I Don't Think I Can Do This Anymore

[Carl Emerson]

My issue is that I've done everything asked of me and it seems to have been a waste.

There is a problem right there...

When is obedience wasted?

God loves to create something out of nothing.

We walk by faith not by sight.

We store up a history in heaven with prayer and tears, then God responds big time if we remain faithful and don't blow it.

I waited on the wrong lady for 10 years - I felt my heart was being ripped out - then BOOM God intervened and miraculously spoke to my wife about marrying me - we hardly knew one another.

That was 37 years ago and 5 children later.

He causes rivers to flow in the desert of life.

Deep calls to deep.

Go through stuff faithfully and He will use you to be there for others.

There is no shortcut to spirituality.

Remain faithful.

Let Him work it out.

 

[pdudgeon]

In going through all these responses, perhaps I have missed your response, but I have three questions:
1. Have you asked God to provide you with a wife?
Yes, it would seem to be the obvious answer to your problem, but you would probably be surprised that somehow this option just never occurs to men who are hunting for a wife.
2. If you have asked, have you actually released the search to Him, and are you content to wait?
3. You are waiting for a wife, but what are you doing meanwhile to prepare yourself for marriage?
Remember, God's timing in this is so important!
So don't be impatient, and don't give up hope!

 

[Neogaia777]

Imagine spending a week studying for a test. You say no to parties, you sacrifice your sleep, etc. Then, on the day of the test, the teacher says, "Raise your hand if you studied for the test." You raise your hand but nobody else does. The teacher then proceeds to say, "Since nobody studied for the test, we're not going to take it- everybody passes." You raise an objection to this, as this test was said to be incredibly important for passing the class. Everyone then laughs at you and say something to the tune of, "You didn't really expect people to study for the test, did you?" You then say, "But it was stated at the beginning of the year that passing this test was a requirement for graduating this class..." and everyone begins to get mad at you. "It's your fault that you studied for the test- don't be mad at us for not doing so." You decide to take the test anyway, because you want to get the best job you can in the future. During your job interview, you state that you took the test (even though everyone else didn't) and the interviewer says, "That's cool- we don't care about that test anymore." The interviewer calls every employee into the interview room and asks them, "Did you passes this test?" 99% of the employees say they haven't and laugh at you for doing so.

The above illustrates exactly how I feel.

"Women are allowed to have sex with whoever they want and you just have to accept it. Expecting women of the Christian faith to abstain from the sin of fornication was unreasonable and your unwillingness to accept this makes you a terrible person. Either accept this or die alone- your feelings don't matter. It was stupid of you to think that your future wife would do the same for you- she doesn't owe you anything. Oh, but you don't get to sleep with anyone, because fornication is a sin. Yeah, everyone else does, but you just have to sit there and remain a good little boy because that's what God wants." This is what I've gotten out of this. This doesn't seem like something a loving God would do to me, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe those who sin knowingly know something I don't, and I'm the fool here.

Yeah, but, why are you wasting time being mad at them, and mad that you waited when no else has seemed to, instead of truly trying to find what it is you are wanting and are looking for, etc...?

I know that you say they are your "feelings", etc, but they are also "baggage" that could possibly set you up for "failure" if you finally do find what you want, etc...

You've got to get rid of that man, like some have said... Hate and anger and bitterness and resentment in your heart is "no good", and is even probably much worse than some who have a "sexual past", etc, and please do notice that I said "some", etc, because "some" had to have that experience to learn from it before they could truly commit to someone, etc, and you should not hate them for that, etc, and those "some" may even be able to "now" be much, much more loyal to someone like you now than even some innocent young virgin with no experience might be, or could be, etc, but you won't even consider it, etc, and there is even hatred toward all of them in your heart, etc, which is "not good", etc...

Look, I'm not saying you have to marry one, but just you make sure to get rid of all of that "baggage" before you find your young virgin wife, OK, and I've told you about maybe some of the only places you will probably be able to find her, etc, because it's not just whether she's a virgin or not if you ask me, because, if you do ask me, I think there is something very wrong with both men and women brought up in today's more modernized cultures, etc, they don't seem to know what it's really supposed to be like, or be all about, etc, in fact, they think it's all about them, etc, and that's a big major problem, etc...

If they had the kind of life people did a hundred or two years ago, etc, then maybe they wouldn't be this way, etc, but as it stands, they never did, and so they have "no clue", etc, and so they are very selfish and self-centered and self-absorbed as a result, which never works out, etc...

And some all but cut off, and very remote place in the world is probably the only place left your going to ever find it now, etc...

You just better make sure your not one them, etc, and that you don't have unrealistic expectations warped by our modernized cultures, and you are not selfish, or self-centered, or self-absorbed yourself, etc, or things will never work out well for you and any new wife, because your carrying that "junk" over into it with you, etc...

In my opinion, people are spoiled babies by what they have today, etc, and in my opinion, it very, very much "shows", etc...

And you need to find someone not like that, and you also not be like that as well, etc, or it will not at all matter if you actually do find what you are looking for, because none of it will ever work out in the long term or in the end anyway, etc...

Anyway,

God Bless!

 

[Paidiske]

5 Signs You Need to Check Your Expectations - Prepare/Enrich

 

[bèlla]

You’re sinning. Whether its fornication or something else. Sex is your area of strength. But your weakness will be otherwise for someone else. That’s where it gets tricky.

You’re welcome to wait for a virgin as long as you understand the following:

Just because you’re a virgin doesn’t mean its a slam dunk. You may be turned down or overlooked by others like yourself.

It takes more than sexual restraint to build a relationship and make it last. That’s rarely the reason they end. Christian or otherwise.

You may be in for a wait whose length is unpredictable. Can you live with it? Can you watch others settle down while you’re waiting on the sidelines without growing angry or despondent?

No ones perfect. Not even you. People spend a lot of time listing the things they want and little gauging the flaws they can handle. You’ll have them in spades.

Just because she’s a virgin doesn’t mean she’s kind, patient, supportive, etc. If this is your must-have you should consider things beyond it. Qualities that enrich your person and relationship. You need them in tow as well.

Abstinence isn’t an impediment to friendships or a vibrant life. I’ve lived that way for years as has my daughter. We both have rich relationships. Your association with emptiness and betrayal suggests there’s bigger issues beneath the surface.

You’re using abstinence as a catchall for the things you lack. If you dig a little deeper you’ll find that isn’t the case. People aren’t rejecting you because you’re abstinent. How would they know unless you tell them? And why would you do that?

 

[Jamdoc]

Hi everyone.

I'm a 25-year-old who has been a Christian his entire life. Between the ages of 10 and 20, I didn't have the luxury of being in a church environment regularly. However, I never fell from God- I was always aware of his presence and did pray fairly regularly on my own before bed and before meals. With this said, when I turned 20, I decided to take it upon myself to become more devout, and I have since been reading my bible daily for the past 4+ years and studying scripture quite intensely.

Lately, I've been struggling with the idea of waiting until marriage to have sex- but not in the way you might think. I have personally never engaged in any sexual activities with another individual. I had the opportunity to do so many times in high school, but it never felt like the right thing to do, so I didn't. I could've had at least 7 sexual partners by the time I was 18, but I rejected the advances of all of them (imagine how many more opportunities I would've had if I would've went to college). This is extremely hard to do as a man in today's culture where virgins are laughed at and demeaned.

Keeping these things in mind, the thought of not being able to marry a woman who has also waited has been filling me with extreme dread for weeks now. I've seen surveys that claim that only 5% of the total population maintains their virginity past the age of 25. Similarly, there have been Christian-specific surveys taken that show that 80% of the Christian population has had sex before marriage (it's probably more). I feel like I've been lied to, betrayed, and that I've wasted my time by waiting.

The primary reason we wait is to honor God. Some secondary reasons include the increased divorce rate of individuals who have been sexually active outside of marriage, not wanting to deal with the baggage of past relationships, and wanting to be able to fully trust our partners. I fully agree with these reasons for waiting among other things, but nobody else seems to (until after they've fornicated).

Waiting to have sex has caused me to miss out on friendships, relationships, and experiences. Now, I'm 25, self-employed, and I have no friends. I live in a frozen wasteland (Canada) in a tiny retirement town and I haven't seen a girl in real life under the age of 35 since 2018, let alone a Christian girl. Waiting to have sex hasn't just cost me physical pleasure- it's cost me much more.

So, I have to ask: Is it unreasonable of me to prefer to date/marry a woman who has also waited? I've resisted fornication. I could've snapped my fingers and my virginity could've been gone. But I didn't. I feel as if doing so has been a waste of time because no young woman seems to have waited as I have.

It's not about the physical activity that makes me not want to date/marry a woman who has not had sex before. It's about not wanting to inherit baggage and being able to trust my partner to remain faithful by ensuring they don't look at everything through the lens the culture has trained people to look through- the sexual lens.

I'm just very frustrated by the fact that I've done everything that has been asked of me via the directives in the bible and essentially nobody else has. It seems like the only women who don't have sex before marriage either had no interest from men or no opportunities and are now 30+ years old or got married when they were 18 to 22 and are unavailable to me.

Isn't there a single attractive girl walking on this planet between the ages of 18 and 25 who have resisted the sin of fornication? Not because they didn't have the opportunity to engage in intercourse, but because they've been courageous enough to say "no" as I have? It seems like there aren't.

Honestly, I've been tempted to sleep around like everyone else so I can no longer expect or want to date/marry a virgin, as doing so would make me a hypocrite. The only thing keeping me from doing this is knowing that fornication is a sin and the 0.000001% chance that I'll find a virgin woman who I like but won't want to be with me because of my forced baggage.

I was planning to travel around the USA soon for 6 months, and one of my motivations for doing so was the prospect of meeting a Godly woman who is a virgin like me (if I'm being honest). Now, I don't feel like there's any point. All 99% of women (and men, to be fair) do nowadays is justify their sins and "past" and expect you to not care about the fact that they have an emotional bond with another person (or multiple), even though you've been resisting this sin since birth (partly for them) while it has affected your life negatively.

Any insights would be appreciated. I've tried to validate my decision to wait for 24/7 over the past few weeks by reading scripture, consuming content, etc. but the fact of the matter is, there's an incredibly low chance of me finding a woman who has done for me what I have done for her. I understand that marriage isn't guaranteed to everyone (nothing is guaranteed) but the reality is that if I had done what everybody else seems to do, I'd have had many girlfriends or been married by now because fornication wouldn't have been an issue to me.

I wouldn't set like a "requirement" for a woman to be a virgin, and burn bridges just because a woman you're seeing fornicated in the past.

We are afterall.. forgiven sinners.

 

[Neogaia777]

I posted this on Facebook recently, the post was: "What kills a relationship", etc...?

And this was my short and simple response, etc...

Most said "lies, infidelity, betrayl" and so on and so forth, etc, and while I agree with all of those things, you all probably already know how I like to try and think outside of the box, and post something others may not be thinking about (and/or had already posted about) and/or be "unique", etc, anyway, no one was posting about this, so this was my response, etc...

"Lack of maturity, and not realizing your working together in an equal partnership toward a common goal, and not knowing what that is beforehand, etc, and then also deviating from it also, etc.

Being selfish also, but that also goes along with what I just said, etc."

God Bless!

 

[tall73]

Yes, as I mentioned above, I haven't had any luck with them. The vast majority of the users of these sites tend to skew older. Young people use hookup apps like Tinder, which is obviously more akin to a nightclub than a church.

How did you approach it?

Is there a city within driving distance? You could check if the churches have any singles groups advertised online.

If you are in a town with no women of the eligible age, and you have given up on online dating, you have worse odds than just the small number of people who meet your criteria. Because that small number of people that you are looking for are not where you are looking.

 

[tall73]

The problem is, every woman who isn't a virgin anymore and ceased to wait came to a similar conclusion. As have men who ceased to wait, came to a similar conclusion, and decreased the number of virgin women out there, and also increased the body counts of the non-virgin women out there.

Yup.

 

[mama2one]

nm

 

[mama2one]

nm

 

[Smylie]

Thanks to everyone for offering their input here. It sounds to me like the most logical thing to do would be to sleep around to lower the value of sex, and then repent when I'm ready to get married. If my future wife isn't allowed to judge me (and she's probably sleeping around right now anyway) and Jesus forgives all our sins- even the ones we do knowingly- then there's really no reason to wait. Nothing is going to hold me accountable except myself, and apparently I'm making myself a worse person and Christian by not fornicating before marriage. I don't want to hold anything against my future wife, and the only way this will be possible for me is for me to make the same mistakes.

 

[aiki]

Hi everyone.

I'm a 25-year-old who has been a Christian his entire life. Between the ages of 10 and 20, I didn't have the luxury of being in a church environment regularly. However, I never fell from God- I was always aware of his presence and did pray fairly regularly on my own before bed and before meals. With this said, when I turned 20, I decided to take it upon myself to become more devout, and I have since been reading my bible daily for the past 4+ years and studying scripture quite intensely.

Lately, I've been struggling with the idea of waiting until marriage to have sex- but not in the way you might think. I have personally never engaged in any sexual activities with another individual. I had the opportunity to do so many times in high school, but it never felt like the right thing to do, so I didn't. I could've had at least 7 sexual partners by the time I was 18, but I rejected the advances of all of them (imagine how many more opportunities I would've had if I would've went to college). This is extremely hard to do as a man in today's culture where virgins are laughed at and demeaned.

Keeping these things in mind, the thought of not being able to marry a woman who has also waited has been filling me with extreme dread for weeks now. I've seen surveys that claim that only 5% of the total population maintains their virginity past the age of 25. Similarly, there have been Christian-specific surveys taken that show that 80% of the Christian population has had sex before marriage (it's probably more). I feel like I've been lied to, betrayed, and that I've wasted my time by waiting.

??? I don't follow your reasoning here. Your maintaining your virginity has nothing to do with the behaviour of the majority but should be an expression of your desire to honor and obey God. The Christian person abstains from sexual impurity because they love God who tells them to "flee fornication," not because they hope to marry someone who also is a virgin.

I didn't marry 'til I was 39. I've had sexual relations only with my wife, though she did not come to our marriage able to say the same. So what? I love my wife, not her sexual history; I wanted to marry her, not her virginity. Frankly, it is simple selfishness - a terrible corrosive to any marriage - that prompts your upset over how few virgins there are these days.

Waiting to have sex has caused me to miss out on friendships, relationships, and experiences. Now, I'm 25, self-employed, and I have no friends. I live in a frozen wasteland (Canada) in a tiny retirement town and I haven't seen a girl in real life under the age of 35 since 2018, let alone a Christian girl. Waiting to have sex hasn't just cost me physical pleasure- it's cost me much more.

I'm sorry, but this is childish and demonstrates how little prepared you are for marriage. It also speaks volumes about your walk with God - and not in a good way.

So, I have to ask: Is it unreasonable of me to prefer to date/marry a woman who has also waited? I've resisted fornication. I could've snapped my fingers and my virginity could've been gone. But I didn't. I feel as if doing so has been a waste of time because no young woman seems to have waited as I have.

It's not about the physical activity that makes me not want to date/marry a woman who has not had sex before. It's about not wanting to inherit baggage and being able to trust my partner to remain faithful by ensuring they don't look at everything through the lens the culture has trained people to look through- the sexual lens.

It's all about you, eh? Friend, in your present state of mind and heart you'd make an awful husband to any woman - virgin or not.

You might want to spend some time considering carefully the graciousness, self-sacrificing love, and undeserved mercy God extends to you in Christ, offering to you through him what you absolutely don't deserve, adopting you as one of His own, wretched sinner though you are.

 

[Leaf473]

Thanks to everyone for offering their input here. It sounds to me like the most logical thing to do would be to sleep around to lower the value of sex, and then repent when I'm ready to get married. If my future wife isn't allowed to judge me (and she's probably sleeping around right now anyway) and Jesus forgives all our sins- even the ones we do knowingly- then there's really no reason to wait. Nothing is going to hold me accountable except myself, and apparently I'm making myself a worse person and Christian by not fornicating before marriage. I don't want to hold anything against my future wife, and the only way this will be possible for me is for me to make the same mistakes.

Take it easy, dude.

You're looking for what is a statistically
very small percentage, so you'll want to start with a really large group.

The largest Christian dating site has 16 million users.

 

[Sketcher]

Thanks to everyone for offering their input here. It sounds to me like the most logical thing to do would be to sleep around to lower the value of sex, and then repent when I'm ready to get married. If my future wife isn't allowed to judge me (and she's probably sleeping around right now anyway) and Jesus forgives all our sins- even the ones we do knowingly- then there's really no reason to wait. Nothing is going to hold me accountable except myself, and apparently I'm making myself a worse person and Christian by not fornicating before marriage. I don't want to hold anything against my future wife, and the only way this will be possible for me is for me to make the same mistakes.

This is a deception of the evil one. If you do this, you will damage yourself and damage others in the process in ways that cannot be naturally reversed. You will be investing toxicity in your future relationships. You will be putting God to the test, and resisting the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8), and sowing destruction (Galatians 6:7-8). You can choose better, though. All you have to do is obey, and discover better reasons for obedience than what you shared with us. I have them for my life. You can for yours, too.

 

[turkle]

Thanks to everyone for offering their input here. It sounds to me like the most logical thing to do would be to sleep around to lower the value of sex, and then repent when I'm ready to get married. If my future wife isn't allowed to judge me (and she's probably sleeping around right now anyway) and Jesus forgives all our sins- even the ones we do knowingly- then there's really no reason to wait. Nothing is going to hold me accountable except myself, and apparently I'm making myself a worse person and Christian by not fornicating before marriage. I don't want to hold anything against my future wife, and the only way this will be possible for me is for me to make the same mistakes.

Honestly, I can practically see the pouting face writing this. If you draw the conclusion that "the most logical thing to do is to sleep around to lower the value of sex", etc, then you have completely missed the point that most are trying to tell you.

Did you abstain because you wanted to honor God? Or did you abstain to feel righteous and superior? Because it sounds to me like the latter.

You don't think you can find what you want, so you should go against what God instructs, which He did for your own good, and join the crowd? As my mother used to say to me, "If everybody else was jumping off a cliff, would you join them so you could be a part of group?"

The woman you meet who is the best match for you might be a virgin, or she might not. You said that you would reject her if she were not. You can do that; it's your choice to make. But it's sad to think of the joyful life you would miss having together because of this one thing.

You are proud of your virginity, this is apparent. That pride, that expectation and that entitlement will likely cause your bitterness to grow.

My recommendation is that you find a Godly older man to mentor you. You have lots of room for growth and maturity before you are ready to be a Godly husband. You might also read the book of Hosea.

Jesus left us with two commands: Love God, and love others as He has loved us. Jesus died for our sins, and washes us clean.This applies to you, to me, and if she is a follower of Christ, to women who have not lived up to your standards.

 

[Smylie]

Honestly, I can practically see the pouting face writing this. If you draw the conclusion that "the most logical thing to do is to sleep around to lower the value of sex", etc, then you have completely missed the point that most are trying to tell you.

Did you abstain because you wanted to honor God? Or did you abstain to feel righteous and superior? Because it sounds to me like the latter.

You don't think you can find what you want, so you should go against what God instructs, which He did for your own good, and join the crowd? As my mother used to say to me, "If everybody else was jumping off a cliff, would you join them so you could be a part of group?"

The woman you meet who is the best match for you might be a virgin, or she might not. You said that you would reject her if she were not. You can do that; it's your choice to make. But it's sad to think of the joyful life you would miss having together because of this one thing.

You are proud of your virginity, this is apparent. That pride, that expectation and that entitlement will likely cause your bitterness to grow.

My recommendation is that you find a Godly older man to mentor you. You have lots of room for growth and maturity before you are ready to be a Godly husband. You might also read the book of Hosea.

Jesus left us with two commands: Love God, and love others as He has loved us. Jesus died for our sins, and washes us clean.This applies to you, to me, and if she is a follower of Christ, to women who have not lived up to your standards.

I did it to honor God. Do you think I'd have passed up the 7 opportunities I had to engage in intercourse during high school if I wasn't?

I'm not proud of my virginity, I'm proud of the fact that I've had the courage to stick to the command that we should not commit the sin of fornication when 95% of the population doesn't.

My bitterness comes from the fact that people who have committed said sin or were lucky enough to grow up in a big city in 1980 and meet someone who didn't feel like they have the moral high ground to tell me how I should feel when they have no clue what it's like to be in my position.

I asked a reasonable question and everyone started to demean me for expecting Christians to follow the word of God. Silly me.

 

[aiki]

Just for the record: My teen years were spent living in a small town in rural Saskatchewan - though what difference this makes to obeying God I don't know.

 

[tall73]

I did it to honor God.

Then please do not answer sarcastically as though that was pointless.

My bitterness comes from the fact that people who have committed said sin or were lucky enough to grow up in a big city in 1980 and meet someone who didn't feel like they have the moral high ground to tell me how I should feel when they have no clue what it's like to be in my position.

Perhaps you need to state what it is you are looking for here.

Some indicated their current experience in the same situation. If you want support, try following up with them.

This is in the advice section. Some offered to look at how you might improve online efforts, which seem to be one of your only options. You could discuss that.

If you want a theological discussion of why Christians do not follow clear commandments, you could ask that the thread be moved to an appropriate forum, or start a new one.

Or, if you want this to go some other direction...you may need to weigh in on what that is. People are giving you their take one what you have stated is your situation. None of us are in your exact situation. So if you want advice, it has to come from the perspective of others. And you may need to state what type of feedback you want.

 

[Paidiske]

I'm reluctant to keep replying, because I think it's becoming clear that this thread isn't really as helpful as one might have hoped, but I will try one last time to say something constructive.

I don't want to hold anything against my future wife, and the only way this will be possible for me is for me to make the same mistakes.

No, there is another way; but it involves a change of heart on your part.