The Internet is full of painful stories of relationships gone bad. This is no surprise: people crash and burn if they drive in traffic without proper training. Loving a spouse needs much more teaching than driving a car.
A man will marry when he wants a woman badly enough and she won’t let him have her without marrying her. If he can have her without taking any responsibility, what would marriage add to what he has?
A Parent to a Daughter: Knowing a Man’s Sexual Drive
Sweetheart, I want to talk to you about something that few women hear clearly. You’re becoming a beautiful woman, and you’ll attract attention from men. Some of it will feel wonderful, but it may not be safe.[1]
Ask God to protect you until He either chooses you a husband for whom you can be a help meet or makes you content without one.
Marriage should bring joy to every woman, but you must watch your step. A good man will protect you from his desires and help protect you from your desires. Be careful: it’s hard to find a good husband if you give your heart or your body to someone who wasn’t worthy.
Men have pursued women for generations. If a man stirs your heart or confuses you, don’t try to sort it out yourself. Talk to me! I’ve heard many lies. I’ll help you tell truth from temptation. People your own age haven’t learned enough to do that.
You have the right to say “No.” Whatever happens, come to me. I’ll walk your path with you.
You must say “No.” Society stands or falls on how women choose to relate to men. Dr. J.D. Unwin wrote, “The sexual behavior of women before marriage is the decisive factor in cultural success. Men are mainly motivated by sex. If they can get it without marriage, they contribute less to society.”[2]
A man in love protects your honor and your purity. A man in lust tries to bypass both. You must know the strength of a man’s sexual desires, know how your desire can cloud your judgment, and how to tell whether his interest in you is love or lust.
The Biological Reality
Men are wired with a strong sexual drive. You can’t understand it because you aren’t a man, but you need to know to be careful. It’s good, it makes men long to be with their wives. That drive can flood a man’s brain with hormones that push him toward action. He may say things that sound like love, but they’re often driven only by desire.
When he sees you or touches you, testosterone and dopamine can make a man feel urgent, focused, even obsessed. He may believe what he’s saying, but it doesn’t mean love, it means he’s caught in a wave of chemistry. He wants very much to play with you. He may or may not want to stay with you.
If a man starts speaking to you as a man to a woman, not just as a friend or colleague, he’s thinking about taking you to bed. You must let him know that you’re planning to be a treasure for your husband. If that’s not him, you can part as friends.
He needn’t agree to marry before dating, but he must agree that the purpose of dating is learning whether you and he should marry. You’re not a toy, you’re a treasure. If he won’t consider marrying a woman who wants to be her husband’s treasure, don’t waste your time with him. Don’t just pretend to be hard to get, be worth the wait. Your worth isn’t measured by your looks, but by the character of your life you could weave into his. Giving him your life deserves his full devotion in return.
The Treasure Principle
If you decide you want to be his treasure, he’d be a fool not to marry you. Women who guard their hearts and bodies are rare. A wise man knows that marrying a treasure is a blessing, not a burden.
Once you’re married, don’t be surprised if he expects to have you five times a day: before breakfast, lunch, dinner, and in bed. He won’t always have enough strength, but that’s his plan. It shocks most wives when they realize their husband’s desire runs deeper and stronger than they could ever imagine, but giving yourself to him reduces his stress levels and protects him from being tempted by other women.
Here’s the key: if he opens his heart to you and shares his dreams, fears, joys, and sorrows, he’ll come to belong to you. Emotional intimacy is hard and scary for many men, but if he trusts you enough to share his heart, opening your body to him feels safe, and even sacred.
Dating shows you whether he’ll open his heart when you need to talk. If he won’t belong to you, think twice. Marry in haste, repent at leisure.
Men are clueless about women. If you don’t set boundaries before you date, he won’t know. You can say, “I’m not giving you my body unless we’re married, and we can’t marry unless your job can support our family. I’ll do my best to be yours if we marry, but it won’t work unless you open your heart to me often enough to belong to me. If we both work at belonging to each other, our family will have a taste of the joys of Heaven, right here on earth.”
Emotional and Physical Connection
Women connect through shared emotions. Men can take months or years to learn how to do that. Be kind and patient as he grows. Just as women are shocked by how often men want sex, men are shocked by how much women need to talk. Each must stretch to meet the other’s needs to build the connections that hold them together all their days.
You might worry that being physically available may make you feel vulnerable. You’re right, intimacy creates deep bonds which make you vulnerable to hurt, but when you accept all your husband’s sexual energy, you strengthen your connection to him and make it harder for temptations to take root in him.
When a wife gives herself with joy and openness, it reassures her husband that she likes being his. Men take good care of what they value: tools, hobbies, cars. When he feels your delight in belonging to him, you become his highest priority. You go to the top of your husband’s “to-do” list where you rightfully belong.
Open-hearted emotional vulnerability is as scary for a man as physical vulnerability is for a woman. When he gives you his heart, he gives you power to affect him deeply for good or for bad. Treat his trust with tenderness. Your kindness helps him feel safe enough to grow into a husband who loves you with strength, devotion, and vulnerability.
Timing and Purity
Be careful about timing. Don’t start dating unless you could realistically marry within six to eight months. Once you agree to marry, don’t drag it out. Long engagements are hard for men. The longer you delay, the harder it is for him to protect your purity. That matters. Couples who delay sex until after marriage are far more likely to stay married than those who don’t.[3]
A Word of Protection
Sweetheart, I wish every young woman knew how desire affects women. During fertile parts of your cycle, a light touch or kiss can stir feelings that surprise you. You can be swept up with desire before you can think.
Most men feel desire most of the time so they learn to control it. They may not realize how vulnerable a woman can be when her body responds to him in a way that surprises her. If you’re with someone you like, your desire can draw you faster than you ever wanted.
That’s why it’s so important to protect yourself. You need time to think, to pray, to know your heart. He may take your physical response as “Yes!” even if you haven’t agreed. If things go too far, he may say, “She wanted it,” and leave you to carry the emotional load alone.
You are worth more than that. Your body is precious, and your heart is more precious. Learn your rhythms. Know your boundaries. Use chaperones. Don’t be afraid to ask to go home if something feels wrong. A good man will honor that. He’ll wait, he’ll listen, and he’ll cherish all of you for the future, not just the moment.
The Fatherhood Disconnect
Even the kindest, most well-meaning man can’t understand what it means to create a child. He may know the biology, but in his heart, the baby feels like yours, not his. You carried new life inside you. You labored, you bled, you nurse and soothe. The bond is immediate for you. He may not connect to your child unless you connect him to you by belonging to him before you get pregnant.
He wasn’t thinking about being a father. He was in the moment, in pleasure, in closeness. He may not have imagined your baby’s face or even thought about the future.
Wait for a man who thinks about the future when he’s with you. A man who sees your body as sacred, your heart as precious, and your motherhood as a gift, not a consequence or a mistake.
Before you give yourself, ask: Is this man thinking about the life we might create? Or is he thinking only of the pleasure of the moment? Will he play with me or will he stay with me?
You need a man who sees beyond today. A man who honors your body, your future, and the children you and he may one day hold. Encourage him instead of disappearing into a pink cloud of motherhood after giving birth. Making love cures depression and binds him to you.
Some women understand. When my first was born, our new great-grandma asked when her next great grandchild would come. My husband talked about sleepless nights and cost. “Young man,” she said, “the pleasures of marriage you enjoy are God’s way of repaying you for your time, toil, talent, and treasure spent caring for and appreciating the wife and the children you’re raising to serve Him.[4]” That is how it works, my love. Before things get serious, you must insist that he agrees to keep the man’s part of God’s bargain even if you aren’t yet ready for kids.
Think in terms of telling your future husband, “That was wonderful, let’s do it again as soon as you can” so he stays awake and talks to you. Most men die before their wives. Say, “We could do that more often if you were in better shape, lets exercise together.” Better physical health helps him live longer and shortens your time of widowhood.
A Woman’s Influence and a Man’s Belonging
Society falls apart unless men get jobs, marry, and train children to live with honor. A man needs help from a woman who sees his potential and gently urges him to fulfill it.
You want to live the saying: “Behind every successful man, there’s a woman.” Not a woman who nags or controls, but one who believes in him, walks beside him, comforts his sorrows, and encourages his rise.
You have that power, but it only works when your husband trusts you enough to open his heart and his future to you in detail.
A man who won’t consider your needs while dating is not ready to lead with love. If he won’t listen now, he won’t listen later. If he won’t plan with you, he can’t protect you. If he won’t honor your voice, how can you and he build a life worth sharing?
You aren’t asking too much. You’re asking for what matters. His willingness to hear you, know you, and adjust his plans for you isn’t weakness, it’s wisdom. It means he sees you as destiny, not distraction.
Don’t settle for charm without character. Wait for a man who sees your value and treats you as his special treasure. You shouldn’t need to beg for respect. Choose right, and you’ll walk in honor together.
[1] We have a friend who let a colleague know she’d like to get to know him. On their way to her apartment after dinner, he offered to drop by his place to “Show you something.” He gave her a drink. The next thing she remembers was waking up on her bed at her apartment. She realized she’d been raped.
[2] Unwin, J. D. (1927). Monogamy as a Condition of Social Energy, The Hibbert Journal, Vol. XXV, p. 662
[3] Joe S. McIlhaney Jr, MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD, Hooked, Northfield Publishing (Chicago) 2019 p 67
[4] And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Malachi 2:15a
No comments:
Post a Comment