Dating Done Right

Marshall Siegel remembers thinking that the girl he was getting to know might be the one for him. That's when he decided it was time for the the DTR, the Define the Relationship conversation. We sat down. It was the two of us having coffee and I laid out my feelings for her and I was feeling confident about it. Things were going well. We were talking on the phone once a week or so for 30 minutes. It was going super well.

The date went great. And so I thought she's going to say, yes, I would like to be pursued by you. I said, I've really been enjoying getting to know you.

I like you. I'd like to pursue you toward marriage. And she said, I've also been enjoying getting to know you. I've really enjoyed our conversations. And she said, you're a very nice human being.

And I'm like, what does that mean? This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at Family Life Today dot com.

So what do you do as a single young man attempting to define a relationship only to find out that where the relationship is going is not where you thought it ought to be going? We'll hear more about that today from Marshall Siegel. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. So you know what the path is today from meet and fall in love to marriage?

Here's the path. I want to hear this. You meet, you date, you have sex.

You think this might be the one. You have kids. You move in together. You get married.

I think you missed one of those. I know what she's going to say. You meet, you have sex, you determine if you want to date. Oh, wow. I think that's very true today.

Do you? I think it's a sadly popular way to get into a relationship. That's not how it was 50 years ago. Just in case anybody out there is wondering, we didn't do it that way, right, Bob? And we didn't do it that way.

We did not. And here's the thing. There are people who grow up today in the church and think that's how it's supposed to work because they've watched multiple episodes of Friends or whatever else and they just they go, this is how life is supposed to be.

Well, we're here to say that's not the path God has outlined. And Marshall Siegel is joining us again this week to talk about this. Marshall, welcome back.

Thanks for having me again. Marshall's written a book called Not Yet Married. We've already explained why that's an acceptable title for his book.

And he is a writer and managing editor at DesiringGod.org. So let's say we're talking today to somebody who has just gone out last night on a date with somebody and they had a nice time. And they're thinking, you know, it would be nice to go out again and maybe just in the back of their mind, maybe there's something here. And I'd kind of like there to be something here, I think, but I don't know them well enough. So you're coaching them to get from where they are to where they'd like to go.

So coach, what's the next play you're going to call for this couple? Yeah, I have questions about how they met in the first place. And today that happens all kinds of ways.

Technology. OK, so if they met Ani Harmony, that's different than if they met in church? Yes, I think so. It depends on what size church you're in. If you're a 5,000 person church, that may not mean very much.

If you're in a 100 person church, that would mean a lot. I guess my main my main questions would be around how much do you know of this person already before you get into a relationship? And is that important to know before you go out?

I think so. I mean, I would say I would want to way slow down any seriousness in terms of a romantic relationship until you've had an opportunity to get to know this person. And I would say that the online element seems to complicate that some just because you meet people who you may not have met any other way.

They're not a part of your friend group and things like that. So if it was me counseling a particular person in my life or in my church, I would want them if they meet somebody online, for instance, I would want them to be as creative and intentional as possible to try to fold that person into community. So it's not just we went out on a date. We had a good time. We're going to do a second one.

The second one went well, we're going to do a third one. And all of this is in the context of a one-on-one totally isolated from any other meaningful relationship. I want to encourage them, find ways, as awkward as it might feel today, find ways to fold them into some meaningful community within your life or in their life. I mean, if they're believers and they have a solid family and church community and friend group, find ways to be able to get to each other in less pressured situations than one-on-one dates. And to start to do activities together but in a bigger group setting?

Yeah. Or I would just say at least with other people. I mean, I know this can be tricky, so I'm not pretending this is, I mean, I've been through this kind of process in the past and relationships.

It's not easy. It can be awkward. But hopefully the kind of person that you're dating and maybe one day will marry will respect the fact that you're saying, I don't know you very well yet.

I think the most important step here in terms of determining whether God might be doing something here is for us to get to know each other a little bit. I want to get to know you. That's an honor to have someone want to get to know you. I want to do it in ways that honor you. And I hope that anyone that I'm talking to, if a girl says, I'm not interested in that, then I'd be like, okay, this clearly isn't going to work, which is fine. But I want to honor you the best I can. And I think it's going to be honoring to you if we don't isolate off, spend all of our time, just the two of us. So I did this with Faye. We're 28, 29.

She's from California. So nothing's more awkward than trying to fold somebody in long distance. But we prioritize every single trip. We spend as much time as possible with the most important people in each other's lives. So we planned it out beforehand. We're going to spend time with my best friend, with my parents, with those people that I'm doing ministry with.

She's going to come to small group when she's in town. So this is long distance, but in city, it gets a little bit easier. But just thinking intentionally and talking intentionally about how to fold other people in the community. The principle that I came to and write in the book is I want to encourage someone generally pursue clarity and postpone intimacy. That's the main principle I want to talk about. And I talk about how intimacy is safest in the context of marriage. And marriage is going to be safest in the context of clarity. And so if you are wanting to pursue intimacy with this person, the best thing you can do is pursue clarity about whether God is calling you to marry this person.

I think a lot of people, myself included, pursued clarity by diving into intimacy. Let's try it and see how it feels. I talk about thinking that it's like a bicycle. So you just pick up a bicycle and you don't know how to ride it and no one's going to coach you through this.

And so then you just keep getting on the bike until it, oh, I stayed up so now I can get married. And I describe in the book more like flying an airplane, which I don't have any experience with. But if you look through the process of what becoming a pilot is, you do so much before you ever actually sit in the seat. And I want people to think about dating and to pursue marriage that way more, that there's intentional steps.

This pilot knows I want to fly a plane. I'm not doing any of these classes or this training for something else. It's not preparing me for anything else. It's preparing me for marriage. But thinking about small steps to pursue clarity, to get to know each other and to postpone intimacy as much as possible. And so I think folding other people in the community and then being aware of how much time we spend together, what kinds of things we talk about, being sensitive to like, oh, that's intimate. So I don't think you should be talking about what marriage might be like on your second or third date.

I just think that's inappropriate. Can you talk about this is what I'm looking for? Do you go into that kind of conversation? I think you can have that conversation.

I'm not sure how helpful it is on a first or second or third date. I would be a lot more focused on who are you? What do you love? What do you spend your time doing?

Who are the most important people in your life? I can think of a thousand questions that I would ask before. What are you looking for? And do I do I measure up?

What do you like me? Would you declare as a as a guy on a second or third date? Would you say to somebody, I just want you to know from an intentionality standpoint, I'm not recreationally dating. I am dating with marriage as a potentiality and not an inevitability, but this I'd like to pursue this seriously rather than casually. Absolutely. I say first date.

And I would say it doesn't have to be this major declaration of independence. I just say I'd like to get to know you better. Any dating I do is for the purpose of discovering who God might call me to marry. That doesn't mean that we have to get married because we go on a date. It just means that I want you to know from the outset I'm pursuing clarity towards whether God would call me to marry you or not.

We dated for 19 months. So it's not like that process happens in four weeks or six weeks or two months. In fact, I think some people need to take more time because they they rush into engagement in marriage before they really had a chance to get to know each other. I do like this idea because you really are becoming friends. And so much of marriage is about friendship and being together and like each other's company and having fun together. That's not always the case when you're dating.

It's so romantic and it's it's it feels a little delusional in some ways. And yet I think about Dave and I, he's he is my best friend. We had the perfect dating relationship.

We sure didn't. There's nobody better than me. Right here. I'm the best. No. But I do want to ask you this, because you're talking about the community friend thing and then everything you're talking about now, you're sort of alone.

What is the balance? Because I know me. I would be pulling her away. Although I know that if I'm with Anne with a group, I'd get to see all those things you're looking for. I'd see that probably better in community. But then it requires some real time where I'm not with my friends and we're looking eye to eye and I'm saying, I want to get to know your heart.

I want to know your passion for Christ. How do you balance that? Yeah. If if if I had a daughter, I don't have a daughter. If you were talking that way on a second date to my daughter, I would say, brother, slow down. You don't need to look at my dad.

Or talk to her that way. You know what her dad said to me? I know you're eager. I can see that you love the Lord. And I'm thankful.

And I see all kinds of grace on you. What does her dad say to you? Her dad didn't say it to me. What did he say? He said it to Anne about me. You will not date that boy.

He is barred from the house. He was my coach. So he knew he knew my before Christ life. And if if I'm that dad, I say the same thing.

Stay away from Dave Wilson. Obviously, Christ had changed me and Anne had seen that. But yeah, that was where he started. You know, and man, I tell you what, if I say anything to singles, that's the word what you just said. Yeah. The biggest word in terms of dating is slow down. I don't think you can go too slow.

Am I right? Take your time. Take your time. What if you're 35 and you're like, I know what I want. And again, we're not saying slow down for five years. We're just saying, man, you don't need to be rushing day to day, week to week, day to day. It's like, take your time to for six months, seven months. Get to know this person because you're choosing a life partner.

I would say that there probably is a too slow, but I don't know if that's exactly the problem. I think if the purpose is clear. So when I say pursue clarity, are you really gaining clarity over time or not? Or are you in a holding pattern of romance? Because I think anyone that's in a holding pattern of romance is just playing with fire. You're going to experience so many temptations to treat this person like a spouse and to commit sexual immorality or whatever else. If you're in a if you're in a holding pattern in a dating relationship. But I do think that what you were describing in terms of I think dating should be far more like way more about pursuing friendship.

And I mean that. I mean, like if if if this person is not going to be your best friend, you have to have serious questions about whether this is the person you want to marry. And I think people have this idea that marriage is this one long date night. Yeah, it is not.

It is not. You spend a fraction of your time together out enjoying a meal or watching a movie. You spend a fraction of your time in bed enjoying each other. The rest of life is very normal.

Yeah, that is exactly a good picture to paint because that's reality. Right. And I can remember when I first started dating.

And by the way, first relationship for both of us. That's Christ centered. Mm hmm.

And we were just so great because the Christ centered us like we're going to do this his way. Right. And had done it wrong before. But I can remember early in the relationship, probably several weeks in feeling like I'm falling in love with her and starting to think about marriage. And I'm the 22 year old mature one.

She's 19. And I say to her in her in her parents driveway as I'm dropping off at night, I said, I think I'm falling in love with you. I don't know what to do with these feelings. I want to talk about marriage.

I'd like to kiss you. I'm not going to, but I'm just being honest. And the 19 year old says, hey, why don't we just give it to God and trust him and be friends. Let's not put anything on it besides let's pursue Christ together as a friendship. I'm like, there's a maturity that I didn't have. And we prayed and offered to.

And all the stress went away. It's like, OK, let's be friends. Let's get to know each other. Let's get to know our relationship with God together and see where it goes.

You know what? You know what I encourage people to do that are dating? I say go on a mission trip together. Serve together in the church.

I saw this one couple down in the children's wing working with four year olds. And she said, wow, I'm seeing some things that I never saw before. And the same is true on a mission trip.

You're tired, you're dirty, you're spent, but you're serving other people together. Well, it's what I call the Tommy Nelson principle. You've heard this quote before. And the first person I heard it from was a pastor in Denton, Texas. Tommy Nelson, who said, if you're single, your job is to run as hard and as fast toward Jesus as you can.

If while you're running, you see someone out of the corner of your eye running in the same direction at the same speed, take a second look. And that's just great advice for singles who are in this process. But if you have moved along in the process to where you're starting to think, OK, this could be the one. I talked to one young man who said the girl I was dating thought I must not like her because I was trying to maintain physical purity. I was not putting moves on her and she was feeling insecure and feeling unloved because she'd never been out with a guy who didn't do that. Should a guy again verbalize here are my boundaries and standards. Here's how I'm going to try to handle that with you to put her mind at ease.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, the problem with that situation is communication. It's not the boundary. It's not the self-control. But you cannot be too self-controlled in dating. I've yet to meet a couple where I thought, you know what, you could go a little further. It just doesn't happen.

Yeah. And you won't regret. I've said a lot of times you won't regret anything you didn't do before you got married.

Anything. We we were really, really, really slow about saying I love you. Really slow because I had been through so many cases in the past where I'd said it early and it very quickly meant nothing.

And I knew that if we got married, it wasn't going to mean very much there either. So I think it's about communication. And I think this is really important because I do think that in the age that we're in right now, social media, online dating, text messages, Instagram. So much of the flirtation culture is ambiguous. It's a cat and mouse game where you kind of show a little bit and then try to draw them in. But you never show quite enough to commit. And so you resist commitment. You kind of slide into a relationship and then you linger there and see if you like it or not.

And then it gets more and more serious slowly. I just want to encourage guys in particular, be the primary initiator of communication. I don't think generally speaking, I don't think a girl should ever wonder what a guy's thinking or feeling or doing in a relationship. Now, when you had the impulse to say, I love you, I'm falling in love with you on whatever date and I want to kiss you. My counsel to you would be, there's a way to communicate that that's not making her so vulnerable, but to express where you were in some way, shape or form to say, I like you. That's where Faye and I were for a long time, where I'm saying, I like you, I want to pursue you. And she's saying no, thank you over and over and over again. But did she? Yeah, over and over.

Yeah. Six months of pursuit where I was very interested and she was cool. I talk about it in the book. We got to a point where we sat down. It was our first official date. She won't call it a date, but it was the two of us having coffee and I laid out my feelings for her and I was feeling confident about it. Things were going well. We were talking on the phone once a week or so for 30 minutes. It was going super well.

The date went great. And so I thought she's going to say, yes, I would like to be pursued by you. I said, I've really been enjoying get to know you.

I like you. I'd like to pursue you toward marriage. And she said, I've also been enjoying getting to know you. I've really enjoyed our conversations. I'm like, this is good. That's good. And she said, you're you're a very nice human being. Oh, I hear where this is going. And I'm like, what does that mean? She said, but when I think about a relationship, my heart is cold.

Oh, how did you just not turn away? So there's awkward pause, long, awkward pause. My wife's very honest. Let's say it that way.

I guess very honest. And I love it about her long, awkward pause. And I say, are you talking ice cold?

So you're saying there's a chance. And she said cold. And that was essentially the end of that conversation. It was still friendly. She was visiting a family member in Minnesota. So we ended up spending a little bit time together the next day.

She largely acted normal. So I just figured that's the end. Two weeks go by. I don't call. And then she reaches out to me and says, hey, you haven't called. And I said, yeah, your heart is cold. You made it very clear where you were. I can't pick the phone up.

It's so cold. And and she said, oh, I just wanted to let you know that I wasn't ready to be in a relationship right now. Like, I would still love to be friends. And if that means that you don't want to call anymore, I totally understand. And so I went back and prayed about that. And I just thought, you know, I'm not in a hurry to rush off anywhere else.

I really admire this woman. And so I did. I called and we talked for 30 to 40 minutes once a week for months. I mean, never more than that. And that was a purpose. I said from the beginning, unless we're going to get in a relationship, it's not going to be more than this.

But we're going to limit it to 30 to 40 minutes. We largely just talked about ways we could pray for each other. Each conversation started with checking in on things that we prayed for last time or that we asked for prayer for last time.

We never prayed together on the phone at that time. And then it ended with how can I pray for you this week? And we just talked about a lot of things going on in our lives. And the Lord just knit our hearts together as friends in that time.

So I love it. I mean, I look back and that that moment was awkward and and I was really surprised. But when I look back on it now, it preserved a period of six months for us to be friends. And we put boundaries in place to make sure that it wasn't more than that. And I knew along the way that if my heart was saying, if this doesn't become a relationship, then I then it's a stumbling block for me. I need to get out of that relationship.

She knew that. So I want to ask you about a scenario and just just get your take on this. I was talking to a couple, a married couple. I said, how did you meet? How did you get engaged? And in hearing their story, I heard that on the second or the third date, the wife had said the future wife had said to the guy she was dating. She said, you've got six months. You got six months to either pop the question or move along. She she was twenty nine.

He was 30. And she said, I'm at a point in life where I don't want to be in a long term relationship that's not head somewhere. So it seems reasonable to me that in six months you should be able to figure out whether we're a match or not.

And I should be able to figure that out. So she put the date on the calendar. You know, August 19th will be the date.

And it's either fish or cut bait at that point. What what's your thought on that? Did they get married? They did. OK, that's great. That's a good story. And by the way, he said to me, it's the best thing she could have done, because I would have just drifted along as a guy in a two year going nowhere relationship, happy to be just friends and to have the benefits of a girlfriend without having the commitment of marriage.

Yes. I wonder how well she knew him going into it. I would say there would be certain guys that need a kick in the pants, probably to be intentional and clear and keep the relationship moving forward. That makes me real nervous.

The six month thing, because it just applies. Already there's so much pressure in these situations, applying an external pressure like that that could manipulate somebody, I think could go badly with certain people. But I think doing that in community. So I think for me, I would ask if I was asked talking to her about the wisdom of that, I would say, what do people in your life think about that? And people in his life think about that. Does that feel like a healthy way to think about this? For me, if I'm counseling somebody, I just want to see month to month, are we making progress?

And by progress, I don't mean big revelations. But I ought to be able to sit down with a guy and say, what have you learned about her? Or sit down with a girl and say, what have you learned about him? What's drawing you to him as you stay in the relationship? I think if they're being intentional and this isn't just we're spending time together watching movies and touching each other and expressing how much we like each other and talking about our relationship all the time. If this is really meaningfully moving somewhere towards clarity, they're going to have meaningful things to share at those kind of check ins. So for us, I think an important thing to say in terms of being clear, the man being clear, that doesn't mean a state of the union every time you get together, which I think is another ditch on the other side to fall into where the guy's always saying, we're at 11 percent, we're at 27 percent.

I think that's an unhealthy way to relate to each other. So for Faye and I, for instance, once a month, I had it in my head. I'm going to just bring it up and say, here's where I am. I'm going to give you an opportunity to share where you're at.

But you don't have any there's no pressure. But she knew monthly that that's going to come up. And largely she felt comfortable sharing where she was at the time. So we talked about our relationship roughly monthly for 19 months. I'm sure there were a few more conversations sprinkled in, but it wasn't like every week, every day talking about the status of our relationship. But it was something that we monitored to make sure is this is the trajectory of this still headed towards marriage?

So that'd be my as I'm looking in at a couple. I just want to see trajectory. Are we still aiming towards marriage? Are we moving that way? Are we making progress?

Or does this feel like we're kind of in a holding pattern and we're not really making progress or maybe even moving backwards? Can we just say here that we're talking about something that's really hard. The single years are hard. That trying to figure out is this the right one is hard. The pursuit of the right one is hard. I mean, this is this is a stage of life that if you're taking your cues from the culture, if if if your source material for how to do this is old episodes of Friends, you're not going to wind up in a place that you're going to be happy with.

Right. This is where you've got to have godly counsel. It's where you've got to have a book like not yet married. It's where you've got to have the scriptures be pouring into that, pouring that into your life.

Otherwise, you're going to find yourself in a in a place as a single person where you're you're lonely, you're depressed or you're shipwrecked because you took your cues from the wrong source. Yeah. And Marshall says he brought such wisdom to us. And your book says and it's so good. The best book on dating is the Word of God.

That's right. And I mean, it's so clear for a single person and for parents walking beside our kids. It's like we need Jesus. We need the word of God and we all need community.

I don't know what else you need, but you need those in your life to get to where God wants to take you in this area of your life. And our hope is that listeners will get a copy of your book, Marshall, not yet married in pursuit of joy and singleness, because we think this is a book that will be helpful for singles to go through. In fact, we're going to continue our conversation with Marshall. We want to talk about parents and teens who may be in the dating years and about how you can maybe have these kinds of conversations with them. So you can go to our website, family life today dot com. We've got a little bonus podcast available for you there where we continue the conversation with Marshall.

You can download the podcast. Again, this is especially for parents of teenagers. Find it online at family life today dot com. And that's the same place to go if you'd like to make a donation and get a copy of Marshall's book, Not Yet Married. We're making the book available this week to Family Life Today listeners who can help support the ongoing ministry of family life today.

And I know you may be thinking, you know, this book is for people who are in a different season of life than I'm in. Well, get a copy of the book and ask God who to give it to as a gift. There may be somebody in your church or somebody in the workplace that you can offer this book to say, I got a copy of this book in the mail and wanted to pass it on to you. So make a donation to support family life today.

Get your copy of Marshall Siegel's book, Not Yet Married, and either read it yourself, go through it with your teenager, or pass it along to someone who would benefit from going through the book. And again, at the same time, know that you're supporting the ongoing work of family life today and helping hundreds of thousands of couples and families every day receive practical biblical help and hope for their marriage because of your donation. You can donate online at familylifetoday.com, or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make a donation over the phone. Be sure to ask for your copy of Marshall's book when you call to donate. Again, our website is familylifetoday.com, and the number to call to donate by phone is 1-800-358-6329.

That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. One of the things Marshall talked about today was the importance of mentors in our life. We ought not be trying to navigate relationship issues on our own. We need help from others, and David Robbins, the president of Family Life, is here with me thinking about that subject today, right? Yeah, I just reflect back, and I'm so grateful. I started thinking of individuals and couples who mentored and spoke into my life in high school, especially in college when I started dating more seriously. I just think of people who took the risk to really move closer to me.

I think I probably tried to play it cool and didn't show any ounce of really appreciating or valuing it, but I was hanging on to every word and applying so much of what they were sharing. Bob, you mentioned one of the things that I remember learning and actually watching in a small group with a mentor who was leading us. It was that Tommy Nelson story. We were watching a Tommy Nelson Bible study where he says, Run as hard as you can after God and look to the side. I remember that changing everything for me. It was six months later in pursuing God with everything that I had and fixing my eye on Jesus and really surrendering every area of my life to him that I looked to the side. Sure enough, there was this young lady named Meg running a very similar pace.

I pursued her totally differently than any other girl I have ever pursued because of mentors and their input into my life at that moment in my life. I hear the conversation today and I just ask all of us to, God, open our eyes to who are the young people around us and see how we, God, help us take steps of faith to move closer to them, invite them into our homes, model for them what healthy relationships look like and encourage them in how to pursue relationships. These are the families of the next generation and we get to be a part of their story. Take what's been poured into you and pour it into others, right? Absolutely.

That's great. Thank you, David. We want to encourage our listeners to be back with us again tomorrow. We're going to tackle a very difficult subject, the subject of domestic violence, abuse in a marriage relationship.

There are different kinds of abuse and Darby Strickland from the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation is going to be with us tomorrow to help us determine whether what you're experiencing in marriage actually qualifies as abuse or not, so we hope you can tune in for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with some help today from Bruce Goff and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. Join us back again tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today, hope for tomorrow.