• Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.

Does the Love Dare work?

EM20

Newbie
Jan 14, 2014
2
0
✟15,112.00
Faith
Baptist
Marital Status
Married
So I've been married for 12 years and have always been what I call a lukewarm Christian. I believed in God but never really sought an intimate relationship with him. I would only go to church on Christmas Eve and Easter. I always put my husband first, even before God. The past two years I felt like he fell out of love with me. He never wanted to make love, stopped giving affection, would go days without talking and when he did he talked to me like a child. I was always getting accused of cheating when I had never given him a reason to think that or feel that way. One day he started accusing me and something snapped in me and a month later I was having a full blown affair. He was devastated. I didn't care and was glad to be away from him. Once he started apologizing for his part of things and prayed for me my heart softened instantly and I came back! It was a lot of work and we sought therapy but we never brought God in. It's been 9 mos since the affair and he said I've done everything right but he just can't get over it. He's involved with someone else and wants to move out. I've recommitted my life to God and have been seeking him since (5 weeks now). I'm thinking of doing the Love Dare but I want to hear testimonies from other people who completed it.
 

1watchman

Overseer
Site Supporter
Oct 9, 2010
6,040
1,227
Washington State
✟358,388.00
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
I don't care for love formulas or any such inventions to substitute for the Holy Spirit of God. Please read John 1, John 3, and John 14, then in the secret of your heart ask our Creator-God to teach you and lead you into truth. I was saved over 60 years ago by first reading John 14. God really answered my questions, and I prayed and received the Lord Jesus as my Savior and lord of my life. He has been my best Friend and helper along my many years. Read your Bible daily and pray always! Write me anytime if you wish to talk.
- Ever in Christ by grace alone, 1watchman Bob
 
Upvote 0

dhh712

Mrs. Calvinist Dark Lord
Jul 16, 2013
778
283
Gettysburg
✟42,497.00
Country
United States
Gender
Female
Faith
Presbyterian
Marital Status
Married
I agree with the first response. I'm sorry to see the problems you are going through, but no worldly invention is going to help you. I would second the suggestion of reading the Bible daily and pray (at least twice a day). That is the best advice for any problem. You will not be able to depend on anything else.
 
Upvote 0

AWorkInProgress

A fool becoming wise
Jan 18, 2007
2,161
238
Glendale, AZ
✟102,260.00
Country
United States
Gender
Male
Faith
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Politics
US-Others
As for the Love Dare, I have never tried it. If anything I just watched the movie. My translation of the Love Dare is really a challenge about what love truly is. In the movie, the guy's pride wrecked havoc on this marriage and with new truth to reveal the errors of his ways. His marriage began to dissolve to the mess we saw in the movie.

Really his last hope, and with prayers from his father, the Love Dare was a test to reveal what was missing in his life. The most important thing that makes his life complete and ultimately lead to the restoration of his marriage. Which was a deep intimate relationship with Jesus.

This is what the guy discovered in the movie, and as he grew in his walk. Jesus becoming his teacher in life, and showing him the evil in his old ways. And renewing him, leading him to become a new creation. That was God's love growing inside of him, and was reflected to his wife. God's love is what brought his wife back.

Hang on to Jesus, even when things get tough and hard to understand. He will not abandon you nor forsake you. He won't beat you down with rules, but he will lift you up and wipe the tears away as you begin to walk away from your old sinful life. You will begin to reflect God's love as you continue to receive it.

Edit: my apologizes. I do not have peace with this post, so I trimmed it down to only the relevant information.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
Sep 4, 2011
8,023
325
✟10,286.00
Faith
Protestant
Marital Status
Private
Sorry to hear about the situation. We never expect our marriages to progress like that! But these things can happen over many years.

I looked it up and skimmed it -- each day has a specific task to attempt or discipline to hold oneself to. While it contains good ideas, following it to the letter could put you in bad timing with what is really going on. If you do it, scramble the order to fit your situation. Otherwise it will be like expecting a horoscope to match everyone's lives the same day.

You say that your husband is on the verge of moving out, so [have a nice dinner together] could backfire on you. The list looks great for people hoping to improve their marriages, or working on counseling together. But you are in a tenuous spot. Doing some of these things could look like desperate manipulation, pushing him into places he doesn't want to be.

It helps to not expect marriage to make a person happy. Mature marriage can be a practical partnership, a working relationship even when people are not doting in adoration of each other. Partners hurt each other, and the negative memories pile up. There is a choice to accept the agreement to be loyal, or not.

Bringing God in helps take the heat off -- it brings out the agreement to work for each others' success, and bond in mutual support. That sounds idealistic, but I mean praying together can add a new focus that takes your minds off blame. Since God answers prayers and is in the midst of two gathered, He's worth including in the partnership.

Maybe that's too late. But I would suggest you set aside most of the other ways to draw him back, and simply ask if he would sometimes pray with you. If he says no, then wait and ask again later.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0

timf

Regular Member
Jun 12, 2011
1,450
586
✟128,980.00
Faith
Non-Denom
I spent several years counseling thousands of people. There is no secret formula that makes everything better. There are many counselors who will offer to help you for money. You could actually stumble across one that could be helpful, but they are rather rare.

Many counseling sessions fail because they do not engage the man. This is often because he feels that the hurt he experienced is not fully appreciated. Counseling needs to begin in truth with an honest acknowledgment of hurt so that each person can feel that they are adequately understood.

Some counseling focuses on an almost accounting determination of fault. This is a little like an IRS audit and even less enjoyable. Fault and blame can be somewhat useful in determining who needs to participate in solving a problem but it is often used far beyond this limited function to exact more harm.

If you can get two people to the point where they both admit what they have done wrong and that they both have a desire to repair their marriage, you can reach the point where the work begins.

An example of lost trust can be seen if we consider a person who sits in a chair. In a lifetime a person will sit in a chair thousands of times. He almost never questions if the chair will fail. However, if he sits in a chair that suddenly falls apart and launches him towards the floor, his trust has been betrayed. It will be a while before he can so easily consider sitting in a chair without easing into it or testing it first.

Infidelity in a marriage is a greater breech of trust and results in far more pain. However, restoring trust will still take time and healing.

Here are some steps that can help restore a Christian marriage.

1. Immersion in the word. The Bible is more than a book of tips and tricks. It is the power of God and actively works in us. Jesus said that if we live in his word, we would be his disciples indeed and know the truth and the truth would set us free. Distance from the word often makes us vulnerable to the flesh and the world.

2. Trumping memory. When a recollection of betrayal and an echo of pain and hurt is felt, then is the time to make use of a counter image. We can consider the hurt we caused as well as the hurt of the entire world that Jesus paid for on the cross.

3. Switching financial systems. The Bible says that we should owe no one anything except a debt of love. Biblical love (1 Cor 13:4-7) is essentially selflessness. The book of Galatians contrasts the flesh with the Spirit. It is by the power of the Spirit that we can turn from our natural selfishness and walk in love (selflessness).

4. Copy a template. Find an older wiser Christian couple who clearly show the light and love of Jesus in their life and their love for each other. Ask them if they would help you build a strong marriage like they have and to know Jesus like they do.

5. Redefine failure. The world impresses us with a false idea of failure and success. A marriage like a life can seem successful because it has not been tried in a furnace of affliction. Those of us who have been driven by "failure" or calamity to cling solely to our Savior, find a deeper and richer Christian life than we ever would have chosen freely.

6. Grow in love. When a man can look at his wife and see her in terms of her needs such as her social need for friends, or her need for affection and reassurance, he is becoming mature because he thinks of other before himself. When a woman looks at her husband and sees him in terms of his needs such as not being nagged and being asked to make family decisions, she is also growing in selfless love.

7. Sacrifice and humility. In James chapter four we are told that God gives more grace to the humble. This is not so much a reward as it is an acknowledgment that unless we walk in truth (which can only bring us to humility) we are not in alignment with God and thus unable to receive more of his grace. People who are driven to the brink of suicide often find a peace because they have let go of all that was tormenting them. If a person can rest in the certainty of his Savior, he can let go of everything else, even his life. It is from such a point that we can show a deeper love for others.

We can see a little of the perspective of love when Paul writes the Philippians. We drifts off a little bit saying how much better it would be to be out of this world and with the Lord. Then he sort of shakes off this reverie and tells them it is better for their sakes that he remain.

Jesus is the best example of this type of self-sacrifice.

Philippians 2:3-7 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

2 Corinthians 5:15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.

If I can be of any help, feel free to PM me.
 
Upvote 0