Pastor Plek's Podcast
Pastor Plek's Podcast
Challenges and Boundaries in Love
342: Pastor Plek is joined by Pastor Holland, Adrienne, and Pablo and Bri Mota today as they explore the complexities of loving a married man and the moral questions that arise when affection intersects with commitment. Throughout this heartfelt episode, they discuss the nature of love, lust, accountability within relationships, and the importance of boundaries, encouraging listeners to focus on upholding God's design for relationships.
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and welcome back to pastor plex podcast. I'm your host, pastor plec, with a slew of guests on our show today. Uh, and we'll start with, uh, the sweet adrian plec and pull, how are you? I'm doing great feeling, really sweet and then also pastor holland from the east side. So glad to have you joining us. Thanks, chris.
Speaker 4:And then pablo and brie mot Side, so glad to have you joining us.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Chris. And then Pablo and Brie Mota and their son Zekiel joining us on the podcast. How are you guys doing? Good? All right, so we're talking questions. We had a question that came in from this past week, and so it's hot.
Speaker 1:This is a hot take question and I'm going to read it for you right off of the text. You know you can text us at 737-231-0605 and this person texted in what do I do if I'm in love with a married man who is in a sexless marriage? This is a great question and one that probably needs to be addressed, because I think that probably a lot of people have had this question. So let's just go right to our guest today to see what they would. You know, adrienne.
Speaker 2:Oh good.
Speaker 1:Any thoughts here I?
Speaker 2:have a lot of thoughts. What?
Speaker 1:do you think I'm assuming this is a woman what do you think this woman should do if she's in love with a married man who's in a sexless marriage?
Speaker 2:well, she needs to find a way to redirect her passion yeah but I have some questions as to like does it, does the marriage being sexless, make her feel like she?
Speaker 1:Is she the answer?
Speaker 2:The marital covenant is like void now. Like that's weird, Like that's irrelevant. Sexless marriage, abusive marriage I don't really care what marriage they're in, it's a married man.
Speaker 1:Right, and what makes you think that he'll have sex with you?
Speaker 2:Well, is she even asking that?
Speaker 1:That's a good point. Well, she's in love with him.
Speaker 2:You're suggesting is that he's the reason it's sexless?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean it takes two to tango, right? So I mean there might be a reason she does the. The other, the married woman, doesn't want to have sex with her husband. And so when you're sort for the greener, grass, right, yeah, you're just new set of problems, right? Okay, so let's go to uh. Pablo, what do you think? Or brie, what do you think?
Speaker 5:I think there's a lot of issues here. Okay, on both sides on this guy's part and on her part, right, um. But yeah, I feel like the like.
Speaker 1:I don't know why the sexless marriage was thrown in there well, probably because she thinks she has a relationship with this man who is married to somebody else, and she's probably thinking it's time for her to either move in or move out, and I think your advice at this point would be get out.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think there is some type of relationship going on, because how does she know, oh, how clearly there has been some type of emotional something going on between these two for her to know so much. And it's not like you see someone and you fall in love, like that's something that takes time and getting to know someone. So it's like are you truly in love, are you lusting after a married man?
Speaker 2:like yeah, that's the other issue I'm having is like you can care about somebody, you can love somebody but not be in love with them.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, this could be like a famous person, like I'm in love with that star on the screen and I'm assuming from all the tabloids they have no sex in their marriage and I could be the solution.
Speaker 2:Either way, to even engage. The thought of I'm in love like being in love is a to me, that's like it's a decision. Right, we talk about this, that the choice to love your spouse is a decision. It's not a feeling. And I can care about a lot of people. I can love a lot of people because I care about them, but that's different than being in love with them, which is a choice to like. So why? I don't know. I guess I'm like Shouldn't have gotten there.
Speaker 1:OK, pastor Han, how would you pastor this person through her current like feelings, to get her to a place of healing and wholeness?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the situation to me sounds like a situation that Satan has been working like, uh, in a lot of different ways. One sexless marriage. Satan's at work there, right, it's. It's God's desire for marriages to be sexually intimate and full of life and love, and so Satan's obviously been at work there. There's issues going on there.
Speaker 3:Then, you know, for this other woman to fall in love with this man, she's whether the marriage is sexless or not. If you're in love with a married man, that's you've been. You've not been led there by God, you know you've been led there by the lust of your flesh and the lies of the enemy. And then bringing up the sexless part of it is like a way to maybe justify or like does this give me the right? Ok, you know I'm in love with a married man and I know that's wrong in general, but he has this kind of miserable marriage Does that give me the right to kind of like, step in and insert myself into this relationship?
Speaker 3:And so, basically, it looks like the work of the enemy all throughout it, and so you need to counter that with the truth of God's word that says flee, sexual immorality. So what do you do if you're in love with a married man in a sexless marriage you flee. You flee sexual immorality. You confess to God and to someone else in church that you're having these um desires and temptations and struggles and you seek help um to move on and accept the reality that marriage is meant to be permanent and um the best thing for a sexless marriage is not to end that marriage, you know, and break it off with some affair, but rather for them to seek healing and help from their own church community.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the pastor with this woman, I would say hey, there's a, there's a Bible verse for you, second Corinthians 10, five. We destroy arguments at every lofty opinion raised against knowledge of God, meaning you know that this is not of God. Yeah, and I know that there's a justification. I know that your heart is. You know, if God only knew my heart. Well, god does know your heart and it's wicked and deceitful above all things. And so, because all human hearts are like that, we can't trust our heart. That's why we have God's word, god's spirit and God's people. And God's spirit can be confusing sometimes, because you're like is that me or is that God? Is it me?
Speaker 1:God's word is very clear that this is it's sin to break up a marriage or, you know, kind of even have desires for this married man. Like that is a sinful desire, like that is not a oh, we're all tempted. No, that's a sinful desire. And the way you handle that in 2 Corinthians 10, 5 is take every thought captive to obey Christ. And so I think this part of like obeying Jesus, you have got to get into the war of your mind to take that thought captive and say I'm going to obey Jesus, even if it causes me personal pain and heartache, because I have such love that I have to mortify in my flesh because I know that Christ is worth it.
Speaker 1:Do we really believe that Jesus is enough? We sing the songs you're more than enough. We talk about Jesus and we ask people. We say this every Sunday. Your soul feeds on Jesus like your body feeds on bread. In the same way that your body physically needs food to sustain, you need Jesus to sustain, and if you replace Jesus with sexual immorality, it might satisfy momentarily but ends up making you starving and leads to death.
Speaker 1:So I think that'd be the simple answer there, and I do think this is something that let's just take beyond the situation, because I do feel like there are a lot of couples that are like they're wanting to justify their sin by the condition that they're in, and what I mean by that is listen, we're not ready to get married yet, but why should we be paying two rents? Why would we live being two rents? You know why. Why would we live apart from each other? Like that doesn't make any sense and what? What you're doing with that is you're saying I want to use sex for a financial gain what we normally call. That's prostitution. But but in this moment, like, like, like. Nobody wants to say that, but you're saying like, no, the reason that I need to live with this person before we're married is for financial to get ahead financially. And no one wants to say that's prostitution. But what is prostitution?
Speaker 2:Okay, except that if you're sleeping together, whether you're living together or not, it's sort of a different conversation living together or not.
Speaker 1:It's sort of a different conversation, but. But I guess what I'm saying is like if the only reason that you're living together you would say, like I believe that we need to be married and all that, I believe there's a right way to go, but right now we just can't afford it, then you're then becoming what is that? Is that true?
Speaker 2:yeah, I guess if you're saying you're abstinent, living separate and then now living together, you're not fine. But I don't know anyone that's sexually abstinent and then moves in and then starts having sex.
Speaker 1:No, no, right. But most people have sex first, right, right, and then they justify it by saying I need to pay rent, so therefore, why don't we They'll justify the sin that they're already entangled in with their financial benefits, yeah with circumstances, absolutely, and I think that's true for a lot of sins, for sure, yeah, but I think typically the excuse doesn't. Is prostitution too hard?
Speaker 2:No, no, it's fine, but it's just like it's silly, because sex is a present both ways. So it's not like you're, it's not like the money.
Speaker 1:Right, you're using the person for financial gain, which is weird.
Speaker 2:But you're using the person, whether there's financial gain or not.
Speaker 1:Sure, but I guess what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So you're justifying the justification, you're a victim of the sex now because of you need the rent.
Speaker 1:I need the rent, right. That's like a passive prostitution, sure Fine. It's like there's nothing I can do.
Speaker 2:My point is your sin is following the circum. I'm sorry. The circumcise is behind, it's dragging behind the sin Right, and so the sin's there, and now you're trying to justify it with circumstance. It's not usually, I think, the circumstance that then.
Speaker 1:Right, I think there's a non-intentionality, right. So the intentionality is like I want to be in relation with this person. Oh, I love being in relation with this person. Oh man, oops, we had sex. Okay, well, you know, it's really hard to not have sex. We're already having sex. We might move in because it's cheaper. I think that's where that eventually goes. But that's like an accidental way to do your life. It's not without intentionality. And then all of a sudden you find yourself using the reason it's cheaper, which really cheapens the whole relationship, I think that's the story.
Speaker 2:I agree, and I think, even going back to our example, like, say, the man in this sexless marriage decides to end the marriage, right, okay. And so now and say it's a biblical divorce, we'll just go that far.
Speaker 2:Let's go that far. Let's say that. Okay, so the man is now out of his marriage. It was a biblical divorce. This woman is ready to come in. I guess that's where I would say you're a fool if you think that you can enter in relationship with this man, even though relationship is not sin. You're crazy if you think it's going to be without most of the issues that he probably had in his last relationship A and B, without issue. From your past experiences it's like you're completely crazy if you think that this is whatever chemistry and connection you have today is going to just only get more positive and more committed.
Speaker 3:And sin makes us crazy, more positive and more committed. And sin makes us crazy Like what you were saying completely crazy is not like whoever sent in this question like you're some unique crazy person. Like we all have this craziness that we start, we get into, like have some sinful desire and we start fantasizing about it, not even exclusive to just like lust and sexual stuff, but like some kind of selfish thing that we get this idea, this vision in our head about and then we start looking for reasons to justify it. And so sin makes you crazy.
Speaker 3:And this sounds like one of those situations where it's just like oh man, I'm in love, he's unhappy, wouldn't it just be better for everyone? And you start going down this path of trying to justify it because, well, it's a sexless marriage and we're in love, and dah, dah, dah, dah. But if you're able to just actually step back from the situation and just deal with it in I don't know the strict terms of like what God wants for you in this is very clear Leave it alone, move on. You know, like that man made a commitment, vowed until death, do us part.
Speaker 1:You know like I think that's why it's really hard, and I think this is where you know the dynamics of men and women, friendships and connections. It's like at some point, I'm sure this was a very pure relationship of friendship type thing and somehow it crossed the line, like, somehow it went from oh, hey, hey, how are you doing? Oh, it's good to see you, you know, in passing to a conversation that somehow talked about his sex life. I don't like, how do you get there with, uh, as a married man, with another woman? Like that is that should be never talked about in. Like just, oh, you know, you're thrown around. Here's how my sex life is going. You know, it'd be really great if I had some more sex. Oh, I wish I could fulfill that for you. Like, I think, is that how that goes? I mean, how did, how did those conversations even get to that point?
Speaker 4:yeah, well, I think, after, after, uh, having been in positions where I'm totally like, blinded by a female's intentions toward me, but then Bree points them out, it's like a little bit easier to see things like that now.
Speaker 4:But I think that and look, if you're the person that's saying this question like I'm not saying this is you, but that a lot of times this is probably what's happened is that a female has a special interest in a guy. She finds him attractive, she thinks he's cool, and all along, like maybe I don't know if it was intentional or not, but that relationship starts. And I think if you're that person, that boundary has already been crossed the moment that you start that relationship Right, person, that boundary has already been crossed the moment that you start that relationship Right, because you know that you have certain feelings toward that person that shouldn't be there, that you've already send in your head and now you're taking action, and so you know not to say that that that's what this person did, but just to say that even you know, starting that relationship is crossing a boundary that shouldn't have been crossed. Yeah, definitely, um, and how it unravels from that point on is you know?
Speaker 1:well, let's talk about that. How, what kind of boundaries should we have as men and women? Uh, married men and women? Uh, and I think I'm assuming that this woman is single.
Speaker 2:That's where it gets a little bit confusing well, and one thing I was going to say before, that is I I don't necessarily think I think that the information of a sexless marriage can come off in a lot of environments. I don't think it's not necessarily a one-on-one conversation, so I guess this is where I'm like it's. Also, I'd be curious what the context of their friendship is. You know, because you're in groups of friends with people making jokes or comments all the time and you can have, you can learn information about people and what's going on, and it might not necessarily been like I haven't had sex Right.
Speaker 2:I mean that's kind of a common like a person that's in a marriage where there is no sex is probably, and if they're open, an open person, they're making jokes about it, they're making comments about it, like it doesn't necessarily have to be this intimate conversation. Okay, and so I guess that that's where. So I guess in my mind, this friendship isn't necessarily like. This goes back to what I said at the beginning of her phraseology of I'm in love, I'm like man. That's to me.
Speaker 2:That's the problem it's like is the co-ed relationship to me is I don't know, that's just my view. I don't necessarily think that's the problem. The problem is this is a she's chosen a mindset to see this man in. That is a choice, like she could decide to care about him and she could decide to be pro his marriage, but she's choosing not to be pro his marriage and not and care about him in the way that, ultimately, would be the best thing for him. Instead, she's choosing to to selfishly desire to fulfill something in him that would actually be to his detriment and to her detriment. And she's choosing a narrative, a context of which to view the relationship where she's in love, like she's not just I'm not, I like this guy, I enjoy this guy, I care about this guy, like, I'm in love with him, like, like how do you move?
Speaker 2:that you don't, don't go there Like, be on, be in love. And if you can't unbe in love, then then flee, okay, fine, but like or just choose to unbe in love, or choose to love him, which means be pro free for his marriage, exactly.
Speaker 3:Like Hebrews 13, four let marriage be held in honor among all. So like number one, that, like that's you gotta be your personal commitment. As a Christian, I'm going to honor marriage and I want him to honor his marriage Right. And then it says and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. So you gotta know, like if this person who's sending this in is a Christian, you gotta know you're thinking about doing something that brings about the judgment of God. And if you're really considering that, you got to consider are you really a Christian? And if so, repent from that desire, not just from the action, but repent from the desire and humble yourself before God and ask him to help you hold marriage and honor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think if you're at this point where you haven't gone through with it yet, you're at a I'm not saying great place, but you're at a better place. How about that Then, if you had? Yeah, so this is a great time to bring in church leadership. This is a great time to say like, hey, I am at this place of vulnerability in my own heart. I know I'm about to go down a dark path. Yeah, speak truth into my life. Pray the gospel over me, ask the Holy Spirit to give you the courage and the accountability structure that you need. That's why community is such a powerful, takes such a powerful part in somebody's life, and I think also if for the person with the question.
Speaker 2:I think one thing that I always have to do in my life, whether it's like an area of temptation like this or in my parenting, my huge like I don't want to go home, in 45 minutes I just don't, I would rather do literally anything else. Okay, and I'm like so, my, so it's not Adrian, like confess, you don't want to go home. It's like no, I'm praying to God for the desire to engage. I'm praying to God for the desire for the energy to go engage and to parent and to hold the kids accountable to the things like and and so. In this, in the context of this temptation, I'm praying to God that God would give me a desire for this man, the health of this man's marriage, cause clearly, I mean, it doesn't sound like she's got that right.
Speaker 2:She's kind of hopeful that the marriage, like, is kind of done and so I'm like, so, if you're so, focus on, like, if God could change your heart and you could become for his marriage and for what's best for him and for you, then, like that, ultimately that's more effective than this quote, unquote fleeing, which I kind of.
Speaker 2:I think fleeing is biblical and I don't want to make fun of it, but there is kind of this like I'm going to put my fingers in my ears and close my eyes and just going to pretend like this doesn't exist and I'm just going to run away from it. But it's always kind of on this back burner as this option that you're either actively running away from, but maybe that's sitting there. And what would be to me what's healthier is to say, man, like, completely kind of what you were saying, holland, like, undo that desire that I have. So, god, like, give me a desire for what would be healthy and honoring to you, and in the meantime I'm going to take actions that are going to help me align with that desire and that then now you have this redeemed friendship, where that feels good.
Speaker 1:I love what I think. It's not that she loves him too much. She loves him too little, Because if she really loved him she would say I want she would challenge him because she would know and granted, it's hard to know this but you love him too little because you want his affections over what is best for him. Right, and what is best for him is marriage, the way God designed it, and for them to have sex within their marriage Absolutely. And so by loving him more, you would say God, please help them have sex in their marriage, Ignite a fire and chemistry within them and encourage that sort of behavior, as opposed to the selfish thing to love him less, to love yourself more is to flirt or whatever. It is where you steal affection away. So maybe he'll want me more, and I don't know if she's doing that.
Speaker 2:No, but that's exactly it. And so if she could get to a place where she could care about him enough to want the things of God for him, then to me there's a I don't know. To me that's like that's the ultimate win, because then you're not. It's not like you're trying to white knuckle this resistance to temptation, but instead you're actually repenting of a desire that was ungodly and changing it into a desire that is godly, which we're having to do that with. A lot Like parenting is just one example of, I mean, like a work ethic, like choosing to work hard at a job that you're sick of and that you're tired of.
Speaker 1:And you have cruddy people to work with and for.
Speaker 2:Right, and so it's arguably sinful to kind of check out and not try. I mean, god makes it very clear we're supposed to work unto the Lord and so I'm like, so we're going to pray for that desire to change, not just try to like, resist the temptation to be lazy. So I think there's like and your actions have to follow. So there is, it is twofold, but I just feel Like.
Speaker 2:I think in all in all of my like Christian, like they wouldn't have to be Christian, but in all of our like couple friendships and relationships, like that's one of the reasons that I'm always like, mindfully prayerful of, like of my girlfriends and of their marriages and and the men that we are friends with. It's like if you're praying and you're disciplined about like, truly desiring the things of God, yeah, then your mind is not caught up in, you get stopped long before you're down this road of inappropriate crossing of boundary things, because you want the things of God for them and you care about them, and so yeah, I want to go back to what Holland said with just like a misordered love or you don't love them enough, like, let's talk about like in, just like not this particular situation, but like two single people love each other and they would say I just love them so much I got to have.
Speaker 1:you know, I just how can I resist? I need to have sex with them because I love them so much. And I would say, and probably everyone here would agree, that you love them too little. Like, love them too. The reason why you love them too little is because you don't love them enough to put down your selfishness of I want my desire fulfilled for the holiness of God which ultimately, for their, for God's glory and their ultimate best, you guys, brie, probably can you guys speak into that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, I've seen I don't know if it's lack of knowledge or just pure ignorance and selfishness but I've met someone who you know, made the excuse of we can't afford to rent, so we have to move in, right, and we had a move for dinner and I, you know we have to move in Right, and we had them over for dinner and we've gone through this Right. And so I share our testimony. And we have friends that have gone through this and your testimony is that you were that couple, yeah, but we tried our best to fix the situation and obviously it wasn't perfect, right, but we still saw a blessing from it, yeah, and we have friends that essentially did the same thing and they saw a lot of blessing from it. And what I try to tell him is I get your point from a world perspective, like your finances, whatever, but just know you're setting up your marriage not for failure, but it's going to be hard, like it's not going to be easy. And you know, I give them all the scriptures, I give them specific examples.
Speaker 1:And even your own life. When you, when you give your own life example, they're not like, wow, that's powerful. I'm glad you did the right thing, yeah.
Speaker 4:And it was so sad because at the end it basically it was so sad because at the end it basically he straight up was like I know that's God's will, but this is what I'm going to do and I'm just going to hope for the best and genuinely the conversation was out of love. I'm like dude, like you think you're helping your family, but you're not. They both have kids from separate. You know, I don't know marriages, but I'm just like dude, you're not doing what you actually think you're doing that.
Speaker 2:And I feel the same exact way about these marriages where we're having a well like when you have to get in, when you have to get married, have to get in, when you have to get married immediately, because the temptation, I think that's a double-sided coin, because I think sometimes I'm like, okay, there's some humility in saying, yep, we understand that there's huge temptation here.
Speaker 2:I think, especially if you have a past with that person, like you're, you're like kind of in this lose lose situation, you've opened up this realm. I mean, that's, that's. I think so. I think there's a healthy balance between having wisdom and saying, okay, we're not going to set ourselves up for more failure, to sin, and going ahead and getting married sooner than we had planned. But I think that is a I think so. I think there's a context for it, I think there's a place for it. But I also think that when it becomes kind of a norm in a Christian community to just have a whole bunch of early weddings, I'm like, well, hang on, like the same amount of self-control that you're struggling to have you're going to have to have.
Speaker 2:You're going to still have that same amount of self-control struggle, and I don't care when the people then get married and go, oh, we don't have the problem anymore. I'm like give it five years, Like. Like, like, give it a little bit of time. Okay, yeah, you're right, In your first year of marriage you're going to not think that there's problems because there's not a need to restrain yourself, but that same same need to like give into what feels good and like, in the moment, indulging the desires of your flesh.
Speaker 2:Like you don't want to be yoked with someone that has a history of always indulging the desires of their flesh and like you don't want that. So find the balance. Like I still think I I do want it to be, cause I don't think it's always a mistake to have an early wedding, but I think that when it becomes kind of this, like yeah, we're not sleeping together, but you know we would like to start in three months because it's just getting too hard, and then we're just going to have our wedding two years later, I'm like figure out how to get a wedding in three months.
Speaker 2:That is your wedding that you're happy about, or figure out how to wait for an appropriate amount of time to have the wedding that you want. But to me, what that shows is that there's two parties involved and they're in disagreement, and the person who's refusing to wait to me is the person that we need to watch for. I'm like if the woman really wants her wedding, then love her enough to give her a wedding, but then, woman, hold your wedding with an open hand enough to get it figured out in six months from now. You know what I mean? Like meet each other halfway. That's, the rest of your life is going to be working out those two things.
Speaker 2:So if you can't and if it can't do it, this is where I, kind of going back to you and I, chris, like I felt like we, we were quick, but we were um, the timing was more connected to my work schedule than it was. We can't wait for three more months. Right, it was kind of like we wanted to set our early months up in marriage where we would have time to do a honeymoon in time. So that was logistically different, but it was still very much like it would have been foolish for us to just give it a whole nother year. That would have been foolish, and so I think you just have to hold that tension well, but you also have to recognize that whatever is causing the tension of not being able to wait today, that's not going away. It'll just re-manifest into something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that. Yeah, I think it goes back to just how much do you love someone. Because I just am so in love with you, I must have no. No, I'm so in love with you, I can resist.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, and I'm so in love with you I can have a wedding that's maybe not as fancy as I wanted, or I'm so in love with you that, yeah, I'll. I'll not hang out with you as much because I can't control myself and I want to, and and you made that was always a really big for me. When you and I were dating, you had gone further with other girls and I was all I was like pretty insecure about that and so I pushed the envelope because I was like you can't be this serious with me if you haven't right done these things with me. And you were like, adrienne, I, I love you and I want something better for you than what I gave to what I've done in the past, and I couldn't see it like that, which was frustrating.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, and not to make we were ever like perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but yeah, we've had to work out a lot of that stuff in our marriage and so I think what a lot of this, like you don't love them. I think to say you don't love them enough reorders your mind to say, because I think in your, if you love someone, you're like I'm willing to do whatever I need to do for this person. And I think if I would have had somebody say to me at that time, I would have had better language, if I could have said Adrienne, I love you so much that I don't want to go this direction. That would have been a way better thing to say.
Speaker 2:And I think at the time your reasoning was like a purity reasoning and I think, and I think at the time your reasoning was like a purity reason yeah. And I was kind of like, well, that's water under the bridge, you know, like who cares at this point.
Speaker 2:Like you've already crossed the like. There's not purity here, right, but I didn't understand the consequences of some of those very like. Seemingly insignificant things had consequence that I didn't anticipate, and I actually think your motive was because you cared about our relationship. I just I was too immature to see that.
Speaker 1:And I didn't have the language for it. I wish, going back, I could have said I love you so much. I don't want to put I want. I want the best for you and what God's best for you is me restraining our physical intimacy until the time is right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think, and I even think within that there might have to be compromise, but because, remember, you started okay here, this will be interesting.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So do you remember when you started with no kissing which Holland you started? Okay, here this will be interesting, oh wow. So do you remember you started with no kissing which Holland you did? You didn't kiss Jenny right Till your wedding day.
Speaker 3:No, we, we didn't for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, I asked Chris like when we have a reputation around here is not kissing her till your wedding day.
Speaker 1:Started that, not me, I'm pretty sure you do.
Speaker 2:You have a reputation around here as not kissing her until your wedding day, sort of that. Not me, you do you have a reputation.
Speaker 3:It wasn't either Chris or I, but I won't. What I encourage and what I tried to practice and what I saw accountability for was the idea that I think is scriptural is until she's your wife, she's your sister, and so there's not some middle ground in Scripture of dating or engaged has this advanced level of intimacy. That's not full marriage, but it's more than just friends or something, and so that's what I would counsel people to do is, song of Solomon don't stir up love until it pleases. Don't awaken love until it pleases. Don't do anything that you know is sexually arousing until you're married.
Speaker 3:But in terms of like how we did at that, that was something I had to like get accountability from a lot of people in church, and we tried really like James Meyer. He lived together at the time and he would call you and be like no, he, I mean he just lived there. He was there for all of our dates. He would watch. When Jenny would come over to watch a movie, he would just watch it with us wait, you lived with James, yeah, so before before DD moved off of Old Fish Lane.
Speaker 3:Before Jenny and I were married, we lived together. And when Jenny would come over, james would just oh. Before Dee Dee moved Before Old Fish Lane, before Jenny and I were married, we lived together. And when Jenny would come over, james would just sit in between us on the couch. That's a real friend, yeah, and yeah, I mean I would get random texts from him all the time, just like hand check.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:So we tried to do, you know, only date in public. You know we tried to implement a lot of that stuff and there was, you know, when we stumbled. One time I confessed to Chris and I was serving in the youth ministry at the time and Chris was like there's grace for one time and he said if you do it again, you have to step down.
Speaker 2:Space that follows his grace. Yes, that's good. But I was like sweet, I like I appreciated that and we, you know, we took it really seriously and um sweet I like I appreciated that and we, you know we took it really seriously and, um, I don't know it was helpful, uh, because I think when we started dating, you were like I was trying extremist, right, and I know that, and I think. And so he was like we're not kissing and I'm like, well, that's stupid, like, like.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's what I mean by give it's actually genius that's what I compromise, but I thought it was so dumb and I'm like don't be so selfish that you can't kiss me and that's I was trying to, and I wish I would have said I love you so much that I think I would have said figure out how to get control of yourself and be able to kiss me.
Speaker 2:So this is where I'm like maybe that's not fair, but I just feel kind of like that was crazy. I thought it was crazy, I thought it was absolutely insane. So I I didn respect that. So maybe that should have been a red flag for you.
Speaker 3:See, I think this is pure. I think a kiss like a peck, a kiss on the cheek. I'm like David and Jonathan kissed Paul and Peter said greet each other with a holy kiss. There is a form of giving a kiss that is friendly, brotherly, even, brother-sisterly even.
Speaker 3:But when you go to making out, when you go to like that is like awakening love. That is going beyond, that's stirring up love and arousing something that's meant for marriage, that can only be consummated in the marriage bed, and so that's where, if you're doing that, you're I I would say you're, you're already out of line and not on a good path.
Speaker 1:yep, christmas grace, you really screwed up nice yeah yeah, it's like listen, hey, you know, I I do feel like that there's grace and all that right, like I feel like there's redemption and like you can right the ship, so to speak, by really leaning into God's grace and leaning into God's favor, leaning into God's joy. But starting right helps you continue, right? Yeah, why not just start from the beginning, doing it right? Yeah, you'll have to have a huge course correction.
Speaker 3:And like I thought we did, like we fought really hard to protect, you know, purity, like we did sin and we did stumble, and there are times when I confessed and you know we needed grace there, but a lot of it was like no one even shared that conviction. Like Chris was, like the only other person that even, like, agreed that we should hold ourselves to that standard. Like all my other, even Christian friends, were like dude who cares, no, you should make out, you should do this, you should do that. And so for me, like I had never even met anyone that held that conviction, and so I was questioning whether or not it was even right. I do.
Speaker 3:I have Christian friends who are married, who actually did wait until they got married to even have their first kiss, who did wait for any kind of, you know that that kind of affection or intimacy, and I'm like it's possible and it is possible, it really is. And it's just so crazy to the world and that has rubbed off so much on the church, I think. But if we just go like what is the standard scripture puts forward for us, there's not a middle ground in between, you know, and it's just seems so crazy.
Speaker 2:And I would never act like I have a way forward for dating people. I'm like you're screwed, like everybody's screwed, like we should all be getting married at like 16. I really believe that. Like I just think we're made to be getting married at 16 and having imagine if you're pregnant at like 17 years old like that's a lot easier. I just think we're made for that.
Speaker 1:I think that it's just I think you heard it here first Trad Wives with Adrienne. We're going to do arranged marriages and you can sign up for your marriage at Adriennecom, for your marriage at adriancom.
Speaker 2:Biologically. We were not made on any level to put this off like we do. Like not at all. Like mentally, emotionally, like you can't find me a girl that doesn't have some hangup of some high school college boyfriend crush something because women are. I mean our 15-year-old crush, our 18-year-old summer boyfriend, is still haunting us because we not haunting us, gosh.
Speaker 4:Let me Wow.
Speaker 3:But there's still a, there's still a.
Speaker 2:They're burned in your memory because we're so emotional and connected. And dudes aren't the same, men aren't the same, but God made us that way for a lot of good purposes. But that's what I mean by not even on a physical level, but an emotional, spiritual connection, relational. God wired us and designed us and our, our society, just isn't set up. I don't think, for how we were wired and designed and so Right.
Speaker 1:So what is the way forward? I think that's a great question to ask, I mean.
Speaker 2:I think Holland outlined it. I think what Holland said is it, and I and that's why I say, is like I obviously didn't, Would you?
Speaker 1:be able to counsel somebody and say no, I can't.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't be able to do that why, because I just think it's. I can't like in my mind I'm like we're in a broken world. I don't know what to tell you. Try and fail, but try to make your fail to where it's not as bad why not? I mean I wouldn't, I really don't have it why do you do the counseling for these things.
Speaker 3:Why not?
Speaker 1:aim for God. You've heard it Shoot for the stars, you'll hit the moon. Why not aim for perfect and then understand God's grace is amazing and then live in that freedom, as opposed to live in this quasi? I don't really know what's right, what's wrong. I think that's what makes it hard.
Speaker 2:Well, I just don't really know what's right, what's wrong. I think that's what makes it hard, because then, well, I just don't think it's ever right, like, like, I could have kissed you longer than a brotherly greeting and I would have been fine, I could have gone to bed that night with no sexual problem and you and, but that's because I had not really get it right, I didn't really understand, I didn't know and I would have.
Speaker 2:I didn't really understand, I didn't know and I would have been caught up in the emotional connection of it, whereas the same, on the other side of that same relationship now there could be a man that's struggling more sexually and I'm like so, shoot for what? Shoot for holiness, right? So I would say I would have been in holiness and you wouldn't have been in holiness. So now I have to shoot for your holiness.
Speaker 1:And so it's like so, every relationship you're having to shoot for the holiness of the more depraved person in the moment meaning like, the standard is I treat you like a brother or I treat you like a sister until we're married, and then you get to enjoy the people have a lot of sexual dysfunction yeah, it might come out in the non-brotherly greeting.
Speaker 3:Yes, what, what? Okay, like what are you?
Speaker 2:saying there are people who, to me, okay, if someone can't be like romantic or be sexual, uh, not sexually, physically affectionate, mm-hmm, you need to kind of like. I actually listen, you're not. Both of you are going to disagree with me, but there are. There are people that physical affection and they have childhood problems. They weren't given affection as children. They're uncomfortable with affection, they're uncomfortable with slowing down, and so I would say you're a fool to go get married to someone that's just crushing it on this discipline and this distance, because I'm like how do you know that this isn't their wall?
Speaker 3:But you could say that about anything. How do you know? Basically, you're saying you got to try it before you buy it. Oh my gosh, no way. Marriage, okay, no, you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So you're saying you gotta try it before you buy it? Yeah, try it. Oh my gosh, no way. All right, let's listen marriage.
Speaker 3:Okay, no, you go, yeah, yeah yeah, so you're telling me why, guys? I would love to hear because chris, for example for example how much dysfunction has come out for chris since you've been married. Yeah, yeah, but that's what I'm saying, that's my point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like no matter what, of course, dysfunction is going to come out after you get married, you got to work through it and you're really selfish and marriage is the thing that sanctifies it.
Speaker 2:But okay, but regardless, I don't care. If you're really really good at having all these holy boundaries Fair enough, you probably have a bigger problem.
Speaker 1:Or or you really love Jesus, it could be, or or you really love jesus, it could be doubtful, but like it like. So here's what I'm saying like in your brotherly and brotherly affection, oh man, does that mean you've never like hug somebody without a sexual intention? Okay, well, no, let me let me say this yeah all right.
Speaker 3:One of the things that okay the fact that when we read about greet each other with a holy kiss or David and Jonathan kissed each other, we read that and that sounds so crazy and goofy or gay or weird. I actually am on board. It's a revealer that our society today is so deprived of healthy relational affection.
Speaker 2:I would actually 100% agree with you on this.
Speaker 3:Nice, look at that, okay. Affection, I would actually 100% agree with you on this. Nice, look at that, okay. And so when? When you actually it's a way.
Speaker 2:Part of the way forward is like re-normalizing healthy friendship and affection.
Speaker 3:Yes, I would agree that, um, that you can actually, you, I would say, in that kind of environment you actually can get a sense of someone who is like relationally healthy, emotionally healthy, I would agree, I would agree.
Speaker 1:And isn't it true that without us having sex, without us having sex, we had an attraction that you could like a chemistry, if you will?
Speaker 2:Okay, but you want to know, okay, fine. But I actually like Holland's argument way more, because you're right that if somebody couldn't give there is a heightened level of friendship, affection, that I think is healthy. Okay, that I am just starting to kind of like understand, like even among my girlfriends, like I just was, like I don't want you to touch me, like don't hug me. And, like over the last few years, that's been changing.
Speaker 4:Right, you used to be a non-hugger it was a woman.
Speaker 2:It was with women really, but that's fine and so I'm like, I'm just like, I just really don't, but now I don't feel that way anymore and I it actually like. I it's whatever. I don't need to talk about myself. My point is you could have sensed my issue there from what you're describing. You wouldn't have had to go into a sexual realm to notice that. So I actually do actually agree A person that has the healthiness of a heightened friendship affection.
Speaker 3:You're saying heightened, heightened, heightened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, heightened, that's a word Holland.
Speaker 3:I thought it was heightened, but you're saying it like a T-H, sorry, keep going.
Speaker 2:Heightened. It's not heightened. Heightened, heightened. I think it's heightened, it's heightened, heightened oh, I don't think there's a th grew up in perryton, thinks he knows how to pronounce something correctly. I've only heard heightened. Let's look it up. Oh not, you wasn't him so clearly, so heightened okay is, can we just move on?
Speaker 1:yeah, so a heightened, uh, heightened, go ahead. You know, can I just tell the 001776 joke now? No, that's a good time for that no, sorry, a whole episode for that, oh my gosh, all right, all right, sorry, you've discovered this reality okay.
Speaker 2:So I actually think holland's accurate. Oh, if a person has healthy relational whatever's, it's going to come out in friendship. Here's the big, big giant caveat. In our culture today, though, it's not a part of normal friendship things, and so I think that that's where I do have a bit of an issue. Is like, as a church community, if we could pivot and become more affectionate with brotherly whatever you just said greetings affectionate with brotherly whatever you just said greetings then maybe it would be helpful, because we could see oh look, these people are healthy and normal and they're not afraid of communicating physical affection. That is healthy and appropriate, but we don't have that. So then how?
Speaker 1:are we supposed to figure that out? It's possible to have that Like my mom grew up, like that. I mean I saw her kissing everybody and that was just normal. But so this is yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:So this is important because, back to the original question, we were talking about boundaries, like I think there's a way to go so far in like oh, I'm not even going to like speak to women other than my wife, or I'm never going to like yes, I'm never going to like put myself, you know but, like you know, a healthy community is like I have.
Speaker 3:You know I don't have like deep, close female friendships where we just like talk one on one. But I have, you know, my wife, my wife's friends, that you know she's close with our families, are close together and we were friends, like I call them my friends and like there's women in our church where you know it's normal you greet each other with a hug and you, you know you rub someone's shoulder when you're praying for them and like those kind of normal, healthy things where you're not putting so much boundaries and space so much sexual sexualization on everything that I think it is screwing it up.
Speaker 2:And I would argue that, like there are certain things that yeah, okay, fine, I can be convinced. Fine, I guess I feel like, yeah, I mean, that's a good argument, holland, way to have a good argument. Wonderful that's called marriage.
Speaker 1:It's a productive podcast. That was pretty productive. That was way to go, yeah. So I do think that was pretty productive. That was way to go, yeah. So I do think I think that that's the part of it.
Speaker 2:Like. What if we create a church culture where men and women like had?
Speaker 1:some physical connection.
Speaker 2:It is heightened by the way I just Googled it. Oh, that's good, you in two To Holland. Two Adrian, zero All right, what a day.
Speaker 1:What a day. All right, imagine just for a second if we had that and there were people that normalized hugs, affection, all of that, and then they grew up in that. That that's just what you did and you didn't have this unbelievable, yeah, sense of like. Don't even look at that girl ever. Right, like I think, yeah, that's weird, right, it's not normal, right so so, but I think it. That culture exists. What we have right now is the hyper victorian culture and the hyper sexual. That culture exists. What we have right now is the hyper-Victorian culture and the hyper-sexualized culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely, and what we need is a Christian culture which is like you are greeting one another, you're in fellowship with one another, you're like a family. You're like a family.
Speaker 4:Brother and sister.
Speaker 1:And how many times are we peeling our boys off each other? And when our boys hang out with other girls and they're in a big dog pile and they're wrestling and they're whatever, like now? Granted, as they grow older, that affection should shift from wrestling to just, you know, being fun. And you, of all people, had that in high school. Yeah, absolutely like. I think what's weird is you're the only person I know that had actual, genuine, real friendships in high school. Yeah, and beyond. That was actually something that was very admirable and there wasn't any weird sexual right things and you had a lot of you're still friends to this day yeah how many high school girls am I still friends with?
Speaker 2:like zero you're right and it wasn't. It was exactly what you're describing, right. It was healthy and we did hug each other and we did sometimes wrestle, okay.
Speaker 1:So there, I guess that's my point, right, like like you had genuine friendships like so why wouldn't? Wouldn't it be wise then, to have continue that and then maybe even marry one, a person like yes, yes sure okay, so, especially if you're 16 and it's an arranged marriage, right, yeah, 100, yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 2:and I guess maybe now that I'm like you've fleshed out, like you've kind of, I think, what I'm starting to boil it down to in terms of my hang-up is there maybe are two subjects here, and one is physical affection and the other is the ability to slow down and prioritize relationship and be intentional in relationship. And I think you can, you can slow down, prioritize relationship and be intentional in relationship and do it all extremely appropriately. And I think for me maybe I'm realizing I was looking for those things in the physical affection- Right.
Speaker 2:And I think which was actually a misread, because one could argue that you struggled with slowing down and prioritizing relationship, but because we had physical affection, it felt like it covered that, and so then, the first few years of our marriage, we had to work on the ladder.
Speaker 1:And I'm probably still working through my ability to slow down and connect. I mean, that's I'm wired to like let's go.
Speaker 2:So you could argue that I translated something wrongly.
Speaker 1:Right, you made a mistake in marrying me.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just kidding, I'm kidding I mean, I guess maybe that's what I'm kind of getting at and really that's not something that needed physical affection to discern. So that's interesting and even in that situation where you weren't very good at that and you could argue that was our purity solution, busyness, when in reality it wasn't. It was a separate problem that did come out more in marriage and it's something that God's been faithful to healing, yeah, redeeming, yeah. So so that's good, that's really good Full circle.
Speaker 1:You know, what we do here at FasterPlex podcast is we really take you to the full gamut of emotions on issues facing our culture today. So, man, thank you guys so much for watching Any other final thoughts from uh, the peanut gallery over here.
Speaker 5:We talked a lot about like starting, aiming for perfection, but I just want to encourage people that if you've already slipped up, it's not too late. Pablo and I can speak into that. Like it was four years of free for all and conviction came and it was super hard, but moving out and like God rewards that still and he sees, and I would encourage anyone at any stage too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love what you just said. I do feel like sometimes there's this classic Matt Chandler sermon where, uh, he tells a story about you know a purity thing, and the guy, the evangelist, hands a rose to a dude in the first row and he's talking to all these singles. They say, hey, pass this around, smell it. And then the rose finally comes back to the front and he says if you've given away your purity, this is what you are and it's the rose that leaves the line.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is the worst.
Speaker 1:And then the whole time it's like the most defeating thing. Everyone there just feels shame and what Chandler is saying is he's sitting there and he's like, but Jesus wants the rose, and Jesus wants your brokenness, he wants your defeatedness, he wants all that. And then he makes it all new. And I think the great part about what for Adrian and me is like even though we both had issues from our own past and stuff that God really has sanctified it and glorified himself and we are at a place of real joy where we have conversations like this a lot and it's really wonderful.
Speaker 1:And I'm just noticing you guys in your marriage and the joy on your face Brie is of a woman who's well-loved as opposed to like just being in the abyss, of just trying to control. You know Pablo, so that you don't feel bad all the time, and that's a huge difference. That gets to be excited. And now I watch you championing him as he makes his way into ministry and it's wild to watch and it's exciting to watch. And so you guys should just really I mean obviously you're in glorify God and that, but just take joy in what Jesus is doing in your own lives and celebrate it. That, but just take joy in what Jesus is doing in your own lives and celebrate it, and then I think that's what I think ultimately, that's what's going to make, um, the, what we're talking about attractive to people that are not buying in is you're able to give a picture of what a relationship the way it was designed to be can look like. All right.
Speaker 1:Hey guys, thanks so much for watching. We love questions, so text in 737-231-0605 or go to pastorplekcom. We'd love to hear from you. So, from our house to yours, have an awesome week.