Some good friends of mine are recently married and they talk about this kind of stuff a lot. And I think theyāre genuinely well suited to each other and their relationship seems pretty healthy. But the more I read of their blog posts, the more Iām convinced that what theyāre talking about isnāt anything unique to marriage, itās literally just⦠how relationships are.
Most of the things they talk about as being challenging, are just regular things that I got used to in my relationship months or years ago, because I live with my partner and we have sex. Like I remember reading a passage in a book where this guy was saying heād never farted in front of his wife before and did the first time a week or so after he got married. And I was just likeā¦. ??? You literally committed to spend the rest of your life with someone who youāre not even physically comfortable around enough to fart in front of?? Or another person talking about how you have this fairy-tale idea of what marriage is going to be, but itās not glamorous like that, like thereās morning breath and you might butt heads a lot at first. And Iām just sitting there thinking⦠this just sounds like youāve never had an adult relationship before.
But most Evangelical Christians donāt really have a typical romantic relationship until after theyāve got married. Like⦠youĀ ādateā, but that relationship isnāt sexual or really physical at all, you donāt share a living space, or really any other big commitments like finances.
In purity culture, Christian relationships are essentially a test period to decide whether or not you want a regular romantic relationship with this person, only you have to sign a legal document to say that this is for the rest of your life in order to access it at all. Which isā¦ā¦ not healthy.