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Today JJ is picking up where we left off last week and unpacking the hallmark signs that you may be obsessed with a future spouse instead of preparing for them.
Introduction
Obsession with a Future Spouse Dictated out of a Wounding or Desire for Completeness
If I told you, you were not going to get it, you would be destroyed.
To Close out, Deb Fileta who talks about marriage obsession extensively in True Love Dates
Hey guys welcome back to another men’s minisode with your host JJ! We’re so excited to be bringing you guys a part 2 of last week’s discussion about preparing for a future spouse versus obsessing over a future spouse. We hope this conversation is helpful and sparks some evaluation in yourself! Let’s go ahead and dive in!
We’re back in Genesis 29 with Jacob, Rachel, and Leah.
You’re waiting to do things because you want to experience it with a spouse.
This is a little bit of what we touched on last week. But, one of the signs you’re obsessing instead of preparing is that you’re waiting to do certain things until when you have a spouse. Obviously the exception here is sex, yes you should wait until marriage to have sex. But this is moreso encapsulating those things that you think are just “going to happen” when you get a spouse.
What are things in YOUR life that you’re waiting to do because you want to experience them with a spouse? Maybe it’s traveling, career, mission, financial or personal healing and growth. A lot of times when you’re obsessing over a future spouse what you’re doing is obsessing over what THEY can do for YOU.
What are those one, two, or three things that you keep under the hood but you know will surface in marriage? We’re talking about more personal healing and growth here.
Force Function: Something in your life that doesn’t allow you to fail. Meaning I have a meeting with my client at 11am every Tuesday where I am reporting everything I’ve done the week before. It’s on my calendar, I don’t have a choice, it’s a force function in my life.
Marriage is the greatest force function you’ll ever have. What are some things in your life that you already know about, that you can get a head start on in singleness?
If you are PREPARING for a spouse then you want to say something like this, “Because I want to be a wonderful spouse, I want to be a wonderful parent, I want to have a wonderful marriage, I’m going to go ahead and get a headstart on those. I want to be excellent, I want to steward this opportunity and call well so I’m going to get EXCITED to get in there and prepare and do EVERYTHING I need to prepare myself for being a wonderful husband or wife.”
The inverse of that, and OBSESSING over them, is placing a value and making them become the force function of you. Meaning, I put all this pressure on the world, I defer this opportunity, I’m going to make them speak about it out loud, I’m going to make it become a problem between me and my spouse that they complain about it so much, they highlight it so much, it’s so challenging for us that I have no choice but to tackle it on my own.
We see this all the time, someone has Daddy/Mommy issues so of course they compromise and choose that person. A wounding or desire for completeness will drive an obsession with finding a spouse like nothing else because they genuinely feel like they need that.
Coming out of hurt and trauma, we completely understand this, but you feel like you have to never experience that again so you become obsessed with finding the opposite of that so you don’t have to experience it again. What happens is that it becomes the object of your heart so you’ll do anything to secure it. So a lot of times, you find someone who maybe doesn’t have that thing that you were previously hurt by, but they also don’t have the godly characteristics you’re looking for either. When you want something that badly, you’ll compromise to get it.
The opposite of this is PREPARING for a spouse, which is dictated by contentment. Meaning, I know what I want, I know what I desire, and guess what, there’s no timeline. There’s no rush, there’s no compromise needed because there’s no need for me to bend. I have all the time in the world in so many ways that I don’t have to compromise for the man or woman I’m looking for. I know in the grand scheme of things, marriage is a temporary partnership on earth. It’s not going to kill me if I get 45 years of it instead of 48 years.
Would you rather date for 3 years and have 47 years of a wonderful marriage OR would you rather date for one year and have 49 years of a miserable marriage or 3 years of a miserable marriage and then you have those lessons behind you.
Marriage truly is a temporary partnership on earth. You’re earth mates, there’s no such thing as soul mates. So when the obsession is born out of the lack of completion coupled with I only have one shot at this, I only have 40-50 years to find this person and find that marriage, you will do whatever it takes to have it. Meaning that you will compromise and bend when you shouldn’t.
It would be extremely difficult and hard to cope with the disappointment. There’s a fine line between going through that, feeling the hardness and truth of that, and then being destroyed.
It is OKAY to have hope and desires. It’s just that whenever these hopes and desires grow into such a place of importance in your life, that the second they’re taken away you’re destroyed that it becomes problematic. If anything in our lives holds that weight other than Christ Jesus, it’s officially become an IDOL.
If you feel like you might be obsessed with marriage, what do you think exactly, you’ll be gaining by getting married? Beside your tax bracket, zip code, and sex, what do you hope to get in marriage? Then ask yourself, if marriage is off the table, are those things off the table as well as a single?
If marriage isn’t on the table for me, what IS on the table for me for the rest of my life?
There is no shame in the desire to have marriage.
Deb talks about marriage being a reflection of our desire for love. One reason we love to talk about marriage is because we’re in love with the idea of love. Deep inside each one of us is a need for companionship and belonging; a need for connection and someone to call us their own. We long to be noticed, to be counted worthy, and deemed valuable. And so we look to the eyes of those around us for that unconditional love we’re craving. We look to marriage for that.
Marriage is a reflection of some of those much deeper needs– and the hope of unconditional love keeps the conversation alive. What we should always keep in mind though, is that the most nourished and life-giving marriages are made up of two people who love to love– more than just to be loved.
We need connection. We were made to be together. Our propensity towards community or our lack of it can have a significant impact on how we view, what we expect from, and if whether or not we idolize marriage. If you don’t have great community and connection, it makes sense that you would crave the companionship and connection of marriage.
We love to talk about marriage, because we were made to talk about it- in the sense that we were made in the image of a God who designed us to love and be loved. Because far deeper than our need for one another– is the reality of our need for so much more– our unquenchable desire for the God who made us to thirst for Him. Whether we’re aware of it, or even acknowledge it- we’re all engaging in this Divine Relationship in some way.
If nothing else, maybe our obsession with marriage should remind us to stop for a moment- and consider the truth that St. Augustine so eloquently says, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Marriage is a reminder of our desperate need for the Lover of our Souls.
May it trigger in us the desire to stop, reflect, and think about- and then seek to find fulfillment as we learn to love one another, to invest in community, and to open our hearts to receiving the deep and ferocious love of God.
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JJ Tomlin is a missionary kid born in Belgium, originally from Tennessee, and currently residing in the OC. He currently works in Gaming/E-Commerce, enjoys watching his Tennessee Titans on Sundays with his Goldendoodle Teddy and loves working with Christian men to raise the bar in singleness and dating.
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