Marrying Based on Being 'In Love'

I remember when I was about 12, I heard a preacher from the pulpit talk about how young adults fall in love, then get married. I think that put an idea in my head that I should 'fall in love' and then get married some day. Maybe the fact that it came from the pulpit made me think of it as doctrine. It is certainly an underlying cultural assumption.

I came back from overseas, and my brother told me about something that had changed. There was this weird TV game show where a bunch of women dated one man and at the end, he married one of them. So I watched some of this out of curiosity. I have seen scenes from reality dating and arranged marriage shows, The Bachelor and other shows like that where people gush about their feelings and 'connection' with someone. I don't normally hear people talking about such feelings in real life. Maybe they are too private. But on TV , these people will say all kinds of private thoughts. They will say they were in love in the past. Or they had a relationship where they thought they were in love, but weren't. A woman might express concern that she does not fell 'butterflies' for a man she met on a TV dating/marriage game show.

These kind of ideas show up in movies and other TV shows, too, that if you 'fall in love' it will last forever. If it doesn't last forever, you weren't really in love. Or if you really were in love but fall out of love, it is supposed to be okay to leave your husband and wife and find that true feeling of love that 'you deserve.'

I married before these dating/marriage reality shows took off. I suspect they confuse young people about love and marriage even more than TV did when I was a child.

After hearing about 'falling in love' from the pulpit, some years later, I heard in an AP English class about courtly love and how that evolved into literature about falling in love, and that in past ages, they did not have the same concept about 'falling in love' to get married. This was a strange concept to me. So I began to rethink some of these issues.

I believe it is useful for young people in the church to hear teaching that helps them rethink some of their cultural assumptions about falling in love and choosing a marriage partner. If, as a young person, you experience intense feelings for some good-looking person you have been staring at in class for days, that dopamine rush does not mean that you are destined to be together forever. The young person may think, "I am in love", and that all this wonderful stuff is supposed to happen. They have seen TV shows telling them they are somehow obligated to say how they feel. I hear that attraction starts by looking at the other person, a lot. If you sit around looking at a good-looking person of the opposite sex and imagining being a couple, those feelings can come, especially for young people with all those hormones floating around. The fact that you have feelings does not obligate you to tell the other person your feelings. It doesn't mean you are magically supposed to live together forever.

There are Christian young people who hear all these ideas about being in love who develop feelings for someone who would be a bad match for dating more marriage. The dating culture in the US is messed up. Children start 'going with' other children at an age far younger than they could potentially marry, opening up possibilities for temptation to fornication and breaking their hearts for no reason. Then, as young adults, many people in the dating arena just date for recreational reasons or to find partners for fornication. In the past, dating was aimed toward finding someone to marry. Christians should try to avoid these games.

It is easy to develop feelings for a good-looking person or someone who is your type physically if you look at him or her and think about him or her a lot. Those feelings do not mean that you should be together. It is possible to develop such feelings about someone who would make a terrible partner, or an unbeliever, or even someone who is married. In the latter case especially, this would most likely be lust/coveting.

Christians who are considering marriage should consider whether the other person would be a good partner in life, whether a potential partner is serious about his or her faith and walk with the Lord. Is he or she committed to marriage for life? Would he or she make a good father or mother? Does he or she want to have children? How many? What are your ideas of gender roles in the marriage? Does he expect her to stay home with the children? Does she expect to stay home with the children? What kind of food and music style your potential partner likes are not that important in the long run. Those considering marriage should use wisdom, and not just go by feelings.

We also need to realize that in the Old Testament, fathers gave their daughters in marriage and often fathers were involved in their sons getting married as well. Your parents may know more about you than you think they do, and it is good to involve family in making such an important decision. Don't wait until you have set the wedding date to introduce your potential spouse if you can help it.

You can also get some input from mature brothers and sisters in Christ, including those who are married and older than you. If you do not have parents or believing parents, this can be a great help.

And pray about this, a lot, and ask God for guidance and wisdom.

I went to a dinner the other night held for International Womens day, and one of the women who spoke was a young lady who was in The Bachelor.

I have never watched the show as its not my thing to watch tv, but she was telling her story and couldnt make it to the end as the tears came and her mum had to end her speech by reading it from her laptop.

Her thing was that she was being judged for not being white. People would say horrible things to her asking where she was from that other contestants on the same show were not asked. when you are asked where you are from ALL the time its kinda implied you dont belong. There were other racial slurs too.

Now this young lady had studied to be a doctor, she also became an actress, and she was attractive and beautiful and of caribbean/pacific island heritage. So she was very accomoplished and had a kind gentle personality, but she was STILL judged on her appearance.

Her being singled out this way just because of her skin color is just pure wrong. Some people are really insensitive.

Were the tears because of racism and mean tweets and posts, or were they partly over the Bachelor not choosing her?

That show is set up to break women's hearts so people at home can experience the drama.

That is totally silly. Did you see the that nerdy Idiot? That show is a joke, for entertainment value. And I got this from the commercials LOL....

She was over sensitive.. Being asked where you are from is not an act of exclusion.. It is an act of curiosity.. She would have looked different because of her mixed African pacific islander heritage and that would have sparked curiosity in people meeting her for the first time..

hmm not sure I dont think it was just where are you from? questions.

I dont watch the show so, not really sure, if you encounter racism, its going to hurt way more than just the normal dating type rejections, and theres something different to curious 'where are you from' quesrions to the 'go home' we dont want you here type abuse.

I didn't see any show but took the post that I responded to at face value because I value and respect @Lanolin insight and observation.

To me everyone looks different but to some people I suppose they always judge on appearances in a negative way.

its no good telling people 'you are too sensitive' it does just as much good as telling a woman she should never cry.

Hands up who has been judged negatively because of their race? skin colour?

anyone here or are you all lily white?

if there are shows like Miss Universe where women actually DO compete to be judged on their appearance from all over the world, then what does this say about a dating show that might do the same thing but excludes people or judges negatively based on race?

think about it.

In Indonesia, a lot of people seemed to think I must be rich because I am white. That set some pretty high expectations for me, since I was an English teacher at the time. The last time we went back after many years, my wife and I were waiting for some of her relatives to pick us up to go to a family Bible study. Two minivans drove by, one group following the other. Her cousin's husband's family owned a small chain of restaurants. I told my wife it was good not to be considered the richest person in that family. (When we got married, she did have an uncle who owned a fleet of minibuses, though.)

Most of the attention was not negative, though. I never had taxis pass me by because I was white like some of the Nigerians there. I was never arrested on trumped up drug charges and executed like a Nigerian Christian I knew.

Well, I did not watch this particular reality star, so I'll try to direct this back to the 'in love' topic and away from racism-- a valid topic for discussion elsewhere.


The thought process some western people go through while dating or considering marriage might go something like this (based on a composite of reality TV monologues and hearing people talk):

"He is a great guy, and I love him. I have strong feelings for him. But I am not infatuated with him like I was with my old boyfriend, where I couldn't think about anything else. I don't feel butterflies in my stomach for him. I think I love him, but I am not 'in love' with him. Maybe I don't know what being 'in love' means. Maybe I do not know how I am supposed to feel."

I suspect that there are many people, women especially, who think this way in the western world. What is wrong with thinking I love this person and I am committed to spending the rest of my life with him/her? When believers decide who to marry, they can also involve parents, other believers for counsel, and spend a lot of time in prayer about it.

Not everything a pastor says is doctrine. Some of it is personal opinion. Not being negative but falling in love is a very artificial feeling. It is possible to make a relationship work with everyone and anyone.

'Doctrine' in the context of the Bible means teaching. My youthful mind at the time attached too much significance to a comment from the pulpit.

It depends on what the individual means by 'falling in love.' Some people who have healthy relationships may thinking of being 'in love' as having less to do with dopamine rushes and think of it as something more mature. But there do seem to be a lot of people looking for a feeling of elation who are willing to end a relationship after the dopamine rush is gone. This is foolish. These people need to be taught to have a more mature idea of love and if they won't accept it, they need to be avoided as potential marriage partners.

sorry president dont mean to hijack your thread.

I dont think its dopamine. thats different bunch of hormones to do with pleasure.
the chemical is actually oxytocin. It usually doesnt last that long. It can be overwhelming though especially if you have never experienced it before.
People call it falling in love because it means you want to rush out and bond with another person. all the cells in your body are saying connect connect, and the easiest way is through touch.

touch is what bonds people. Marriage is a type of bondage for life and gives legitimate or consensual access to the other persons body. and then consequently what comes after children etc.

if a person touches you and it feels good then its better than feeling horrible after someone has touched you. You probably wouldnt really want them touching ANY part of your body for long if they abused it, and probably wouldnt want to stay married to them.

First impressions are generally based on appearances, and appearance tell a lot about a person. So no one should discount appearances. If someone walks around looking like a slob, then that is what your first impression will be. So one can either provide a negative appearance or a positive appearance.

1) This in itself is racist because by doing it you imply only whites are discriminating ... I am "lily white" living in South Africa and are being discriminated against daily because of the color of my skin and my gender. Be careful to generalize an issue or solution.

2) I am thinking about it daily, because people who feel they are being discriminated against are feeding this issue to the world (like currently happening in America). If I felt sorry for myself I would use racism as an excuse. I embrace it and strive to show everybody they are wrong about my race and gender.

When the show, Married At First Sight, came on the mockery of love and marriage was set. M@FS is a show like the Bachelor in that it's lame empty headed vulgar entertainment that is for those addicted to the drama programming already proliferating television. That and the ongoing advance of dark occult themes and shows.
They actually made Lucifer a character and gave him his own show wherein he was just misunderstood by humanity and his dad! It's still on but on a subscription program, like Netflix or some such.

Anyway, Married @FS has couples who have never met meet for the first time at the altar where they get married. I don't know if it is a real marriage license marriage but that's the show. And of course they have spin offs, like M@FS the first year and whatnot.

Unbelievable that anyone would apply to be on that show. But it shows how little those who do respect marriage itself.
Andy Warhol said it and we're seeing it. "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

I think I could make a case for feeling marginalized for being referred to as white. I'm classified as Caucasian but would actually be more inclined toward the label of mixed race given the family heritage in my veins. I'm more like a rose pink with tan undertones.

Now as to lilly white, yes, I've seen that. He was a very petite Mexican man in a bank in Mexico City when I was there. His skin was so white it nearly glowed beneath the outer rays of the overhead lights that lit upon his arms. He was wearing a Hawaiian print short sleeve shirt and white shorts. Standing at a desk in the slight shadow against the far wall near the door. And he wore a hat. His eyes were as pink as the bunny friend I had at home but his skin was white. I admit I stared because he was so aglow in those lights that I was trying to see if he was wearing some kind of body stocking. Never saw skin that white. Him, I would call lilly white.

But me and others who are labeled Caucasian, not so much. Does this mean I want to start an equality campaign championing the renaming of pale people? No.

We're getting to be too sensitive to words in this society. "You can't say that!" People are afraid of having their feelings hurt by other peoples vocal thoughts.
There's no Constitutional right to not be offended. Grow thicker skin and don't put your personal value on other peoples words. That helps too I think.

OP thread was about the idea of falling in love
she was mentioning cultural assumptions and tv shows, especially ones about dating and marriage.
That is why I mentioned The Bachelor, and peoples experiences of it, especially cultural differences regarding judging by race.

none of the other contestants were singled out by race because the majority of women seemed to be of one particular race or pale and only this lady was in the minority. She had never encountered this type of racism before and was very upset by it. Certainly she herself would never have dreamed of judging other people negatively for their skin colour which is why it hurt so much.

i suppose if its a regular occurance for you you just get used to it and hardened to it.