This is a blog I posted on Myspace a couple of years ago. Since then, I’ve had such a significant response to it that I decided it was about time to re-post it on my blog and Facebook (since no one even knows what the word “Myspace” means anymore).
Note: This subject is a huge passion of mine and I have put careful thought into this and chosen to dedicate my life's work to it (well at least I had at the time I originally wrote it). So though it is lengthy, if you choose to read it, please read the whole thing. It is very important to me, and hopefully it with be helpful to you and very worthwhile your time.
By the way, this was originally written to a Christian audience, so it is based on a Christian worldview. If you disagree with that worldview, please read it with an open mind because it still might have some general principles of application for you in it too.
Here it goes…..
I have worked with college students for the past 5 or 6 years now (even though I no longer do so "officially"). And of course, being the nature of the age, I have seen many a people get married over that time. As I have talked with many of these brides to be (by the way, I do not have a particular person in mind), I have seen one common thread that makes me very wary. There is one phrase in particular that chills my bones that I have heard over and over again:
"Well, I know it will be OK because we're both Christians and God will bless our marriage".
This phrase is usually said by someone who is getting married super fast after only dating the person for less than 6 months. The reason this phrase is so petrifying to me is because of the theology that lies behind it. It is a faulty theology that could actually destroy your life and make you miserable, so please pay attention.
From now on when I hear this phrase, I am going to follow it up with this question: "What do you think 'bless' means?" Because I am pretty sure that most people think it means that God will make you happy. So my next question, is where do you get the idea that God promises to make you happy no matter what? God commands us to do many things when making a big decision. He says to use wisdom, follow God's clear will (that is specifically written in the Bible), listen to wise counsel, be patient, and pray. Plus much more (particularly found in Proverbs- the book of wisdom). So it really bothers me when I see Christians making a decision, but not thinking too hard on it because they believe that even if they ignore these specific things outlined in scripture, that God will come in and save them. Granted, God could choose to come rescue them from their natural consequences of a bad decision, but I do not think it is reasonable, nor Biblical to EXPECT that God will come in and rescue you out of your consequences. I want everyone who is single, dating, or engaged to listen closely to this...
It is a very real possibility that you could end up completely miserable for the rest of your life, hating your marriage and your spouse every single day. You are not immune to this just because you are a Christian.If you really believe God will make you happy no matter what (you may not know you believe it, but ask yourself really), you are placing your entire future- every day of your life for the rest of your life- in a false promise that God never gave us.
Yes, God does work all things for good for those who love him. But do you think good translates to: God works all things out to make those who love him happy with an easy life? No. I'm sure that if you end up in a horrible marriage, you will learn a lot from it and you will be able to help and encourage others in the same situation. It is my guess that a lot of that is the good that would possibly come out of it. But it is very likely that had you made a wiser choice before you got married, you could have an AWESOME marriage that you truly enjoy and God would still bring a lot of good out of that too. Just because God will work things out for good, does not give you the freedom to make an irresponsible decision and then expect God to save you from it and make you happy anyways. And I hope it goes without saying that just because you are unhappy in your marriage, does not give you the right to get out of it. You are stuck there, living unhappy for the rest of your lives- that is a very real reality that I feel like most Christians getting married choose to ignore! A successful marriage is not just one that lasts, it is one that is healthy and God glorifying (not necessarily perfect). If 50% of Christian marriages end in divorce, how many of the other 50% do you think are actually happy? How many are miserable? What makes you think that you are different enough or special enough that you will make it to be one of the happy 25% (guessing on the percentage), especially if you are rash in your decision to get married?
In case you don't believe me, lets look at what you are really saying when you say that God will work your marriage out for good and bless it (therefore you will be happy so you don't have to worry too much about making the right choice). When you say this you are assuming one of two things. 1. You will be able to get a divorce if this doesn't make you happy (because after all, its God fault for not keeping up his end of the deal and "blessing" it). 2. If you follow all the guidelines in the Bible you will have an awesome marriage. This is true, but unfortunately, you can not possibly follow all the guidelines perfectly and earn yourself a perfect, happy marriage. Just because you are Christians and you have been given the "key" to a perfect marriage, doesn't mean you will have one. 3. God wants me to be happy. Actually he wants what's best for you and that isn't necessarily happiness. Just look at the isolated, different little boy who grew up to be a man who was mocked by his peers, deserted by his best friends, and brutally tortured and killed by the time he was 30- oh yeah, his name was Jesus. And look at all the verses that talk about persecution, sacrifice, and dying to yourself- I'm pretty sure that only Americans are able to translate that message into a message that says "God wants you to be happy". I digress.
Now for the heart of this. I have addressed why people justify making unwise decisions, but now lets look at what could possibly qualify as unwise. Now, much prefacing is needed here so that you see my heart here. First of all, I'm not saying that if you did not do this, your marriage is not blessed by God or anything even close to that. And I am not saying that if you do these things you will have a bad marriage, that is not necessarily true. I am just suggesting that you are playing with bad odds and I would advise against that. I just do not have any reason to believe that it would ever be wise for me to advise someone to go ahead and do the things I am going to warn about in the following sections. I am speaking to people who are as of yet, unmarried and I am pleading with them to do everything in their power to examine their decision and their heart behind their decision. I'm encouraging them to take every precaution in their power to make the right decision, but I am not saying that the Bible specifically says to do the following things. I am not saying you are sinning if you don't do these things (you could be, but you could not be). I am saying, be careful.
For one, you need to listen to your instinct. If there are red flags, pay attention. Don't think that it is OK because this person is a Christian. Once again, that doesn't mean that God will spare you from horrible things in your marriage. Usually the people who say the oh-so-dreaded sentence about God's blessing are the same people who are ignoring red flags. Once again, when you do this, you are placing your entire future in a false promise that God never gave us.
Second of all you need to take your time. It always amazes me that people will spend years deciding where they want to go for grad school or deciding what career they want but when it comes to marriage (the ONE thing that can not be reversed) they will decide in weeks or months. You can always change your mind and go to a different school, switch your major or any of those things. You can not change your mind and get a different spouse, so why would that be the one thing that you decide rashly? Someone told me when I was getting married "you never hear anyone said, 'we took it too slow', but you always hear people say that they rushed into it too quickly". I totally agree with that. I have yet over my 26 years of life to ever hear anyone say they regret taking their time when making a permanent, life changing decision, but you always hear that they regret moving so fast. My question is, why do you think you are any different? When you hear people's regrets so often, why do you think you have it figured out?
One reason that taking your time with a person is so crucial is because you cannot possibly know all the info that you need to know about them in order to make a wise decision about marrying them if you don't. There are various seasons to life and to relationships. There is actually a documented season in relationships called "infatuation" and that is basically the stage that many people expect to remain in forever, and they will make horrible decisions during this time period. If you make a decision before you have run through the gamete of stages, you have NO idea what you are getting yourself into with a person. They may be having a particularly good time in your life, but how do you know how they respond during devastating times? How do they treat you during those times? You may not think it matters because you believe you will always be happy, but what if you have one tragedy after another in your marriage- who that person is during trials may be who they are during the first 10 years of your marriage. You had better know who that person is before you choose to accept them for life. There are so many horrible things in marriage that can be prevented before marriage if given the time and attention. Choosing to accept something bad about someone is so much different, than being forced to accept that same thing because you are already committed to that person for life and you feel cheated because that is not the person you thought you were getting and you didn't "sign up for this".
A good rule of thumb that someone once told me is to ask "Would I still be marrying this person if I knew for a fact that they would NEVER change?" You can’t even ask that question if you don’t know all the facts about them. The problem is that many people have not even been together long enough to see those flaws in each other on any kind of real level or seen how those flaws affect the relationship. It is one thing to see a flaw and to know they are working on that, but you need to have enough time to see what "working on it means". Do they ever actually follow through? How do they deal and how do you deal when they mess up again? If you only date a few months, you have no way of knowing any of this. If you have been together to observe them working through their issues and seen what they really struggle with (and may struggle with their entire life) and can answer yes to the above question, you are in pretty good shape. If you are marrying someone whose flaws you either don't know yet, or that you are not willing accept as a permanent part of your life- you are not in a place to get married. It's not that your partner is consciously hiding those things, they may not even be aware of them themselves! You have to be an observer of them, a student of them, long enough to recognize patterns and to know what you are dealing with.
Honestly, in my personal opinion, there is only one reason to get married fast and that is if one of you is dying of cancer because then if you make a bad decision, "til death do us part" will probably come fast enough and you can still salvage your life. Other than that, I don't think there is any good reason.
Are you moving away? That is one of the hardest ways that I can think to start a new marriage: in a foreign place with no support, working on the problems you didn't have enough time to work out before you got married in pre-marital counseling, dealing with the stress of change that normally comes with marriage plus everything else, and above all else working on getting to know your spouse that you don't know very well under these trying conditions. That is a recipe for a horrible first year (which is one of the most important years as you establish habits and norms of which many will be difficult to change in the years to come.) I am not saying you should not marry and then move quickly, I am saying I believe it is unwise to get married faster than you otherwise would (when you have not been dating very long) BECAUSE you are moving. I am not judging those who have done it, and yes God can use it for a lot of good, I'm just saying that in and of itself is not a good reason to marry quicker than you should.
Are you going off to war? Maybe you should check out the divorce statistics from after WWII to see how the quick marriages turned out! Not a good reason to rush a marriage.
Are you just dying to have sex but you don't believe it's right unless you're married? This one is a little more complicated. If you dated long enough to know each other really well and you are very prepared for marriage, then I see no problem in having a short engagement and rushing the wedding planning. However, I see far too many Christians use the excuse for rushing into marriages that Paul says "it is better to marry than to burn with lust." That is taking that way out of context. Paul is talking about whether you should marry or not EVER, that verse is better applied to catholic priests who take out their lust on little boys than for people who plan on marrying one day but decide to rush into without weighing the costs enough. He is saying, "if you can't stay celibate your whole life, you probably shouldn't try". If you really think that can be applied to you marrying a girl quickly just because you really want to have sex, then you should have gotten married when you were 15 in order to be appropriately following the Bible. No matter what, we are called to control our desires. If you can't control your lust now, getting married won't change that. Just because you get to have sex sometimes, doesn't mean you get to have sex every single moment that you want it. You are not going to be so satisfied every moment of every day and you will be tempted just as you are now. If you are used to dwelling on the bodies of every girl you walk past, you will do the same thing when you are married. Marriage does not solve the problem of lust, it just makes it a lot more complicated. I would venture to go so far as to say that (at the risk of taking this too far) if you are applying the Pauline principal here because you can't control yourself, then I would almost say you are probably should not get married yet! Because now your lust is only hurting yourself, but later it will hurt your wife too! If you are lusting, you are breaking a command already, to follow up one bad choice with another (marrying someone you shouldn't) is not going to help you.
There are all kinds of other reasons people get married fast without the proper amount of thought, counsel, or time to make a wise decision. Some think it will make them happy… it probably won't- it is freaking hard & causes more difficult problems and then you can even imagine. Some do it to escape their current situation. Most of those people need a lot of individual counseling before they are healthy enough for a marriage. And some people (mostly girls) think it will put together their perfect little life and make them princess for a day with everyone looking at their happy little life of dinner parties and surprise flowers. I don't even know where to start with that one, just trust me- not true!
I do not say any of this because I am unhappy in my marriage or because I wish I married someone different. I say it because of the exact opposite reason. I say this because I love my husband so much and I feel like I could not be happier with any other guy on the planet, and yet even with that marriage is the most ridiculously hard- sometimes even horrible thing I've ever had to do. It is that which makes me wonder how people who do not marry someone as totally amazing and wonderful as I did, can do it! I know that if it is so hard for me with an excellent husband, how hopeless and awful so many other people's marriages must be! If I wasn't absolutely convinced that Scottie was the person I should have married, my attitude would be so different about all of this hard work than it is. That is why I am stressing that if you aren't sure about this person- and by sure I do not mean that it "feels" right and you are in love- I mean that it is tried, true, and tested sure- then I beg of you, please, please do not get married! It is so different than you could ever think and you need to make a wise, well thought out, logical decision before you do it. And that is all this is about, it's about not resting on ideas of false realities sold by Hollywood, or bad theology, or the stories of a few people who's marriages were salvaged by God out of his grace (speaking to "itching ears"), or on the promises of a person you are about to marry that you hardly know. Most of the time the only things you can rest on are: clear Biblical instruction, wise counsel from solid people who know and love you, your own intuition, and God's grace to help you make it through your marriage. You can't always prevent problems in your marriage or always know if you are marrying the right person (it is a gamble), but you can usually recognize a lot of the bad signs IF YOU ARE WILLING TO SEE THEM.
