Here is the final post in the Biblical Dating FAQs series. Thank you to everyone who has shared the series on social media and has asked for additional questions to be answered. I pray that by answering these questions, you will avoid the pain and hardship of bad decisions and bad relationships.
Spiritual and Emotional Boundaries FAQs
How much sharing becomes too much sharing in a pre-dating or dating relationship?
We need to remember the point of dating – to prepare you for marriage. Your goal is to be emotionally and physically intimate with only one member of your opposite sex – your husband. Thus, you need to protect yourself and create boundaries. Not only do relationships need physical boundaries, they also need emotional and spiritual boundaries. Emotional and spiritual boundaries are created when you limit what you share with the other person. It is very easy to go emotionally deep too quickly. He doesn’t need to know everything about your past on the first date.
Some examples of too much sharing early in the relationship include: praying together, sharing your deepest testimonies, talking about the kids you’ll have together about your future marriage or children, or even having a one on one Bible study together. You are not that person’s spouse yet. You are not that persons main provision of spiritual, emotional, and physical intimacy – that is Jesus’ job. Deep emotional intimacy should not be established in the early stages of your relationship. As your relationship grows in length, then it can begin to grow in depth.
Can we text late into the night?
Set a time that you stop texting each other. You don’t need to be in constant communication – especially early in the relationship. Texting late into the night is unhealthy. The later the time of night, the harder it may be to keep boundaries (even emotional and spiritual boundaries).
We just broke up. Can we be friends?
Yes, but you still need to set emotional and spiritual boundaries. When my boyfriend and I broke up – he continued to talk to me like we were dating. At night he would text me and tell me I was pretty and awesome. He always flirted. I lovingly confronted him about it one day, and he claimed he was just being a nice guy.
He was being nice, but he wasn’t acting like a friend. He was acting like we were dating. His words were not helping my heart move on. For myself, I had to take a break from the friendship. He just did not know how to be friends, so I said we should not talk for a while. Eventually, we were able to talk and be friends, but nothing like how close we were before and during dating. As hard as this transition was, I can look back now and see how my decision to walk away did help me move on.
Now as life moved on, we don’t talk at all. I think it is for the best. I do miss my friend, but I know that God’s plans are bigger than mine. I liked him a lot, but God did not want us together. I had to put my trust in God’s hands and move on.
Did you get to read the other posts in the Biblical Dating Series? If not, click the links below!
esther
at (8 years ago)Hi Joy! Thank you for this series! Very insightful for me!
Greetings, Esther
joypedrow
at (8 years ago)You’re welcome! Glad it was so helpful!