unproven theory.

Nowadays, the thought makes me sad. And yes, physically ill.) 

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3 minutes ago, Jana814 said:

So weird. Does anyone know how old these 2 are?  

Her endless paragraphs of saccharine god, god, god nonsense mention graduating high school in 2012, so she is likely right around 22. 

Anyone know how old he is? 

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I just love the idea of giving the key to my heart to someone who I haven't even spoken to. Seems like a really smart choice—NOT.

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