My Family: How Far is Too Far

Volunteering with youth, I often get asked the question “How Far is Too Far?”  While I was single, I spent a lot of time digging into what healthy relationships looked like (see blog “Dating & Waiting").  Most of the time, people who ask this question are referring to the physical boundaries of a relationship.  I’m going to talk about those first, but will also spend time later talking about emotional and spiritual boundaries.  Regarding physical boundaries, I’ve heard some Christians say that they never kissed their spouse until their wedding day, and others say that they only refrained from sex.  The secular world will tell you that you need to “test drive” the car before you purchase it, but in a world that runs rampant with infidelity, divorce, insecurity, and depression, I’m not sure that I find that to be the best option.

I can’t tell you exactly what you should do, but I can tell you what the Bible says and what Phil and I practiced in our dating relationship.  The Bible says to flee from sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18).  It says that every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against their own body.  Hebrews 13:4 says that marriage should be held in honor, and that the marriage bed should be undefiled.  It goes on to say that God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.  Matthew 5:28 explains that Jesus defines adultery as anyone who looks at a woman lustfully.  And 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 says that God’s will is that we would be sanctified - that we would abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of us would know how to control our bodies in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like those who do not know God.  There are so many other verses that speak to the fact that in the “how far is too far” debate - sex is too far, but I won’t list all of them. 

For me, I knew that if sex was too far, that I didn’t want to even be close to that line.  Phil and I drew the line much further away and decided that for us, French kissing was too far.  [That’s not to say that neither of us had never been passionately kissed in the past, but this was where we set the boundary for our dating relationship].  I know that may seem extreme to most, but here’s how we came to this decision.  For me, when I am kissing someone that passionately, it evokes emotions and feelings and triggers hormones that I cannot control.  If I am going to be self-disciplined and control my body, I know that when I get to that point, I lose some of this control.

Phil and I also set other boundaries in our relationship.  For example, Phil and I rarely spent time alone together (we both had roommates who were usually home when we were at our houses).  We never stayed up late together, and we rarely texted pictures of ourselves to eachother (and the pictures we did text were ones of me in a hard hat for work or him holding a rabbit that he caught).  When we went swimming, I wore a one-piece bathing suit.  I wanted to guard Phil’s mind and his eyes, and I knew that by dressing modestly, I was protecting him.

Phil and I also set  emotional boundaries.  Proverbs 4:23 says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” For the first several months of our relationship, Phil did not call me every day.  I was confused and hurt by this at first, but came to understand that this made a lot of sense.  There’s no reason that at the beginning of a relationship, Phil should be spending more time talking to me than he does to the Creator of our universe each day. Just like we were taking the physical aspect of our relationship slowly, we needed to take the emotional slowly.  Phil and I did not hang out together more than two or three times per week.  It’s not that we didn’t want to spend time together, but we knew that a healthy relationship was not co-dependent.  We worked diligently to guard our hearts.

The last set of boundaries that we set were spiritual boundaries.  For Valentine’s Day, Phil gave me a book called “Knowing God” by J.I. Packer.  We committed to reading a chapter a week from this book and discussing it during one of our date nights.  Phil also wanted us to pray together after reading the book.  While I was comfortable praying during meals with Phil, I hesitated to pray with him for any long period of time.  Here’s why: I believe that prayer knits the hearts of believers together… that praying with someone one-on-one will strengthen a friendship or relationship.  While that is not a bad thing, I did not want my heart to be knit spiritually with anyone other than my husband.  While Phil and I would pray together after reading the book, our prayers were shorter and less emotionally deep than the way that we pray together now as husband and wife.

I know that some of these things may seem crazy – that our boundaries may not be the same boundaries that other couples choose to set, but here’s what I know… Phil and I had the healthiest dating relationship I have ever experienced.  If we had ended the relationship before we were married, I would have been sad to lose the friendship of such an amazing man, but I would not have been devastated like I had been in the past.  Our relationship progressed slowly but was sincere and was good.  I would encourage my single friends to set boundaries now, and to find a man who agrees with these boundaries.  Don’t settle for less than God’s best.  We’ve all made mistakes in the past, but it’s never too late to begin on the right path. God is in the business of changing hearts and lives – He can set our paths straight – all we have to do is ask.  I am so thankful to God for the work that He did in my dating relationship and the work that He has continued to do in my marriage.