Affairs

I used to consider myself as "married, just waiting for the right man." In other words, I didn't want to get physically involved with anyone because I had an uptight--I mean, upright--understanding of marriage that it lasted forever, and considering that "forever" has no end or beginning, I tried to live in a way that wouldn't make a theoretical husband jealous. This mostly had to do with physical relations with guys, and mostly served as a standard for physical purity.

But recently I started thinking about this more, and followed the idea to a more complete conclusion. If I really was married, then I've had tons of emotional affairs with men that could be just as harmful to a marriage as physical infidelity. And I'm not sure how I'd go about pursuing a man with the intent of marriage without having such an "emotional affair."

The ideal sort of courtship for me would be to sit down and hash out all the details of personality, life, plans, etc and then just getting hitched. But that leaves out a lot. I'm learning that I don't (and can't) fully communicate who I am through words. I don't communicate well through talk; I prefer dance and sculpture. Not sure how a relationship could be communicated through sculpture...interesting thought, but rather impractical. Regardless, there are ways to learn how people act and react in ways that can't be communicated through language. So there's more to relationships than talking.

BUT take into account that I follow Christ. As tempting as it is, I don't want romance to be a primary thought. I want to pursue God wholeheartedly, which is somewhat hard to do when pursuing men. SOOoooooOOO this means I'm giving up marriage & family, right? Eh, not really. Just saying that, if God really has called me to marriage & family, he'll make it abundantly clear that I'm supposed to go there. I do not want to treat my husband as Christ; I think a lot of wives make the mistake of expecting their husbands to be Christ to them, and I've yet to meet an infallible man other than Christ. I will marry Christ, when this world has ended, but if I should marry one here, I can't expect that of him.

(originally written 2/5/11)