Again it is irrelevant . The first thing many do is check these statuses to form an opinion or to self determine whether one is friend or foe. That is the useless will of man, not the will of God.
I've been a widow 2 1/2 years. First year was really rough, emotionally. However my libido is starting to kick in & I've looked at all kinds of stuff scripturally. 1 Corr. 7:9 …8 Now to the unmarried and widows I say this: It is good for them to remain unmarried, as I am. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.…
That being said, I have found it extremely difficult to meet what I would characterize as a "Godly" man. I came to the conclusion the Lord would open the doors he wants open & close those he wants closed. That has not really been the case. I'm very careful with my decisions & choices but boy it's been frustrating.
I would love to have a relationship (my husband was the best friend I ever had) but not at any price. None of us knows what will happen when the breath in us dies out. We have the promise of eternal life after death. I have the Lord, I have the Holy Spirit, I also have a desire for a full relationship.
I'm in a total quandary. I keep running into resistance from the men I meet. I don't think it's me. I think it's a sign of the times. I messed up once & I do not care to do that again.
How do you handle this mess?
What do you suggest a widow who was very sexually active before their spouse do with those urges? They exist because of a healthy God approved sex life. God acknowledges that this is something widows "burn" with when they had good marriages. "Get married" sounds great but how do we find these godly compatible men to marry so that we have an outlet for the desire we burn with?
I think you are taking a very shallow approach to a deep and real problem that requires more thoughtful guidance than "just don't do it" like is given to a teenager who is just starting out in life. We were sexually active and then suddenly aren't...nothing we did wrong...and it was an important way we expressed love and were loved.
The breeding days for many are over and we have done our jobs in carrying on the lineage. Friends are the focus now, intimate relationships are purely optional.
The breeding days for many are over and we have done our jobs in carrying on the lineage. Friends are the focus now, intimate relationships are purely optional.
Many have that idea.Breeding???? Because sex was designed only for procreation? I don't think so.
the same could apply to a wife half that age.Is that the same advice you would give a man who says his 50 year old wife no longer is interested in having sex with him? Just that he is too old to be a new father and he should focus on being her friend and making new friends? That he should stop thinking about "breeding" and get on with life?
Exactly, it is a state of mind.
That's what friends are for. We are not commodities.
I've started making friends this year (3rd year). I've found that after many years (while he was ill I only made acquaintances) my chats with people are leading to many people stopping to talk to me and wave etc. I don't see any difference in my behaviour but I have a very wide group of people that I speak to during the week.We need friends but that isn't the same as a married relationship.
I don't understand what you mean by "commodities". What is not a commodity?
Being a widowed mother of two means there isn't much time, energy, or money for friends either. But that is a different thread.
The iron age views of women as property, sex for breeding only, and property rights / lineage belong in the trash heap. I'd say the same for the idolatry of purity teachings of Bill Gothard and related who have destroyed many a marriage. This doesn't mean that errant "christian" sexual ethics like above can't work for a few, as they do for some, but not nearly as many as their proponents would like to think. I've run into far too many marriages that followed that junk that ended in divorce, or they settle for a sense of regret on the part of one or both partners for what might have been. Josh Harris, a naive protege of Gothards teaching made a movie a few years back to apologize for all the damage his book did. Granted, he was 21, so what did he know, but still...
We were created in the image of God, which includes desire. Consider our animal ancestors, the Bonobo for example who clearly engage in sex for purposes far beyond mere reproduction. Denying our anthropology to worship an idol of purity easily becomes a form of gnosticism. Granted, some folks are asexual, either biology, medical cause or were effectively made so due to abuse and/or errant "christian" sexual teachings such as the above, but this is not active denial.
Widowers/widows are in an odd spot, as many are outside the domain where reproduction is a factor. thus the iron age issues of property rights/lineage and related BS, such as church scandals, etc which primarily drive an idolatry of purity no longer apply, short of some gossipy church lady poking around where she has no business being. And at the same time, the desire for physical intimacy, sexual intimacy, and in some cases super high libido remain. For some widowers, its even trickier to navigate as an oldster in a nursing home than when they were a young teenager. In this, I think a healthier Christian sexual ethic would be better for all of Christianity, as contrasted with the "christian" falsehoods that are spun to prevent unwed motherhood and resultant scandal.
Otoh the severe changes in brain chemistry due to the loss of ones spouse, and the potential for things to go sideways shooting up multifold makes this not nearly as simple as it should be.
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