Emotional Chastity/Virtue

Girl meets guy.  Girl immediately starts planning the wedding and writing her first name with his last name all over her notebook to see if it flows well.  Girl puts guy on pedestal and thinks he can do no wrong (which puts way too much pressure on any person).  And thus begins a story that involves a lot of wounds and heartache.

I don't think I've ever met a girl (including myself) who hasn't, in some varying degree, dealt with this at some point or another.  Guys, you're not off the hook either, you can just as easily dream up some idea in your head as well.  So what, pray tell, must be done?  Emotional Chastity/Virtue.  Live in reality and strive for truth, beauty and goodness.  Reality can actually be quite good and allows a relationship to flourish and blossom because neither person is putting too much pressure on the other to be perfect (which helps when apologies and forgiveness are necessary) and when each person sees the other for who they really are then they can both make an honest choice to love each other where they're at and help one another become more virtuous and be the saints they were made to be.  There is a lot more that could be said on this topic, but unfortunately I don't have time to write out a discourse on it right now. So for now, I point you to the following:

Women have a unique ability to identify and draw out the good in another person, thereby contributing to others’ personal growth.  Furthermore, desire for love is in itself natural, good, and even noble. Women court danger, however, when they fill their minds with unbridled sentimentality that ignores the truth about their relationships.

Why would sentimentality or a romanticized vision of love be such a bad thing?  Consider a necessary distinction between romantic sentiment and sentimentality. Sentimentality can easily be detached from reality, thereby threatening healthy relationships, as it is primarily a disproportionate emotional response to sexual attraction.  Emotional sentiments may spontaneously happen to a person and provide a distraction from developing authentic interpersonal interaction, which is rooted in choice, healthy decisions and habits. The role of romantic sentiment, on the other hand, can be a positive one.  Romantic sentiment, if properly integrated into a relationship that also includes mutual knowledge, healthy trust and commitment levels, and true friendship grounded in virtue, comprises one of the key ingredients in authentic love and indeed can be the seed from which authentic love blossoms. If left unchecked, however, sentimentality becomes divorced from reality and this departure from truth about the situation can be harmful.

Read the rest here.
Also check out Emotional Virtue, a website by Sarah Swafford.