Apparently, it doesn't end after the vows...

[bluegreysky]

If you thought I meant arguing, no that's not what I'm referring to.

This is something that was the topic of a recent sermon at my church and it is something I never really thought about until now (probly because I'm not married).... purity.
Don't laugh. I don't mean the "not having sex" kind. I mean the "stay out of compromising situations" kind.

I've heard of Christians who won't go to the beach because the opposite sex will be there in a bathing suit. They wouldn't go to the mall because there will be stores with sexy pictures of people barely dressed and sexy underwear for sale. They wouldn't go to the movies because out of the entire 2 hours, there might be a 1 minute and 50 second sex scene where you see a nipple.
This is their choice I guess.

But for the most of us, we make it a point when we are seeing someone to not wind up alone at his/her place after a few drinks (or even sober if you don't have the willpower). We get seperate hotel rooms on the big weekend trip that includes some opposite sex friends. We don't go to clubs and grind on people.
And as singles, we try to avoid seeming too intimately close (like one-on-one lunch or drinks or personal phone calls) to someone's spouse... lest we get accused of being a dirty husband thief.
Got all that down, check.

But at church they just made marriage seem 10x more complicated. It was already going to be hard work when we get to it.
But now there's a new kind of purity concern.
A single shouldn't ask a married man out to lunch or vice versa
but even another married person isn't supposed to be too close.
So If I were married, and my husband wasn't home, and his best friend came over, I'd have to ask him to leave.
Says about 8 married women from bible study who do that.
They hand him a doggy bag of casserole they just made and tell him to come back later.
If the pastor had an appointment with a lady from church, and the other people who work in the office can't be there, he has to postpone his appointment whether she's single or married... because he's married.
<I think this a tad bit funny though because they have a male youth leader and a female assistant leader and she is married to a guy from a different department and the youth leader is married to a girl who doesn't work there at all. how do they work that out? lol.>

When I think about it all, it sounds exhausting. You work hard at being cautious with who you get too close to as a single, but it always seems like the battle is over when you walk down the aisle because now it's ok to have sex right?
But it sounds like they have to be equally cautious, if not more, after they get married because of 1) people with little restraint and 2) people who see things and misconstrue it, then gossip
Sounds..... so........exhausting.....
especially because that battle goes on.....forever (till death do they part)

Anyone have thoughts on this?

 

[Purge187]

Overkill, to be sure.

It's up to each person to know when a certain line is being crossed, and any intelligent adult--Christian, atheist, or otherwise--knows when that happens.

Living as a hermit to avoid any potential temptation is a bit much.

 

[Rhamiel]

one of my friends would go out to bars with her brothers while her husband would normally stay home and study, he is in grad school and has to work a lot

she met a new guy and has left her husband....
so yeah... you still have to be careful after you get married

 

[Sketcher]

Given how a number of affairs start, these kinds of steps sound reasonable. Not that they are holy in and of themselves, but marriage itself is holy and marriages should be protected.

 

[MehGuy]

Luckily my woman won't be allowed out of the house, without constant supervision.

 

[EazyMack]

Luckily my woman won't be allowed out of the house, without constant supervision.

Problem solved!

 

[miss-a]

I think it's part of accepting that we live in a fallen world. Yes, we have to be careful. But, I also think there are many good-intentioned folks taking it too far. At my former church, and one of the reasons it is now former, it was questionable if I could even say good morning to one of my brothers without someone, usually him or his wife, thinking I was up to something. That was a bit of overkill. We are Christians. We really are supposed to say good morning. And most of the time when I was treated like I'd done something wrong it was from saying good morning to someone who 1) even if he had been single I wouldnt have been interested in, and 2) I'm not a morning person so the salutations slipped out by accident because I was in morning fog and forgot I was supposed to be pretending that only my sisters deserved a good morning.

So yes, let's protect marriages, but let's not make the assumption that everyone breathing within a 40-mile radius is after our mate.

 

[Sketcher]

^ That is overkill. Even though "Good morning" is a contradiction in terms, and therefore saying it is a lie.

 

[bluegreysky]

ok its not like I want to let myself and my future husband get into bad sutiations but something about that sounds.... oppressive.
even if it was an unspoken rule that he wouldn't be around any ladies without me and I wouldn't be around any men without him
it sounds controlling to me.
I don't want to tell him he can't go to an office lunch or a bible study or whatever because only women showed up. It's his life, and I would want to think if I took my time getting to know him and then we got married that I could trust him not to respond to any other woman's advances or to try to start up an affair with them.
And if I made a bunch of short-leash rules, I'd think he'd be more likely to want to escape from me... lol

 

[Sketcher]

ok its not like I want to let myself and my future husband get into bad sutiations but something about that sounds.... oppressive.
even if it was an unspoken rule that he wouldn't be around any ladies without me and I wouldn't be around any men without him
it sounds controlling to me.
I don't want to tell him he can't go to an office lunch or a bible study or whatever because only women showed up. It's his life, and I would want to think if I took my time getting to know him and then we got married that I could trust him not to respond to any other woman's advances or to try to start up an affair with them.
And if I made a bunch of short-leash rules, I'd think he'd be more likely to want to escape from me... lol

I think that if anybody is going to make rules about that for their marriage or their ministry, it should focus on one-on-one alone time with the opposite sex. Pastors especially need to be above reproach. Lots of pastors have not had affairs, but for many of those who have had affairs, it started with one-on-one time without witnesses to keep them accountable. Reasonable safeguards can be taken, and I believe they are commendable. For instance, we had a campus ministry leader who would counsel students one-on-one in his home. His wife did most of the work with female students, but sometimes he would need to meet with a female student one-on-one to discuss some kind of business or another. He had a window to his office put in so that even though the discussion would be private, somebody would be able to look in at any time. Not that he had a problem or that he would let anyone in there who he would suspect would have a problem, but it was a reasonable step to take which provided a lot of benefits, if you ask me.

Another example is my church's worship leader. We have a rotation of coed worship band performers, they practice together, and so forth. He is married. He makes it his policy to not give another woman a ride in his car alone, period. He just does not want to give the devil an opening that way. If you were married to a man with the same responsibilities and access to other women, would you really have a problem with him imposing this standard upon himself?

 

[Elliewaves]

I think it boils down to just having common sense and not giving anyone ammunition to smear your reputation or marriage. Because even in a church environment there are nasty people who would love to insinuate that so and so is cheating or whatever b/c they saw so and so together with whose and whose. People eat up immorality gossip (true or not) in church communities and run with it (true or not) There is a point to which you must be careful and be loyal to your spouse; but basically live your life in a way so that even if some old biddy tries to accuse you of cheating on your spouse, no one would believe them. Don't give the old biddies a foot hold. If that involves checks and balances , so be it.

The other side of the coin is it's 2013 and over the course of history it's been proven that men and women working and interacting closely (married or not) can develop feelings and emotional pulls towards one another that can develop into the physical. It doesn't happen everytime, but why take that chance? Appropriate mutually agreed upon boundaries are a good thing within a marriage. It may not make sense to anyone outside of the marriage, but that doesn't matter as long as the spouses are mutually agreeing on certain boundaries. But again "appropriate" is a key word here. If a spouse is feeling jealous, possessive, or threatened b/c someone of the opposite sex says hello to their spouse and they answer back; then I would say that's not appropriate they they probably need counseling.

 

[miss-a]

^ That is overkill. Even though "Good morning" is a contradiction in terms, and therefore saying it is a lie.

Well, you see, the good thing I find about morning is that I'm too tired to remember it! (And just as an aside, did you know that it is an actual biological fact that people are programmed, by God I might add, to be either a morning person or not. True. Not kidding. So the next time anyone tries to shame you for sleeping in, know you're just being obedient!)

 

[NewUser777]

I think that if anybody is going to make rules about that for their marriage or their ministry, it should focus on one-on-one alone time with the opposite sex.

This.

It's the one-on-one situations you need to watch out for. Not the situation where your husband wants to go to a bible study that just includes women.

It's the one-one-one, look into each other's eyes types of interactions that can quickly devolve into "he just don't understand me, but you do" exchanges.

How do you think most divorces get started nowadays. It doesn't even need to be face to face. Another killer is the cell phone. The texts. Texting can quickly devolve into flirting and when married people are involved, it leads to no good.

Understanding this should not lead to a mentality of "oppressive" marriage. If you really love someone you will run from these kinds of situations naturally.

Something else I see prevalent today is the sharing of personal feelings and personal information between the sexes. If you're married, there are certain things, actually a lot of things, that should remain private between you and your mate.

 

[Cearbhall]

one of my friends would go out to bars with her brothers while her husband would normally stay home and study, he is in grad school and has to work a lot

she met a new guy and has left her husband....
so yeah... you still have to be careful after you get married

That's a failure on her part, though. Other adults never run into a problem when going to bars after marriage. Being an adult is about being responsible enough to know yourself and plan accordingly.

 

[stephanieamber]

I think those things are normal. I don't even think it's a "purity" issue so much as it is a propriety issue. i'm a youth pastor; we have an assistant pastor around my age who is usually the only person consistently at the church. when his wife comes by when she gets off work, sometimes the 3 of us go to lunch together. but unless she's there, I would NEVER go to lunch with brian. because who is there to vouch for us, and to say "yeah Stephanie didn't try to hold brian's hand" or "the conversation was never borderline inappropriate?"

it's not just saying "is there any temptation at all to have sex with this person?" or to think of that path. I think it's also about "what rumors could fly because of this, what habit is being developed that could be harmful if picked up by someone with no restraint," etc.

and I think that is ESPECIALLY for leaders of the church, because we're attempting to live holy lives that protect not just ourselves, our families, our reputations and our ministries but also protect our congregations and their friends from the temptation to gossip or spread rumors or believe untrue things or speculate or whatever.

 

[FearlessHeart]

I think those things are normal. I don't even think it's a "purity" issue so much as it is a propriety issue. i'm a youth pastor; we have an assistant pastor around my age who is usually the only person consistently at the church. when his wife comes by when she gets off work, sometimes the 3 of us go to lunch together. but unless she's there, I would NEVER go to lunch with brian. because who is there to vouch for us, and to say "yeah Stephanie didn't try to hold brian's hand" or "the conversation was never borderline inappropriate?"

it's not just saying "is there any temptation at all to have sex with this person?" or to think of that path. I think it's also about "what rumors could fly because of this, what habit is being developed that could be harmful if picked up by someone with no restraint," etc.

and I think that is ESPECIALLY for leaders of the church, because we're attempting to live holy lives that protect not just ourselves, our families, our reputations and our ministries but also protect our congregations and their friends from the temptation to gossip or spread rumors or believe untrue things or speculate or whatever.

Seems like a sad way to go about life. If you're that close with his wife too I really don't see the problem. I do know Billy Graham would never meet with a woman alone, he would always have an open door policy with the secretary in ear shot. I don't think I could be in a relationship like that, but everyone is different and I can respect that.

 

[FearlessHeart]

That's a failure on her part, though. Other adults never run into a problem when going to bars after marriage. Being an adult is about being responsible enough to know yourself and plan accordingly.

You can't even go to bars

 

[Cearbhall]

You can't even go to bars

To whom are you referring? Married adults as a whole? And do you mean "can't" according to these guidelines?

 

[ImperatorWall]

For the record, I'm one of those who does not go to the beach, watch movies, go to malls, etc. We have to control more than our actions, we have to control our thoughts as well. It's hard enough as it is, I see no reason to bombard my senses with constant sensuality and expect to be able to remain pure of thought.

As for what your church says about how married men and women should behave, I agree with them. Should I ever get married my life will cease to be my own. There will be no time or place for other female friends or casual interaction. I see nothing wrong with providing counsel or assistance for a woman as a married man, but I would purposely avoid spending time with women who were not my wife.

 

[r035198x]

I don't believe in blanket rules for everything. I do think we all know when we are getting too close to someone. Unfortunately not all of us can stop that easily even when we see the signs.
I suppose it's ok to entertain an opposite sex visitor at the house one afternoon when the husband is not there, but as a frequent occurrence? I mean the practical case these days is that you whatsapp or message someone before you go to their house, right?

Mind you I have lunch twice a week with a married friend of mine.