Courtship/Dating

[spitfire1979]

i was one of three sets of ATI sisters at our fundy church in junior high/high school; my sister and i definitely had more lenient parents, but still...

one girl started crying on a bus trip because her sister said she'd tell their dad that she liked one of the guys FROM CHURCH.  good grief.  the tattle tale sister has since eloped with a bible college student and has a baby.  the other is of course, still dutifully following the wishes of her parents and does not date, neither does she toil with worldly desires.  she's 26, i think.

sorry you got your heart broken.  sucky way to learn that love doesn't conquer all.

[encourager]

I can understand why people support the courtship model. Many see dating as a distraction from spiritual things and devotion to God. I believe there is a valid argument there. I do not know how the courtship model can work in today’s society when a lot of people are choosing to date. There are times when I wished that my parents picked someone for me, but they don’t.

Because many feel that looking for a partner and dating is a distraction from spiritual things this leaves a lot of single Christians confused on how to handle this whole area. Do we just avoid it all together?  Do we sit on the sidelines and never establish any friendships with the opposite gender? If seeking a mate is a sidetrack from my devotion to God, then why does it say in Genesis that it is not good for man to be alone? It would just be Adam and God. There is nothing wrong with that, but for some reason God gave Adam a partner. Of course he didn’t have any choice. God was his matchmaker.

I find it very burdensome to feel like it is totally up to me to find someone. There are those that believe that we should spend all our energies trying to find a relationship with the opposite sex and this is a very wearisome burden to carry. I personally don’t want it. I don’t believe that God wants me to live with a heavy burden like that.

Gothard’s camp goes to the other extreme and places all the responsibility on the parents to choose. I don’t know which is worse, for me to choose or for my parents to choose. It seems rather hard to find a happy balance. I understand it is ideal to have full parental consent as to who I choose, but it doesn’t always happen. My parents did not like who my younger brother chose, but he is happy with her and they have a wonderful family.

So again, I understand where many are coming from when they support the courtship model. I just don’t see how they are going to find the perfect someone that both parents are going to approve of. There is no such thing as a perfect partner. We are all sinners. It’s just that some of us are redeemed and some of us are not. I think those that take the extreme positions in the courtship movement are heading towards dangerous territory. Like I said before, the teaching about emotional purity is not in the Bible and to suppress these emotions does more damage than good. I do not agree with the concept of emotional purity, nor do I believe that parents should force their sons and daughters to marry someone that they do not wish to marry.

Like I said before, I have totally given up on the whole thing trying to find someone. I find the whole thing very discouraging. It will have to be an act of God if a gal comes into my life. It is just too hard.

[bizzle]

Dumped by Dad...  I became involved with a girl from an ATI family.  At this time I was unaware of the particulars of Gothard, IBLP and the bs which lies therein.  This young woman was 24, living at home with her parents, working part time while finishing her degree via some mail-in-college program.  It all started with a dinner with her family, which went well.  Her overweight, overbearing and overprotective father was cordial if not friendly to me.  We, of course, had a lively devotional discussion after dinner to which I made a few points.  (Note, I attended church, christian schools, christian liberal arts school, and have been a quasi-theologian for most of my adult years).  After this 'date' I began to see her regularly.  My contact with her family was sporadic, brief but always very pleasant and would end with them saying how much they were looking forward to getting to see me again.  Our relationship continued for a number of months and we began to fall in love as couples do.  Her father noticed this and started to have 'dreams' which I was cast in a very negative light (allegedly so awful that the young woman was spared the details of said dreams).  Eventually this led to our relationship causing (even more) stress in their family, which, btw, was fubar to begin with.  (abusive father, emotional, physical, mother with no spine, etc)  All said, I was dumped by an ATI Dad, providing a beautiful umbrella of protection over his adult child's head.  
I have not spoken to the young woman since we (her dad) broke up, but since have researched Bill G, IBLP, ATI etc and found their teachings have corrupted an otherwise beautiful, godly, compassionate young woman.  Does anyone have any advice as to how I should proceed?  I never want to date her again, as her family (by that I mean Dad) will ALWAYS suck, but how do I help her shed the burden of these heretical ATI/Gothard teachings?  Thoughts?

[granolagoddess]

bizzle:

You can't have any affect on her unless she wants to hear it.

encourager:

You have found your way out of so much in gothardville, why let this oppress you? I had been raised to be so dependent on others, that, I, too, wanted someone to take my challenges and fix them. I wanted someone to take care of me, and through therapy, I found, that there is no one to do that but me. I think a lot of what you say is dead wrong, and you need take charge of your own life. This dependency model is destructive and wrong. I can't believe that you believe so strongly in god, but will not take any steps to empower yourself to have a life partner. How romatic a notion is it to have our parents choose the love of our life, but know, that even Royalty were forced to do this.Most of them were unhappy and had affairs outside of their marriage because of it. IS this what you really want? I think you should use the resources god has given you and stop being a victim.

[encourager]

I believe you are right. Thanks for the rebuke. I do need to change my perspective on this whole issue.

[Triedbythefire]

Ooooohhhh Jonathan Lindvall. The next worst thing to ATI!

Thankfully my parents only liked and listened to his teachings for a short while before realizing that it was over-Biblical. As in, created out of the concepts of the Bible but not actually there. YOu can read my story which is the path of my husband and my's relationship from 2003 - 2007 on the member stories.

[ChristFollower]

I decided when I was 12 that I wanted the courtship approach to marriage, as (to me) that sounded like the only "safe" approach in an evil world. Through the following years, I told God a list of qualities that I wanted my future mate to have, and began praying that wherever that man was, that God would instill him with these qualities. Finally, when I was 17, I realized that I had a "crush" on a young man at our church (whom I had known for several years already). We often talked at church, and I was friends with his sister. Then, about the same time I realized I cared for him, he realized he cared for me too. So, we started talking A LOT--in person and over instant messenger.

However, right after I turned 18, I realized that a relationship at this time was not in God's will for me, as He still had things for me to do before I got married. So, I broke it off, and prayed for God to take away feelings I had for this man (who was several years older, by the way). God answered, and gave me grace to wait.

Two years passed, and I was 20. God re-awakened my feelings for this man, and after having a discussion with my parents, we all agreed that this was the man for me. My Dad then informed the young man (who was obviously waiting until I was ready) that I was ready for a courtship now. We began courting that very day.

Our courtship was very strict--but the guidelines we kept, we made for ourselves. We both decided that we wanted to avoid the appearance of evil at all times, thus while we occasionally went somewhere by ourselves (usually on walks), most often we took a sibling or friend with us. Also, we decided that we wanted to save our first kiss and first hand holding for the marriage altar. We wanted to arrive at the altar pure in both God and man's eyes.

Our courtship was blissful, right up to the wedding, 13 months later. And our marriage has been so wondrously happy as well. Neither of us regret the choices we made, and our marriage has a purity in it that we know we would not have had had we done otherwise. Plus, we have the added blessing of having countless people tell us how our example blessed them and brought glory to God.

Now, while we had both heard Mr. Gothard's teachings on courtship, they did not influence our courtship in any way. We did things the way we did solely because we felt that was what God wanted us to do. And, since then, I have met another couple in their upper 30s who have been married for six years (no ATI/IBLP background whatsoever) who also did a courtship like mine, and who have experienced blessings in their relationship because of it.

Now, I know that this is not for everyone. All I'm saying, is that each needs to seek God's will on the matter, and decide what God wants for that person. After all, when we reach heaven, man's opinion won't count for anything--only God's will.

[LHJ]

I was homeschooled, but slightly removed from the whole idea of courtship (not ATI, but definitely hurt and confused by interactions with ATI peers). One big reason for that was my father dying when I was a pre-teen. That will do it. I was a stand-up Christian girl by all accounts, but daughters of widows are always treated differently in these circles, as you may well imagine.

What I wanted to just toss into the mix of this forum, especially for anyone who feels like they want a relationship but don't know how to actively get out and meet someone, was a really surprising experience I had this year: I discovered that online dating is perfect for Christians. I chose a very large free dating website (not a Christian one overall, but I knew I could check off a little box that said "I only want to meet Christians"), and I wrote a statement of faith and a bit about my family and hopes for the future.

The response was overwhelming. Christians know what they want, so typing it into a search engine gets specific results, unlike a non-Christian's lineup of "funny, smart, sincere, loving," etc. I recommend large, free, non-Christian sites (you're filtering for Christians anyway, so the site itself doesn't matter -- larger numbers matter!!), and just being very clear about the basics (anything that would weed out someone you definitely would not want to date, but not getting into too much detail yet). Lining up on the basics doesn't guarantee anything, but 3 days and 45 messages later, I had a very good sense of who was in my area. I was happily dating someone within 2 weeks, which was FAST, but also exactly what I was looking for. He and I have met each other's families and are coming up on the 3-month mark -- and I have become an outspoken supporter of online dating for Christians. The agency involved on your part is powerful, and it's a great way to very explicitly honor God publicly and up-front with every potential partner. And, since I turned down a number of excellent young men, I know there are more out there to go around.