Mikaela (One Bright Corner) is getting married!

[Daenerys]

After a courtship of only 3 months, during which he was in Maryland and she was in Washington. I'm not sure how that works... but she does look very happy at least. I wonder if she'll move all the way to Maryland to be with him? This is a girl who's lived in a small Washington town her entire life... Also I'm sorry but he's so ugly! I wonder how much these feelings came about through a lack of other appropriate choices? As in if she doesn't know many young men, she is naturally going to project her desire for intimacy onto those she does know. I do hope it works out ok for her, though.

Imagine the feeling of being the twin left at home though - when your whole life purpose is about finding a husband and making babies, and you have to watch your sister go and do it while you sit at home. Even if they get on brilliantly that can't be easy.

onebrightcorner.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/a-love-story.html

[formergothardite]

It sounds like a teenage crush that was made into a very big deal by the fact that she is fundie. She had to go confess her feelings to her parents. There is no way she really knows him. Not the child him she played with, but the adult him that she is going to marry.

[salex]

It sounds like a teenage crush that was made into a very big deal by the fact that she is fundie. She had to go confess her feelings to her parents. There is no way she really knows him. Not the child him she played with, but the adult him that she is going to marry.

This, especially the bolded bits. How many young men did she know well enough to talk to about anything? Probably very few, so she had little to compare him to. I hope he is all she wants/needs. But I know for a fact I'm glad I didn't marry the 'boy next door' or any of the boys I knew from my small hometown.

[Guest]

For as well as she says she knows him, they look awfully awkward together.

[formergothardite]

Miss Raquel has to be so jealous.

[infooverload]

Does anyone know the name of the small town in Washington state she is from? I only ask because I am from Washington state.

[LynnGrey]

It sounds like a teenage crush that was made into a very big deal by the fact that she is fundie. She had to go confess her feelings to her parents. There is no way she really knows him. Not the child him she played with, but the adult him that she is going to marry.

Whenever I hear fundies talk about how they will go to their parents when they are interested in a member of the opposite sex and let their fathers take care of it, it makes me wonder how many ill-fitted relationships are blown way out of proportion. Letting young people show interest to each other first would help weed out a lot of incompatibility. I would die of embarrassment if I had to talk to my dad about a crush and know that he was talking about it with other people and trying to make arrangements for me. So awkward. I would guess that the ideal courtship model fails quite often because daughters and fathers are not comfortable with their expected roles that are needed to make it happen.

[fundiefun]

I honestly don't see Raquel getting married some of the guys I've talked to who know her who had done her interviews say she is annoying and purposely avoid her when she signs onto facebook. When guys are avoiding you it's time to reevaluate things.

[formergothardite]

I honestly don't see Raquel getting married some of the guys I've talked to who know her who had done her interviews say she is annoying and purposely avoid her when she signs onto facebook. When guys are avoiding you it's time to reevaluate things.

Most of the guys who have done her interviews are massive assholes who view women as objects, so I hope for Raquel's sake they do avoid her. She is annoying as hell, but she doesn't deserve to get stuck in a marriage to the sort of guys she does interviews with.

[fundiefun]

Most of the guys who have done her interviews are massive assholes who view women as objects, so I hope for Raquel's sake they do avoid her. She is annoying as hell, but she doesn't deserve to get stuck in a marriage to the sort of guys she does interviews with.

I only know 1 on a personal level who I consider to be decent for supporting my friend she booked it out of fundie life, who knows a few but the rest are massive asshats, but that's the conclusion with her over the top crushes when she claims to be pure of heart and all that other jazz. Me and Raquel go way back and were at one time working on a magazine together, but the day she found out I was catholic after 2 years of fake ass friendship she dropped me like it's nothing. The final straw was when she was encouraging my friend to stay in a marriage resulting in cheating and he got rough with her physically her and her fabulous mother blasted the girl on facebook daily until said girl cut ties with them. It's funny how she claims to know what to do in a abusive marriage when she hasn't ever even had a boyfriend. Not going out on the line for the rest of the guys, but the 1 I am close with through a friend has changed his tune and basically left the fundie lifestyle to pursue his dreams in clothing the rest I've talked to here and there.

[fundiefun]

So to add one final thing Raquel thanks to her mother would have no problem lining up to marry one of these guys. When a man puts his hands on you like my friends "husband" did there is no amount of prayer to fix it. I wonder how many other girls have fallen into this situation and it's clear their parents wouldn't go out on a line to save them.

[formergothardite]

I'm glad some of the guys she has interviewed have changed. She is so desperate to get married that she will really jump at the first guy who shows interest in her. And she seems to be drawn to guys who aren't going to treat her well.

She and the twins used to be pretty good friends, at least it appeared that way. They would comment on blog post to each other and Raquel had them guest post on her blog along with a photo shoot, but then something happened and she deleted most of their stuff from her blog. I figured they might of disagreed with her on some little thing and she flipped out.

[browngrl]

She writes "This is not a simple story of love, though this is the simple version. At times, it was messy and difficult and hard and required both people to die to their interest in each other . " and "I completely died to my vision for my life" and "things of this earth would grow strangely dim" etc

Actually it does seem like a simple love story to me. Boy meets girl. Girl develops a crush on boy. Boy asks girl to marry him. What is so complex about this? I also do not understand all the talk of death/messiness and difficulties in the midst of an engagement announcement. I can not recall one person in my circle of family/friends/acquaintances who mentioned death even once at the time of an engagement announcement.

Anyway, they seem happy so congrats to them.

edited because I do my best editing AFTER posting

[Jezebel]

I don't think he's ugly at all--I like faces like his. But lawdy lawd, he's just got the worst, most unflattering haircut possible. Those bangs...oh, honey, no.

She's 22. A lot of secular women are finishing college and starting careers at that age, and she's still been biding her time at home. I would not be at all surprised if she's watched at least one younger woman in their church community get married in the past year--while she was still waiting to meet someone. And the clock just keeps ticking; time is not on a SAHD's side.

So she picked someone she knew, someone safe and familiar. If he had a cruel streak, or was reckless, or had some other major character flaw she's had plenty of chances to see it (as have her parents)--he's hardly a stranger. And terrible haircut aside, he looks nice. He's got an open, friendly look about him, and he seems happy to be around her. If anything, he looks happier and more excited about the engagement than she does. And lot of the awkwardness in the photos is probably due to the limited physical contact they are allowed.

Given the constraints their beliefs and her physical isolation impose on finding a potential spouse, I think she's done okay. Is there is a part of her that feels she's had to "settle" for him, and that wishes she could have had something different? Eh, maybe. But they've got a lot in common, and are both are looking in the same direction--I think the potential for happiness is there.

[salex]

She writes "This is not a simple story of love, though this is the simple version. At times, it was messy and difficult and hard and required both people to die to their interest in each other . " and "I completely died to my vision for my life" and "things of this earth would grow strangely dim" etc

Actually it does seem like a simple love story to me. Boy meets girl. Girl develops a crush on boy. Boy asks girl to marry him. What is so complex about this? I also do not understand all the talk of death/messiness and difficulties in the midst of an engagement announcement. I can not recall one person in my circle of family/friends/acquaintances who mentioned death even once at the time of an engagement announcement.

Anyway, they seem happy so congrats to them.

edited because I do my best editing AFTER posting

All this "dying to self" and "dying to their interest in each other" seems aimed at telling us that they are still pure or obedient to daddy and god or whatever. However, I think the whole "I have completely died to my vision for my life" is horrible, it does sound like she is settling, or that he might "gasp" not be able to have kids, or want her to be a SAH, or is going to buy a pop up trailer and fill it with kids when she thought she'd have a white picket fence.

Good luck to all that.

[Jezebel]

All this "dying to self" and "dying to their interest in each other" seems aimed at telling us that they are still pure or obedient to daddy and god or whatever. However, I think the whole "I have completely died to my vision for my life" is horrible, it does sound like she is settling, or that he might "gasp" not be able to have kids, or want her to be a SAH, or is going to buy a pop up trailer and fill it with kids when she thought she'd have a white picket fence.

Well, he is finishing law school, so depending upon where he chooses to go into practice, she may very well get whatever material comfort she was hoping for. I very much doubt she'll end up in a pop-up trailer, or making skirt cheese, or bunking her kids on Costco shelving. On a strictly material level, she picked well. And in her little town and among her church community, he's no doubt quite a catch, in part because of that.

But there are other things she may have wanted from the experience of courtship and marriage that she knows she's not likely to get from this fellow. They don't even have to be big, important things. But sometimes the little disappointments can hurt a lot.

I suspect her "vision" for her life was that God would send the perfect man of her dreams, who would come seeking her. Other FJers have suggested that these SAHD blogs are covert personals ads, where a SAHD can publicly describe what a wonderful, godly wife the blogger will be, in the hope of attracting the attention of eligible young men who are not part of their immediate social circles.

SAHDs can't go out and meet eligible men in the usual ways, and can't even approach men they are interested in--not directly. They are princesses, locked away in towers, waiting for God to send their knights in shining armor--the godly young men who will be brave enough to approach their fathers and express interest. The best they can do is sit in the tower window and watch for the flash of sunlight on polished armor.

But no knight came seeking Mikaela. She's pretty enough, she's godly enough, she's done all the right things and been the right kind of girl--and at 22 her knight still hadn't come, and there were no signs that he would. So she had to take a huge risk--pick the most fitting of the few eligible knights she knew, and ask her father to approach him. And, fortunately for her, her father agreed to do it, and even more fortunately for her the knight said "yes." Her knight didn't have to risk being found unworthy; he didn't have to rise to any challenges; he just had to say "yes."

And he could just as easily said "no," either to her father at the beginning, or during the courtship--which is why she had to do all that "dying" to her self and her interest in him. Telling yourself that it's all up to God's will, not yours, and that all you really want to do is God's will is as good a way of steeling yourself against potential disappointment, humiliation, and heartbreak as any.

Short version: she wasn't chosen and pursued; she made an offer and it was accepted. And you can't tell me that was part of her "vision" for her life.

[salex]

.

Short version: she wasn't chosen and pursued; she made an offer and it was accepted. And you can't tell me that was part of her "vision" for her life.

Interesting and likely what I'd missed.

Oh, these egalitarian blinders of mine, I miss some of these little subtle things.

However, some of the over 30 year old SAHDs probably sometimes wish they had followed suit!

[Daenerys]

Does anyone know the name of the small town in Washington state she is from? I only ask because I am from Washington state.

They are from Longview, WA and their surname is Cash. Father works in a paper mill in the area and is an elder in their church which is called Heritage Bible Church and might be over the Oregon border.

[Tangy Bee]

This is interesting news! I found the twins while reading on Jasmine Baucam's blog. They would comment on all topics except the ones when Jasmine was talking about her hair or something involving African Americans. I thought they were too obvious with that. All other times, they seem to have encouraging things to say. I think they might know Jasmine on a more personal level

Erin and Chad have yet to hold hands. She can call Chad "sweetheart" but she won't hold his hand in any of their courtship pics. Sorry, but when you LOVE someone and called them sweetheart...you should be holding hands by now. VERY happy to see Mikaela holding hands. I know it doesn't prove anything but at least it's a start. :)

[MissBeaufort]

My phone has a small screen, and for a couple of disbelieving seconds I thought she was grabbing his butt in that first photo.

And I'm definitely in the "kind of weirded out by all this talk of death" camp. She sure lucked out materially, though.

[Daenerys]

I hope she keeps blogging cus I'm super curious how this will pan out.