Jack’s recent articles on this topic: Women submit to their Head, Laying out Boundaries, Laying out Expectations.
For those of you who have followed me since January 2014, I’ve laid out most of what I did with my now wife over time. Since these posts are coming up on this topic, let’s go back and cover some ground on what I did at the outset of dating.
From My 5 step process to maturity in relationships which I consider one of the most important posts on this blog there were 5 topics that I covered that I looked at before my wife and I even met. I studied on these in depth and came to form a plan of action of what I wanted to do with any girl I dated.
- Know what God says about relationships
- Know your priorities: dreams and 5 year goals
- Know your standards for women
- Know your standards/boundaries in a relationship
- Know how to assertively communicate
#1 — Know what God says about relationships — is fairly obvious. If you want to get married you need to know what God says about marriage. Yet if you ask most married people in the Church they wouldn’t even be able to tell you more than 1 passage on marriage in the Bible is located much less give an accurate summary.
As the man is given the role of “loving his wife for the purpose of sanctification” he should know what God expects and what is expected on both him and his potential wife. Then hold himself and her accountable to that. This is what is missing in a lot of dating nowadays – men let the sanctifying slide just like Adam did with Eve. If she continually resists correction any sanctifying in dating when you call her out on her sin or other wrongdoing you should run.
#2 — Know your priorities: dreams and 5 year goals — is essential for any man to know his purpose in this life. This is not only with whatever your vocation or occupation is but knowing your spiritual gifts and role(s) as part of the body of Christ and the Church. Men who have a sense of ambition and purpose are attractive to women, but that is a side effect of men knowing who they are in Christ and what they were put on the earth to do.
This is the central focus any man must have before having a wife because developing it in a relationship often comes with a lot of tension. This tension can be anywhere from being in a dysfunctional relationship where the roles are inverted to something like you may need to start “spending less time” with your wife because God is more important. Breaking dysfunction is hard because of the relationship inertia and does not feel good for both parties even if it is the godly thing to do.
Having this established early builds a good foundation for marriage.
#3 — Know your standards for women — is about vetting to remove some potential red flags but also about finding a woman that has the qualities and habits of godliness that will be essential in overcoming feelings to push for holiness.
For me I did include some things like cooking and whatnot because that’s one of the ways I grew up, but it could really be anything. Just make sure that you really have non-negotiables in the right place with God’s.
#4 and #5 — Know your standards/boundaries in a relationship and Know how to assertively communicate — are essential and the main topic of why I am writing this post given Jack’s background articles. These were my 3 main boundaries that I told my wife within the first week when were dating.
My first boundary that I set is that God comes first in everything and that His Scriptures are our guideline. Even if I think that she is perfect for me and that I am perfect for her, and we’re praying and fasting about the relationship and God answers with a no then we’re done. Likewise, disagreements are to be resolved with Scripture first, and then will default to the authority in the relationship.
My second boundary is to never lie. Relationships are built up trust. The trust in a relationship is built on truth in interactions with each other. If I ever find out that one of the building blocks of the relationship was a lie then who is to say that every other interaction I’ve had with her is a lie? You can’t really tell, and you won’t be able to trust the woman. Thus, straight out I tell her that if I ever find out about her lying to me that it will signal the end of the relationship. I won’t lie to her, and she won’t lie to me.
My last boundary is based on relationship growth. Obviously, there is a three pronged approach: I should be growing in my relationship with God, she should be growing in her relationship with God, and we should be growing in relationship with each other. Growth requires change which is often uncomfortable. Thus, my third boundary is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Strong boundaries facilitate trust within a relationship. By introducing them as a man will result in you taking the reigns of leadership within the relationship.
Obviously, one needs to communicate these confidently and effectively. My wife was a bit skittish when I said I had some boundaries I wanted to discuss, but after going over them she agreed. I kept us accountable to them all of the time as well from what I can tell and the trust between us appears to run very deep because of them.
I had some other ones that I implemented to build intimacy and for fun such as always helping each other wash in the shower. However, some of these tend to go by the wayside given that we have vastly different shower routines! But it is fun when we do get together some.
Despite that, I credit a lot of success of my marriage so far to the implementation of these principles when I was dating. It set a strong foundation for leadership but also adherence to God’s Biblical marital roles and responsibilities. It is much easier to call out bad behavior (for her, or even her for me given that I sin too) when you know that both of you want to be accountable to what God says.
Contrast this to having a relationship or marriage that has negative relational inertia with inverted roles or a lack of leadership whether unknowingly or knowingly. It’s likely that you’re going to get resistance toward implementing things like this, though it is possible and doable. Yet it is that much harder if a husband (or wife) is unattractive because you don’t have that relational good will that most humans grant toward the attractive members of the opposite sex.
This is why turning around a relationship or marriage tends to be the most effective if a man is starting to strive for excellence in his life spiritually, physically, emotionally, and mentally first for himself to live up to God’s standards (without making any demands on the wife at all) until he has changed enough that it would be reasonable to say that he’s “taken the plank out of his own eye” per Matthew 7 before “looking at the speck in his [brother’s] eye” — or wife in this case.
Like has been laid out in the Jack’s post on women submitting to a head – women are going to submit to someone. It just depends who (or what such as the culture). Thus, building excellence and competency as the head as well as attraction is going to help to hopefully revert her to you from all of the other things if that is an issue.
