Have you ever been standing near by and you see something about to happen and you say to yourself "Oh this is going to be bad." You see a car accident about to happen and you want to just scream "Hey, Watch Out!" I feel like that so much these days with regard to a situation that has become so common that people think it's just normal.
Let me get you to it this way. For ten years, Dr. Nancy Clatworthy, a sociologist from Ohio State, has been researching couples who have lived together. Her survey asked questions about “finances, household matters, recreation, demonstration of affection, and friends.” In every area, the couples who had lived together before marriage disagreed more often than couples who had not.
Clatworthy also observes, “The finding that surprised me most concerned sex. Couples who have lived together before marriage disagreed about [sex] most often.”
Sex and commitment can’t be separated. The research shows that total intimacy without total commitment leads to concerns of breaking up, often “extreme unhappiness,” and more disagreement—especially about sex.
More recent studies on “hooking up,” or sex without any commitments, reveal the same findings:
Adolescent gynecologist, Melisa Holmes, writes in Girlology: Hangups, Hook-Ups and Holding Out, “They don’t learn to build that emotional intimacy before they get physically intimate. In the long term, that develops bad relationship habits. They may grow up not knowing how to connect with a partner on an intimate level.” The new research seems to verify earlier studies on sex that commitment is an essential element in truly satisfying intercourse.
In addition to all that we've known for years that if you live before marriage you are more likely to get divorced that people who didn't live together. Yet I watch people, people I know, seemingly smart people just go with the flow. I see parents watch their kids go into this and they say nothing. I say something to them about it and they write it off as, "You're a preacher and that's what you have to say. But it's just like being married." I want to just scream "No it's not! Why don't you at least look at the evidence before you decide to blow up this relationship you say matters to you."
1 comment:
As I read your comments, they remind me of that phrase in Hebrews 12:1: "the sin that so easily entangles." That words "entangles" makes me think of a spider web with its multiple strands. It's not the single strand of an unfinished web that catches its prey. It's the full blown web with multiple strands that really causes problems for its victims.
Let's stay in that place of humble dependence where we can occasionally experience what it feels like to throw off some of those hindrances. Let's keep running the race!
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