Episode 294 - Session 2 Love Sex Dating and Marriage for Teens - OCEAN Homeschool Conference, Albany, OR - June 2022

Episode 294's video link: https://youtu.be/GMHLnvOL0jQ 

https://www.oceanetwork.org/

Welcome to HealingLives with Corey Gilbert, a podcast sponsored by the HealingLives Center, discover how to love and lead your family well and biblically God created sex marriage and the family for our stewardship growth and benefit my heart and passion is to teach, train educate and disciple christians that want strong marriages and families. The HealingLives Center has been serving christians since the year 2000. Its mission is to be a center for sex, trauma and marriage education and transformation, where we offer counseling, coaching courses and speaking services to you, your church or ministry. Check us out at HealingLives.com.

Today's session is geared towards teens and pre teens, so parents that are listening listen away, but this is for your teen or preteen. Um this is a recording of a seminar that I did Session two at the ocean homeschool conference in june 2022 in Albany Oregon called love sex dating and marriage for teens. Welcome Okay, so this QR code here will take you to the power point later. You wanna it's also the same one on the cards. Um and also the recordings and stuff like that and other things will have to be kind of for this conference. Mr reminder there, but let me start with kind of the elephant in the room in the sense of the title Love sex dating and marriage is kind of in the wrong order. If you haven't noticed, I had a lot of people over there has had this title for a long time. Um and they're like that's the wrong order. I know it sounds better that way. It's also the way we're doing things nowadays. It's messed up. So one of the goals today is to give you a framework that's different. Many of us have heard the word dating and heard the recording, but half of us use it in different ways than others. And so what do we do kind of talk to that? Um this website here, you can actually this, I have a seven hour version of this course. We're gonna cram into this next hour where I really talk through the book of world view and picture of marriage and dating to do this. Well, because I really do believe my heart's passion is that you marry. Well that you actually find someone that your partner, your best friend for life and that you want to do life with and this isn't something you want to come into with collateral damage galore. So how to do that. So teens I'm really gonna be talking to you by the way. So those in the room that are teens, you're my audience. The rest are just here because they thought they had to whatever. So, I'm gonna be talking to you mostly because to me again, this is such a passionate, important thing. Even the let's talk about sex part. Sex is the draw in some sense, but it's not the most important piece of this puzzle when it comes to marriage. I have a classy one that I have icing on the cakes. The sexual part should be a really good part of the US. It's not the most important part. But when I see a client see a couple struggling and they're struggling in their sex life, it's because it's the most important part of that moment. It becomes a deal breaker, which is heartbreaking that we let something so small in some sense, but so precious, hurt us harmless. Um, when you do this, by the way, when you do this whole marriage thing, this is what happens. It's pretty awesome. Best day of my life. I still can't believe it. We're in 19 years. So we're just barely getting started um, incredible what happens. But when this happens then this happens, they start coming like awesome. I think we have kids because the health issues I've had and it's been amazing to see these three experiments is what I call them grow up and realize that they have free will and I don't like that. I just don't. It's like I remind them, you don't have hate the free will you make your own decisions. Every one of your teams are gonna make your own decisions and you're gonna make decisions that are gonna have an impact on your life forever. So the picture for today is this one we're gonna talk about this bridge. Um, and I take this weird looking bridge because I was like, this is kind of what dating is like, it's a roller coaster type thing, but we're gonna go from connecting and friendship and what's the goal is to take someone across that bridge to covenant in marriage. That's the goal. I hope otherwise you're in the wrong place. Um and how many people do you want to go across that bridge and I hope it's just one and there's some steps in between. They want to talk about, we use again this, we're dating and courtship. Many of us want this, we want to, you know, the castle, we want the fracturing of kind of relationships. We want the love story and what's crazy is I know for my wife and I, we met I was in the hospital three times in our 10 months of dating. It was not some amazing story in that sense. We met online, which is kind of fun. She didn't like that part sharing that part of it um equally dot com that works. Uh but then we got married in 11 months of marriage. I ended up in the hospital and doctor said, I wasn't gonna make it, it's not what you signed up for. Some of you have been through that parents, you've been through stuff where it's like, this isn't what I signed up for. Exactly, Welcome to marriage, it's not. So we need to be careful about what Hollywood sells us and oh my gosh love songs are terrifying. That's all I used to listen to. So I realized how messed up they are. So I want to start with this in peace. This covenant marriage. What does that look like? We think of the beauty and purpose of marriage. We needed to go to scripture. What does the bible say about marriage? Give honor to marriage and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery. There is a standard and a definition of what marriage should be like and what we should come into it with and that should guide us sexually. Should guide us. Relations should put in boundaries. We can spend a lot of time right there and we'll we will come back to that. The man who finds a wife finds a treasure. He receives favor from the Lord. There's something beautiful about that. I honestly don't believe I'd be alive today if I had not married her, my wife um where she's sitting. But because of the stuff we've been through health issues and other things has been incredible to have someone so steadfast um in my my life it's better to live alone in the corner of an addict. A Tik. Anyway, then with a wholesome wife. And how many actually the phrase I use is how many didn't marry very well. So don't raise your hands. You don't want to be someone who doesn't very well like I found out later. I remember I had just one uncle and he was holding this bottle of what looked like you're into me. But it was alcohol and telling my dad, don't you ever trust that woman of yours? And he died an alcoholic then went to his funeral. His wife died an alcoholic. Kids were running from the law. They stole their kids from foster care. Just this horrible I found after his death he was a clinical psychologist and he married this very, very, very, very hurt woman that destroyed him in his whole life. And it's like who we marry actually matters. A worthy wife is a crown for her husband, but a disgraceful woman is like cancer in his bones. So true. Don't team up with those who are unbelievers, don't be unequally yoked. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light be live in darkness? This is a critical, the bible is telling us what to do and what not to do, which is kind of important that maybe listen to her husband's this means love your wives just as christ loved the church and gave up his life for her. That's our calling men, which we should shake in our boots. The gravity and the weight of that. Haven't you read the scriptures? He replied, They record at the beginning. God made them male and female. And he said uh and he said, this explains why a man leaves his father and mother is the process and joins his wife and two are united into one since they're no longer two, but one let no one split apart. What God has joined together. Design is beautiful, it's covenant, it's coming together, it's not a contract, it's not just kind of we'll do this until something better comes along, or if things get rough, then we'll reevaluate. And I hear this from a lot of Christians, we gave it a good shot. It was a good run 10, 20 years or two or three. No, it's till death. Do us part. It's this that's just the beginning. And the thing is what I see is people preparing for this more than for what's next. And what's next is what you need preparing for. You need to take a Dave Ramsey money class, we did two or three times, it took us a while for it to take and still hasn't fully taken it hard. Um and you need to actually understand about sexuality and understand about that piece of the puzzle. Um You're gonna have two different worlds that are coming together in marriage. What is another critical piece of marriage? It's procreation just f y i babies were meant to come into this world in the context of a mom and dad in a covenant relationship, not outside of that. If we actually got this in order, right? We wouldn't be talking about and we have been pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure sex is about pleasure. Pleasure. So we put it in our teen years and it's normal because procreation is almost an accident. It's fixable, which is heartbreaking because not design at all. It's meant to be for appropriation for pleasure. Yes. It's actually meant to be a beautiful thing and a great thing for protection, the sexual relationship, the covenant of marriage protects us from ourselves actually, and committing and honoring that commitment, it's partnership, it's companionship, it's someone to journey with and do life with its perseverance. That's what this is. In terms of what it's meant to be, that I hope you teams want. I want you to paint a picture and the longer class that I do on this, I really help you paint that picture. I want that so bad. I choose to not do certain things today. I choose to have boundaries today. So this connecting stage, This is all of our friendships, all of our relationships. Guys, girls doesn't matter who everyone we know and there's gonna be a few of these people they're gonna walk into that will take that step onto that bridge to go across towards towards marriage. And we'll talk about that in a second. But this first piece here, connecting what is this? We need to figure out who am I, the first step for you is figure out who you are, what you will and won't do what you want, what's your what's your goal? If you're not careful, it's purely hormonal, that's it. That's the only thing driving this question and this word attraction? It's purely attraction. Whatever. I think whoever I think is attractive in the moment, whether it's a guy or a girl or both or neither or and we then define that in a sexual or I'm gay or bi or heterosexual. It's so interesting and sad because we've almost taken it down to the lowest level possible. That breaks God's heart. Now, I want to give you a tool one that I actually used. That really helped me. And it's interesting to think some of you will not like it maybe, but I actually really like this this this book came out by Neil Clark Warren years ago called two days or less. I hated that title. Like how in the world can you know if someone's worth pursuing in two days or less later? He really re released his date or soul mate. And I was like, I don't like the word soul mates, I still don't like your title, but I like this book and I'm gonna give you the summary of kind of what I did with it. And when I started teaching, ironically, before I met my wife, um I was using this, I was applying this and talking about it and applying it. So it starts off with this this this is a list of the 25 most popular must haves this is your shopping list. What are the things that you would put on a list that you would not settle for not being on that list. And when you start realizing is for many of us we start filling in that blank the silhouette. No pun intended. Um the kind of girl or kind of guy I would be attracted to and I'm not talking about that, talk about who they are, what they represent, what they're willing to fight for. And so you start doing this, you start realizing there are some absolute non negotiables for you and so his his pushes in two dates. You should be able to find the answer to these these 10 things. You should be able to know which ironic. My wife found my list with other girls names right at the top. That was a fun conversation. So the rules here for this is to decide on what your, you would rank as your top 10 And they must be absolute like one of the ones that I had on my top my list, top 10 was actually that she had to like motorcycles. And then I realized that's not actually a dealbreaker had to realize that I need to take that off the list. And I still married someone who at least lets me ride one. But as long as I have life insurance, this becomes your shopping list of what you will not settle less for my wife and I don't drink. Never had a sip of alcohol that wasn't even on my list. But I realized how important that was to me because as a counselor, I've seen so much devastation. That one thing is it evil? No, just like money is not evil, what we do with it matters. I know I'm an awesome addict. I don't do things halfway. Like if you, your monster's the monster drinks eliminate t ones, I get them by the caseload from amazon every month, I would be an amazing alcoholic. I don't do things halfway that scares me to where I've never had a sip of alcohol to this day, except Michael. That's terrible. So, um, what about the other side of this? Top 10, Top 20 Top 10, 25 or any others Can't stand? What are those? Absolutely no way. And when you start thinking through this, by the way, teams, If you're dating someone or interest in someone, you can't do this list because you're gonna only make it fit, then you have to be completely unattached and single and be okay to really, truly, how do I know what I will not settle less for. I remember these different periods of my life where I would reevaluate that list and realized no, I was putting some person on this and I need to know that's not really true and what do I what am I looking for for a best friend, a partner, a life journey, er not just someone that you sleep with, someone you almost even tolerate because what's sad to me is the couples, I see many times, they just tolerate each other. They put up with each other and it's like, that's not it. Now, here are some really important list here. Seven things that are really important to be at least similar on no park or spiritual harmony, your faith and where that lies is critical. Your desire for verbal intimacy and ability to be intimate. Really important in terms of that level of that. And what does that look like? And when there's a mismatch here, there seems to be more stress. Is it doable? Absolutely. It's just gonna be a lot more difficult. It's just like two people marrying from two very different cultures like countries that's harder. This means not do, it's just gonna take a lot more work um level of energy level of ambition, expectations about roles, interest, personal habits. These become areas. When you think about it, you start realizing, I haven't really thought about it, but there are some pretty major preferences and or absolute deal breakers that are important to me. This is really, this is again for you guys teams, especially for you to think through what would I not settle this for? I would put this in such a high standard. That then in evaluating, I don't, you're a no, I don't care what I feel towards you like. And this is interesting if you found out that this guy or girl you liked was married, you should have a boundary there. But it's amazing how I've heard this from even some corbin students at one point, years ago they were like, yeah, this guy, this girl is dating some married guy. I'm like what she likes and shows their ethics, shows their moral. That actually shows a lot about their story and probably past trauma and so many other areas that God help. And so I've had conversations with the friend. How do you help point them to the cross doesn't mean they'll go, it's also not your job that's christ to do his work. How do you discern good character? How do you help someone or help know where a person's, I'm gonna give you some kind of ways to evaluate this further behavior in stressful conditions, reputation with others, talking to others and then obedient to authority. This is men and women. This is not her, This is our, can they listen to their boss? Are they respectful talk to their friends? Remember that one of the times Kelly and I were dating, we sat down with a couple and we actually asked the question about, we're kind of considering about marriage and their response mattered prior to her more than anyone else. And when they erupted excited. She, I guess she was okay. I guess I will. Um and it matters if there's a, if you're hearing rumors and in a day and age where we can look online and look people up that's important. Actually. Dad does it all the time with hiring people. It's like you need to use these resources for a reason. So how do you know when it's time to a good, good age or a good time to begin crossing that bridge? And the truth is that there's no magical age. It's an attitude or an attribute of the heart. Now, what I tell my kids is it's junior or senior year of college and they laugh and we have issues with our oldest, lots of issues with our oldest, 1916. Um, he likes to rescue people like his dad. So that's not a good characteristic necessary. But I say junior year of college. Why? Because the culture is pressuring 13, 14, 15, you're not okay if you're not dating someone, do you wanna date someone or you want to marry? You wanna just play or do you want to actually have the brass ring? Have the great relationship without all this baggage, you're gonna have to decide. 16, 17, 18. My personal belief is the day you start dating, you're now dealing with either a wedding or marriage or a baby within two years or less. So 16, okay. If you're getting married at 18, that's great. And some, some of our kids might, if you meet someone that this is the one that's a different trajectory than, hey, when we're in college, I have a colleague of Corbin, she'll run down the hall sometimes just fake tears, but mourning the loss of another girl because she's a biology teacher and she's like another one met some guy no longer going to be a doctor. And so funny. She's morning. It's like, and it's interesting because of many that don't go on to become a doctor there is because they, Someone guy and girl actually, ironically most of the girls. And so some of the trajectory of where you wanna go might be changed by who you meet and when you meet them, whether it's high school or college or beyond or as an adult, so this matters. And yes, some of our kids are more mature. A younger age by the way, the prefrontal cortex isn't brain development. Maybe it's 25. Um, well when you are willing to stay single rather than compromise your convictions. That's, if you're just wanting someone, you've probably met or been around people that have always had a boyfriend or girlfriend didn't get a single for a while. You know, you need to and others. And maybe moms and dads can even attested this went from living in mom and dad's house to straight to married and that's a, that's a struggle sometimes. Does everyone need to have that single time? No, no, no, no, but be careful with that prescription just like no one has to go to college and no one has to do this that or the other, but Biblically we need to go back to scripture. What does it say we need to do? So this middle stage is where I want to spend some time now coupling, that's what this middle stage is called coupling. We're gonna go from connecting lots of people, guys and girls to this. I'm gonna start pairing up heading towards marriage. Now what I see is I see couples all the time. We have no intention to head towards marriage dating to 34 years and was like, goodness gracious. And the longer you're dating, by the way, you're also probably being physically active, physically, sexually active. I've had a couple that I'm blown away six or seven years dating and still virgins and like you are a rare breed, bless you. Um, that's why this is not a long journey. We meet someone, we date for a long time and then we engaged for a long time. This is actually when I'm ready, it could be a rather short, My wife and I actually, we're late twenties. Um, 10 months from the day I met her to our wedding, it was a shorter, she owns her own house. We were in different life stages to, it's different when you're um in high school or in college, Even crazy kids think about this, this journey across this bridge, think about the idea of a backpack. Those backpacks were kind of heavy man after a few days carrying those backpacks. They were really heavy and then this really stressed my wife out. I think she says he's a little close. I don't know, I'm the dad, he falls to learn a just kidding. I was stressed a little bit of a fast water. But this is what happens for many of us in marriage. We're going across this, this is what we're walking into marriage with. Many of us are walking into marriage with a load of trauma, a load of hurt. That's that's what I wanted to help you prevent some of it. You can't, you've had things happen to you when you're a kid. That's a whole different story. There's things that happen to us. I want to help prevent some of the stuff that's actually your choices you're gonna make could make that actually could change your life because this stage here, you're going through these three stages. So and a couple in considering confirming committee and you'll recognize and I like these because first of all, it's like a good sermon that all seas so really good. But it's different than this dating courtship words and I'll get to that in a second. This process here. Look at the first one, considering this is still a connecting friendship, but this is where your prayerfully considering a person to go further than that separately. So talking to friends, talking to family, but also together. Again, another thing, I don't see we kind of like each other, let's hang out. There's not an intentionality with it and a lot of time is wasted. A lot of hurt happens during that stage. So this is an intentional heading towards covenant marriage. That's again a critical piece. So once a person has been considering the coupling, dating or dating process starts, the goal of a great date is to build respect for one another. That's another whole different anomaly from our world of Did you shave your legs today or did you prepare for sex basically, Which is a heartbreaking instruction from friends. Oftentimes, that's beyond biblical. It's not okay at all. A great date is not sending around entertainment alone. It's about quality time what you do this, what you do on these dates are important, how you spend time with this person is really important. And in a safe environment, we're gonna go meet up at a party and I'm gonna be in a place where I don't have a car. I don't have a way to get out or a place that I don't know goodness gracious. No. When I'm kelly, the first time we had talked for a week on email and phone and then she gave me her address. So show up at her house an hour early because I'm earliest early stalker. And the first thing I did was chew her out. Don't you ever, I never thought I'd see her again. Don't you ever get some strange guy, your address to single women living in the house. No, meet in a neutral location. So we went to cracker barrel had a great date took her home, shook hands and she thought we'd never see each other again. She said yes to a second date. Just to be nice because yeah, I mean yes, I told her my life story on the first date, I'm dying, I have health issues, I was walking with a cane, I have a mess, marry me not, I've got tons of death. Let me show you this. So many of us use this vocabulary, dating courtship and I want to give you kind of a way to think about these and then we're gonna get back to this other model which I like dating is observation, courtship is depth, meant to go deeper. Some of us have a model. Even if you don't do this alone, you go with people, there's different versions of what courtship could look like dating is no strings attached. The courtship is vulnerability, dating is actually we're on this, you know this time together, quality time, but you're not getting into these deep, deep conversations yet. What I see is a lot of people I just met you when recording tomorrow, If you go by these definitions we jumped way too far into the conversations, it's not um not ready for for that dating is time allotment versus purposeful. We're trying to head somewhere you're gonna date for dating sake. There is no goal. Courting is actually a picture of marriage ought to be at least dating isn't in itself. Courtship is moving towards marriage or I like this one, dating is marketing and courtship is the clothes like that, dating is actually one or more people in courtship is exclusive. Can you imagine you could go out with one person friday night, another saturday night, another sunday night, if you're actually not touching, you're not sharing the, that's what dating should be. I don't see that in our world anymore. You should be able to speak in more to college students. You should be able to go to the dining hall with a friend and not the whole place say, hey, they're dating now because you sat together and that's what happens in school is what happens college carefully. Think, spend time in your safe environment. But dating is just one or more people. Both of these ought to be filled with respect, but a bad date can cost you time money and be annoyance. A bad courtship can cost you a little piece of your soul. That's why we need to be careful what we're getting into. Why are we spending time with this person and spending time with this person? What do others have to say about them? Have I talked to others? Have I hold my committee that I have over here that I put together to help protect myself from myself, which, by the way, some of you need because you're attracted to the wrong people. Like some of you ladies, you're attracted to the kind of guy that no one would want you to bring home guys? You're trying to the wrong kind of girl? Usually because of heart hurt, trauma or things that have happened to us. We need to be able to have people we come to and say, hey, do you see something that I don't see and trust them enough to do what we would do as a break up if they said, I think this is not healthy. The problem is that you and I think we should just have this all together, we should know, I should just, I'm in charge of my life. Good luck with that, that thankful even a marriage, how much you then together, navigate through decisions as a team, you need that now as a single person, I believe that we would have better marriages if we did single life better, there wasn't all this hooking up and all this shacking up and all the other kind of stuff that we end up doing and over sharing and overly evolved, but you need good male friendships and female friendships, both all of you, which by the way, may be scary. Look at your moms and dads, some of them need that. Two dads are the worst who don't have male friendships, men, you need that something somewhere. Um three questions to ask at this stage, have you or do you have quiet time? What's your relationship with God? Are you involved in your christian church and bible believing church and then do you desire to pursue the same type of spiritual life ministry? Now, this is obviously for a believer. If you're not a believer then what you wanna do, but speaking to christians, this is really, really, really, really important. What is their relationship with God? What is the relationship with the church? What is their desire if they want to go on mission field and you want to build a business here in America, you got a problem if you're someone that is at the church every single time the doors are open and this person is kind of this hit or miss gonna have some major contention when it comes to, what should we do, how should we do, do life together and then, So this is that coupling stage. Considering we're just now, still considering now we're gonna move into this confirming stage, if someone passes those tests, if you will, they move into this confirming this is the engaged to be engaged, we're talking marriage, this is where I consider pre engagement counseling. Premarital counseling is a great idea, it works a lot better pre engagement by the way, because once you put that ring on it, there's only one thing I'm focused on the big party, I call it that day. I'm sorry. First, a bubble of it. Um no, I want to be so sure that you're the person, I want to spend the rest of my life with that. I really strongly strongly endorsed the pre engagement counseling at this point. This is also a stage is confirming stage where you're gonna do something really difficult, something that's very much debated and we probably, if we were to talk about it would not all agree. This is the airing of your dirty laundry. What does that mean? This is where you start telling people about your past, this person about your past, Not people, sorry. Um how many people do you want to cross that bridge where you've had to tell them your story? Hopefully, it's one at this point of this this journey, you're basically telling them the people you've been physically involved with the mistakes, you've made, things that you've done other areas of your life that maybe you got caught in this or you never told anyone this. This is a scary part of this journey. Why I don't want anyone to walk into my wife's life and tell her something. I haven't already told her. 5, 10 2030. Didn't matter how long. Now details. No highlights. Yes. Like newspaper article titles, you've shared that and there's gonna need to be questions and this is an area of critical area if they can't forgive you for you sharing with them about what you've done with or to another. They will not forgive you when you heard them period if they are unforgiving of your past run because they're not gonna forgive you when you hurt them. Not if when you hurt them, this is a really critical step that could be here in this, confirming your considering stage, right here on the edge, not okay, we're engaged. And now we're talking, I had this one couple where they were two weeks before the wedding and there were doing the last session of premarital and for some reason I asked a question, I said, so you're a virgin right to the guy? He goes, Well, no, they've been dating three years when they started dating. He lied to her because by omission she asked he lied because they're not really that committed yet. And then he just never fixed the lie. And now they're weeks away and all of a sudden she just dies in front of me. So I looked at him and said, get up, I'll deal with you later. I got up close to her and I was like, okay, you have a decision to make you hate him right now. You want to hurt him right now? Yes, me too. Let's do it together. I want you in two weeks to walk down that aisle. So sure that he's the man that you wanna spend your life with without a shadow of a doubt and not be wishy washy if you walk down that aisle, wishy washy, you're gonna doubt yourself the rest of your life. And I watched her calm and go, I choose I want to hurt him right now. And that decision was made. It was so critical to then pivot to choosing him being a forgiving, forgiving person which also shows us we can forgive pretty quick. We choose to the emotions catch up later. We want to do it the other way around. We want our emotions to be in line, then we'll forgive. Yeah, good luck with that. Not gonna work that way. This is a critical stage. One that doesn't get talked about enough. I don't believe which by the way for some of us would be nice to not have anything to share. Wouldn't that be great. I assume every couple is dating is having sex because I'm a counselor and see too much of the unhealthy stuff so I'm blown away when I see couples who are dating living together while aren't actually have boundaries and keeping those beautiful, it can be done this stage here now to continue this, you're continuing to evaluate your using wisdom here wasn't properly evaluate their character, standard herbal brightness um personality. What you see is what you get this is who you marry. They never change which we all change but they never change yes, yes or no versus this is my project, don't marry a project. My wife and I we got married what was scary as I found out she was talking to her mom while I'm in the hospital and her mom was saying, if you marry Corey, you're going to actually take care of him the rest of your life and work the rest of your life because the doctors were saying, I've never had a job and I've never worked um humbling to me. She said yes And she's been a stay at home mom for the last 14 years. So we need to evaluate with what we got if that had been our life. Okay, that's it. We don't know. The future holds. Another key is conflict resolution. Number one thing that we can actually look at prior to the wedding and predict the outcome of marriage is how you handle conflict number one thing. So pre marital pre engagement counseling, That's what I do. This is what we look at. How do you handle conflict? And that's a key area that if you it's a constant struggle, it's only gonna be worse than marriage when you're living together in the end, it should be easy and negotiable. It should be. It's always know we get into those, those seasons. You need to have the same standard of moral uprightness of your values. Need to line up. That's back to you in that faith piece which is really critical and this ties into communication. There needs to be sensitivity, honesty again, who we are, the ability to communicate, speaking up and telling them how you feel. But here's a really, really critical about the communication at this stage. Always give her an out and yes guys, I'm talking to you always give her an out. Let me give you an example of this. I use this actually with kelly. I was teaching this class by the way when we were dating kind of fun teaching this 12 week song of Solomon class, which I'm speaking for like three hours and then we're walking around this pond afterwards talking about what I just said. Um and so then I actually use this in the book of romance Tommy nelson, he states that I strongly encourage every young man who was in a dating relationship to say to a young woman after four or five days. This says, I don't know if you're the person god has for me to marry, but I want you to know that you're the type of woman I would enjoy spending my life with, I like being with you and I'm open to seeing if this relationship goes somewhere, if you want to back out of our relationship right now and that's all right. You owe me nothing but honesty. I said that to her multiple times. I don't want someone just to settle for me or to feel trapped now she's married, thank you. But there's another side of this too. If you discover after a few days that a young woman is not the type of person you want, don't just text her, be honest about your feelings and forthright about your intentions, but what do I see? I've been dating to three years with no absolutely no intent to be married and mess them around the body parts that they're not supposed to be playing with and they don't have clear boundaries. This is a problem. This is why this is so important to talk about by the way this conversation. So parents, this conversation starts when they're single digits, you're playing the seeds of what even dating looks like before 10 because then they know it all 10, 11, 12 when they know it all you're done. That's scary. I know, but anyway, when they know it all, you're not gonna listen to you. So you're planting the seeds early and then you're helping shape the guys that getting guardrails. Um be careful not to share too much. Too fast too soon. That's why this journey across the bridge is important. Hands careful, they bind. Don't kiss until you're willing to be responsible for their heart. This is not normal to hear. I don't understand why kissing seems to be something we can do with everybody dating wise, but a prostitute will say I'll do everything but that kissing is bonding. So think about that. Maybe there's some of the stuff making out isn't a great idea. We're gonna rev the engine up and get everything all sexually excited and go see you can I know it's meant to lead to the next step and the next step, the next step. So careful with these boundaries. They start now dating. So that actually, then in marriage, one of my boundaries gonna be in marriage. And really I work with too many affairs. Too much adultery, ironically one of my favorite areas to counseling and to see God do absolute miracles and families and keep families together. I love it. It's just heartbreaking. She walks me to come in the door, sometimes go straight to bed and go to sleep because I'm so exhausted and then a few weeks later, need to see what God does and I love that too much of a good thing. Those resentment. What happens with the physical and sharing too much is this bonding, but it's too premature careful with that. You're building towards a wedding. That's still just the beginning because there should be an excitement regarding the future. There should be if I have a picture of what the future is gonna be, I get excited about the marriage, I'm gonna have the relationship, going to have the adventures we're gonna have together. Um we didn't have a lot of excitement about the future. It was kind of, I don't know what the word is, it was scary because our doctors were not telling us good things, but it was wild to kind of go over linking arms together. We're doing whatever is next together. And then to see what did come was incredible why now we get to the committing stage here. This is a short engagement, Not 2, 3 years sometimes not six or 8 months short engagement. Get the bridal magazines. Look at the list of all you have to do for the wedding and you can cut that down to a quarter or less than what they say because it's all marketing. I'm a certified wedding planner. I did that before I met her. I was desperate. What I learned is this whole industry is whacked. No. And if you met someone, you can have an incredible wedding. You didn't have to cost you a fortune. It's just just the beginning of an incredible life together. Let me give you this is a really interesting, so Shaunti Feldhahn researcher, She actually had this question. She said, What's the divorce rate? Which is what you hear 50%, Where's that from? And she's like, I can't find the roots of that number. And so you start researching and she said, it's never been 50%. It was a made up number decades ago, which means people like me have actually scared couples and others, half of you are going to divorce. Good luck. No wonder we have such fear of marriage now. And she found that at the height of and she's got parameters that includes takes out widows. Um and even if you're living together, those that get married, it's been maybe in the 30, But there are some key factors that if these are in place that drops down to the teens. The teens now, I remember about probably 10 years ago, um hearing that, but in the church is like 60 plus percent. All made up. Not true. And that needs to be an encouragement, makes me mad. That needs to be an encouragement. There is hope to build an incredible marriage. So, let me give you some of these predictors of a healthy marriage that she found in this research. I love what she does. She's a Harvard trained researcher, solid believer. Just love her. Her work number. Not these aren't in order in terms of numbers, but one of them was church actively involved in the church. That's that changes the door straight, lowers the door straight relationship with the bible reading the bible together separate. How you see God's word lowers that divorce rate do not live together. All the data shows living together increases the divorce rate. You're more likely not to make it. Even secular research says, yeah, living together is not a good idea yet. That is on the rise right now. Especially if you think of what the cost of rent is, It just makes sense. We should move in together. No, we should get married tomorrow and then move in together, move the wedding up. And I've seen that I've seen couples who are like, we've met premarital and they come back a week later a few weeks later and like, yeah, we move the wedding up good if you know this is the person stop playing games move forward already if they're not run So crazy people. This is an interesting one though. This one was getting married after 24 actually decreases the divorce rate why Cortex development. There's some important factors by 245 you tend to know more where you're heading. Like when I met Kelly, she owned her own house, she had a great job. She wasn't trying to figure herself out. I was a mess, but I was in counseling practice and I was established, I was working on my doctorate at the time and we're in a different stage than high school or even college. We were trying to figure that out. So the divorce rate increases if you get married before the age of 24. But there's another interesting piece and some other research that has shown That getting right after 24 you're also walking with a lot more baggage. So you be careful with some of this, this isn't, you have to wait till after 24. I really, if you meet someone that you're now this is the person and you're in high school again, a wedding needs to happen and shorter years than longer. Not now you have to wait until after grad school and I see this with families. I've had couples come in my living room and make that call where he's gonna call the dad, but not to ask for her hand in marriage, but you tell him and has gone every which way possible wrong. It's usually because it's a very unhealthy dad, very unbiblical, ungodly dad, but he's going to follow that. It's so hard. It's messy. And at the weddings too. Another factor is first marriage, ironically, by the way, she also found second marriages aren't quite as like 70% of divorce rate. If you know, actually it's thirties, 40%. 2nd marriages can make it to um, you just have more baggage really sad, but you have less chance community of supportive friends and mentors who you have in your life. The key people I hear in stories is coaches, teachers and youth pastors. Also seeing those same three of the ones that hurt people. So it's hard to know who you put your kids around, you send them to. So and so group who that coaches or who that leader is actually matters. I've seen friends of ours put kids in scout groups that have a horrible leader and have abuse happening among the boys. Um, that's the leadership part of, I'm a scout master and our boy Scout troop. Part of the selling point to me is this is about building a band of brothers for our sons, but also for us dads, I need mine and those become fine. Those are the guys I call in a heartbeat. Um, the dads that I do scouts with, here's the last one she found was early is not the last, but um, college education, college education drops the divorce rate and I'm biased. I'm a college professor. Actually think it's important. Um, is it the only piece? No, look at all that I think one of the most important things here is a person of faith that shows that a person of faith through their actions can absolutely change the future when it comes to this process of connecting coupling covenant ng and changes the future of our kids and our ability to do this well. And I like that. I go from connecting. I have friends to pairing up and I don't want a lot of people crossing this bridge to covenant marriage, which is actually meant to be one person for life. There shouldn't be a second chance, praise God for grace, but there's, it's not meant to be, what I tell my college students all the time is be careful. You don't have a divorce card in your back pocket. Kind of like the red and yellow card, soccer. Then when things get tough, you're like, oh man, I gotta stick it out and you're gonna stick it out. But if you have that card, you will play it, there will be something you'll go through that will be hard that you want to play on out. Remember the day I was sick, I was 100 and £1015 stuck in bed. We had an old house built in 18 93. We were restoring two toddlers and she's has our third baby and no showers. I haven't finished the shower yet, so there's a claw foot tub. I tried so hard and um, she had a crisis moment. So she's in the laundry room, she's doing something and she's like, you know what if I left Corey, no one would fault me. And then the next thought was that stupid, then not do it all alone and she was done with it. Problem is she comes around the corner and tells me this and I'm mortified my wife because I was, I felt like an absolute loser because I could not do anything. My kids have memories of my kids trying to pull me off the couch to play and then crying and crying and I can't um, that's the beginning. That's part of why it's been amazing to go backpacking and do the things snow skiing and snowboarding and things I never thought I could do because we've actually created a different life than we thought we had kind of in the beginning and there's been stages, so we connect this, the couples that I work with who have gone through affairs and come out to the other side tend to have really strong marriages. Beautiful marriages that I actually envy. I'm not gonna go that route and then one day I realized we've been that route trauma hard times creates a bond and that's actually what's scary and sad some of your parents, you've been through that, you know what it's like teens preteens in some sense. I don't wish it on you, but that's what's gonna have to happen. What are the hard things you're gonna go to, it's gonna make you into the man or woman that God's gonna use, not only out there another jobs or the kind of stuff, but inside as a husband, as a wife, as a mom and a dad, as I look back at that season and it blows my mind where we've come from, how we've come from that and where we're at in our journey, May you marry? Well, as to me, the most important piece of this, May you marry well, a best friend, a person that you would be so proud to show is yours to do life with. You don't know what's around the corner because for us it could have gone very different. I could still be in bed, I could still be stuck. We would have a very different life. And so evaluating that future and evaluating these things go back to those top 10 must have can't stand, it's kind of cheesy actually, but it's not when you really think, through I want to use wisdom and God I don't know the kind of women that I was attracted to or I wanted to date or all opposite her. It's so funny to think about that And then I meet her through this dating thing and it's like she don't want my age. It was really and she actually emailed me first, which after all would remind her she's the one that made the first move it. And then 10 months later we're walking down the aisle. She's walking just beautiful. But that's just the beginning. This is still just gets us into the marriage. We haven't even really spent that time. So then what is marriage? That's that's where the rubber meets the road. How do we do life? You teens by the way? You're watching your moms and dads and hopefully others, hopefully others in your church or others around you. You're watching other parents evaluating I would love to have a wife like that. A husband like that. I'd love to be someone like that. The more people you can kind of have in your circle you're watching helps you evaluate because you're not your mom and dad. But if you're not careful, you'll become your mom and dad. So have these people in your life, get involved. If you're involved in some kind of support, watch your coach, watch different people and consciously do this. You're doing this unconsciously. You're taking in all this stuff unconsciously. I want you to do this consciously very intentionally go, you know what the way he treated her, the way she treated him. Yes, I want that put that away. Follow it away. What that's gonna do is protect you from yourself because you're your worst enemy because you're gonna want to settle for something else and not have the most amazing relationship that God would actually want for you. I don't mean perfect and I don't mean easy in the end life will happen. But best friends that when I look back at that time with my wife, it was hard but we don't have ill feelings through that because we were journeying, journeying through that together as a team which now makes decisions today a lot, a lot easier to make as a team, which is really important. So if you need anything from me, you can go there. Thank you so much for coming. This leaks to this power point. I'll have it up later today and then video stuff as well. And it's been an honor to come and be a part of the blessings.

Thank you for tuning in to the HealingLives with Corey Gilbert podcast. It has been an honor to serve if you're struggling have questions or in need. Dr Gilbert offers a free consultation for new clients. Check us out at healing lives dot com to book a call. If this has been helpful to you, please share it, leave a review and help us get the word out so that we can see lives changed marriage is transformed and more people come into our life changing relationship with Jesus christ. The HealingLives Center offers online courses, programs, books intensive and other services to help you live biblically and well, discover more resources on Youtube. And in Dr Gilbert's healing marriage facebook group, The Healing Marriage.