To put our kids in “couple contexts” at such a young age is asking for trouble. I realize there is always an exception, but the exception does not make the practice wise. An exception is just that: an exception and nothing more. The following blog post is a repost from last October. This particular post has been one of my most popular posts to date.

Jenny is not her real name. In this particular counseling case God gave me great favor with this little girl. She was extremely open and honest about where she was in her life. She was also receptive to my counsel. She had never had someone sit with her, listen, seek to understand, and try to help her see a clear biblical perspective on life. This was a very encouraging counseling session.

13-Year Old Divorced 5 Times

Jenny was sent to me for counseling by her parents. They couldn’t control her anymore and wanted me to counsel her into a right relationship with God. The parents admitted the lack of relationship modeling in their marriage, as well as a lack of parenting skills and wisdom regarding Jenny. They also expressed a hope that I could fix Jenny. Needless to say, I felt as though I was working from a disadvantage. My prayer for Jenny was for God to show her mercy by leading her to himself. If He could use me, in some small way in that process, it would be a great joy and privilege.

Jenny was bubbly and talkative. She was an open book while interacting with me. We hit it off. Within minutes we were talking about some of the more personal things in her life. It was evident she wanted someone to talk to; someone who would not condemn her, but who would listen and even offer opinions in a spirit of encouragement and hope.

She told me that she began dating when she was 8-years old and that she was now on her sixth boyfriend. I asked her why she had divorced five times. She gave me a quizzical look and then asked me what I was talking about.

I date until I’m not pleased with him anymore

I told her that she dates a guy until she gets tired of him. When he no longer meets her expectations, she dumps him. I continued to explain to her that older people do the same thing: when they get tired of someone they dump them. In the adult world we call this divorce.

I asked her what was going to keep her from doing this when she became an adult, since she has a consistent pattern of divorcing as a kid. She told me that she would find someone who would love her and not be selfish. Because our relationship was friendly, warm, non-combative and I knew she liked me, I laughed when she said that.

Then I reminded her that a marriage certificate is a non-deterrent to divorce. It could be meaningless to a selfish person and Jenny, like me, was selfish. She understood what I was saying and readily admitted that she was selfish, though she lives in the delusional world that she will find the perfect man.

It was apparent that Jenny needed counseling, but she was not the only one. Her parents needed counseling as well. They have been setting their daughter up for a lifetime of failed relationships. The point of dating is a mystery to me, unless you’re dating to get married. Dating for dating’s sake sets kids up for selfish patterns that are nearly impossible to break without God’s miraculous intervention.

My recommendation to Jenny was to get in the context of a strong, Gospel-motivated local church where she could be cared for by pastors who would love to lead her. She would also be able to grow in relationships, while observing relationships of older men and women who were further along in their relationship with the Savior.

Jenny really liked this idea. She had no working template of what a relationship should be like. For the past five years she had been figuring it out through trial and error as modeled by the dating culture.

You May Also Be Interested In

• Thoughts About Divorce – 1.0
• Divorced with a Tux and Brown Shoes – 2.0
• The Case of Jill Marrying a Divorced Guy – 3.0
• Divorce & Every Other Weekend Kids – 4.0
• Date, Divorce, Date, Divorce, Date, Divorce, Marry, Divorce, Marry… – 5.0
• Can a Divorced Person Remarry – 6.0

Other Related Articles

• Dating: the artificial season that doesn’t count
• The Fallacy of Mutual Need Meeting
• Troubled Teens and Dads Who Lead Poorly, 2.0

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

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…it has never been a problem until Paula’s first semester in college. She now wants to date. Ron and Becky come to you for advice on how to respond to their daughter.

Application Questions

1. Is it wrong for Paula to date?
2. What should honoring her parents look like now that she is out of the home?
3. What Scriptures would you use to help guide the parents?
4. If Paula came to you for counseling, how would you counsel her?

Related Articles on Dating

• 13-Year Old Divorced Five Times
• Dating: The Artificial Season That Doesn’t Count
• D-Harmony.Com: a dating solution

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

Harmony or Disharmony

One of their strategies is to match people according to their strengths and weaknesses. They call this their 29-points of compatibility. It is a good idea in theory, but there is no biblical warrant for such a notion. The happiest couples that I have ever met are the ones who are different, but mature enough to celebrate their differences, while seeing their differences as an opportunity to glorify God.

Adam and Eve were different. They were very different. Adam was missing a rib and Eve was the rib he needed. Adam did not need to be replicated the same way in order to be complete. He needed something that was different from himself. He did not need another Adam. He needed Eve.

Eve did not need another Eve to complete her. She needed something that was different than she was and when these two different people came together, they made a perfect one flesh union.

Sin: The Great Negator

I have seen too many times in counseling where a woman really wants her husband to be like her. She wants a male/female friend. She mocks his maleness, as though being a woman is the embodiment of all things good and maleness is an inferior species that still needs to evolve.

The guy, on the other hand, is no different in his thinking. He wants a football watching, beer buddy that he can have sex with. Both are two selfish people who are more interested in getting their desires met in a way they like, rather than enjoying the differences of their God-ordained opposite sex.

Their mutual sinfulness negates the glory of the one flesh union that they should be enjoying. The man wants a guy buddy and the woman wants a feminized male.

If both mates could make a slight adjustment in their desires and expectations, they could wake up from their sleep, like Adam did, and realize that God made for each of them the perfect mate, although different. (See Genesis 2:18-25)

1/2 + 1/2 = 1

It was only when Lucia and I realized that we were different by God’s design that we understood the full purpose of the one flesh union. We are really different! People who know us know that we are really different. But we complement each other. We fill each other’s gaps.

Lucia has a plethora of gifts that I do not possess. And I have a few that she does not possess. When we come together, our differences make us a formidable team for the glory of God. We are not the same and I praise God for that. I don’t want another me and she does not need another her. I want something different than me. We are different for the glory of God, but it took us a few years to understand this, to repent of our inherent selfishness and to celebrate our differences.

Lucia has taught me to enjoy some of the finer things in life and she now pulls for the North Carolina Tar Heel Basketball Team, which, btw, I’m not sure why anyone would not pull for them.

Related Articles on Dating

• 13-Year Old Divorced Five Times
• Dating: The Artificial Season That Doesn’t Count
• Weak Men! Strong Women!

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

Jenny was sent to me for counseling by her parents. They couldn’t control her anymore and wanted me to counsel her into a right relationship with God. The parents admitted the lack of relationship modeling in their marriage, as well as a lack of parenting skills and wisdom regarding Jenny. They also expressed a hope that I could fix Jenny. Needless to say, I felt as though I was working from a disadvantage. My prayer for Jenny was for God to show her mercy by leading her to himself. If He could use me, in some small way in that process, it would be a great joy and privilege.

Jenny was bubbly and talkative. She was an open book while interacting with me. We hit it off. Within minutes we were talking about some of the more personal things in her life. It was evident she wanted someone to talk to; someone who would not condemn her, but who would listen and even offer opinions in a spirit of encouragement and hope.

She told me that she began dating when she was 8-years old and that she was now on her sixth boyfriend. I asked her why she had divorced five times. She gave me a quizzical look and then asked me what I was talking about.

I date until I’m not pleased with him anymore

I told her that she dates a guy until she gets tired of him. When he no longer meets her expectations, she dumps him. I continued to explain to her that older people do the same thing: when they get tired of someone they dump them. In the adult world we call this divorce.

I asked her what was going to keep her from doing this when she became an adult, since she has a consistent pattern of divorcing as a kid. She told me that she would find someone who would love her and not be selfish. Because our relationship was friendly, warm, non-combative and I knew she liked me, I laughed when she said that.

Then I reminded her that a marriage certificate is a non-deterrent to divorce. It could be meaningless to a selfish person and Jenny, like me, was selfish. She understood what I was saying and readily admitted that she was selfish, though she lives in the delusional world that she will find the perfect man.

It was apparent that Jenny needed counseling, but she was not the only one. Her parents needed counseling as well. They have been setting their daughter up for a lifetime of failed relationships. The point of dating is a mystery to me, unless you’re dating to get married. Dating for dating’s sake sets kids up for selfish patterns that are nearly impossible to break without God’s miraculous intervention.

My recommendation to Jenny was to get in the context of a strong, Gospel-motivated local church where she could be cared for by pastors who would love to lead her. She would also be able to grow in relationships, while observing relationships of older men and women who were further along in their relationship with the Savior.

Jenny really liked this idea. She had no working template of what a relationship should be like. For the past five years she had been figuring it out through trial and error as modeled by the dating culture.

Other Related Articles

• Dating: the artificial season that doesn’t count
• The Fallacy of Mutual Need Meeting
• Troubled Teens and Dads Who Lead Poorly, 2.0

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

Checkout Counseling Solution’s Membership Training Site

He was nothing like this when we were dating. I mean he would send me little notes, hold the car door open and was generally thoughtful about almost everything. Now, I’m not sure I exist in his world, except when he wants sex. I seem to not matter anymore. He is not the man I married.

It would be difficult to count how many times I’ve heard some version of this story, either from a husband or wife. Though the particulars can be different, the storyline is always the same.

He ain’t the guy I married!

And then I let the disheartened spouse know that their season of dating did not really count as far as it being a season of discovering the real person. I tell them something along these lines, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion:

Dating is a brief season, prior to marriage, when both people fake each other out. This is the artificial season where each person puts his/her best foot forward, so to speak. This is the time when each person is being nice to the other in order to win them over. The partners are careful to keep their real selves under wraps until after marriage. If they date for more than a year, the real self can pop out from time to time, be seen for what it really is and then be put back under wraps until after the marriage.

Another advantage of dating is that you can always let the girl go home at the end of the evening. You don’t have to live with her 24/7. My wife and I got along great, for the most part, during our season of dating.

However, after the honeymoon, I woke up the next morning and there she was sleeping in MY bed. I couldn’t send her home anymore. She was at home! I had to live with her, through the good and the bad, for the REST OF MY LIFE!!

From her perspective, she could not get rid of me either. We were stuck with each other. It was far easier to enjoy the benefits of dating, drop her off at the end of a fantastic evening, and go back to my apartment. She goes to her place; I go to my place and we start all over again the next day.

Dating is very convenient, but not really real for most of us because it is possible to navigate through the dating period without ever dealing with the real baggage we all carry around. On the one hand, we selfishly hide our baggage, and on the other hand, love causes us to be blind to the other person’s baggage.

The Tale of Ricky and Lucy

After our honeymoon, our dialogue could have gone like this:

Lucy: What is that?

Ricky: What is what?

Lucy: What is that train with all those baggage cars in tow?

Ricky: That’s my baggage. I never told you about that. I was thinking that if you knew what a jerk I really was, you wouldn’t want to marry me.

The next day…

Ricky: What is that?

Lucy: What is what?

Ricky: There is a long train in our front yard. What is that?

Lucy: Oh yeah, that’s my baggage. You’re not the only one in this relationship with problems. I conveniently forgot to mention this when we were dating.

For better or worse really means for better or worse. Unfortunately, there is a little hypocrisy in all of us and the dating season is one of the most tempting times to disguise the gap between who we really are and the person we present ourselves to be. It can be that artificial season that really doesn’t count.

If the person you’re married to is nothing more than a silhouette of the person you were dating, let’s talk. One of the things you’ll need to come to terms with is the fact that he/she has not really changed. You’ve only gotten to know them better.

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

Free Counseling Advice via Twitter

Free Counseling Advice via Weekly eBlast

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