Last updated on October 3, 2020
Question
I’ve been reading a book called “I Gave Dating a Chance” by Jeremy Clark. It has really opened my eyes to how to date biblically.
But I have a question, one of the chapters talks about people in relationships who sneak around to date, which is wrong. He says it’s a sin; and that if you have, you should ask God for forgiveness, and then ask everyone who you deceived for forgiveness.
As I have read this book I have come to understand that my relationship with a girl was very unhealthy. One thing is that we “snuck around.” This is because we were basically dating, but I guess we didn’t want people to know that we were and what we were doing.
As I was reading the book I realized we did a lot of things the wrong way. For example, we got too intense too fast. Just to be clear, I’m not talking sexually. I’m talking emotionally (sharing a lot of personal things and getting too emotionally intimate, and saying “I love you” to each other early in our relationship) and physically (holding hands, kissing, hugging). Again I was not aroused by these things, but I believe we were doing too much of it too quickly in our relationship, and it was too intense (but again, not sexually).
Anyway, we snuck around so that people would not know about this, which I admit was very wrong and unhealthy. I did not lie to anyone or disobey my parents to sneak around and neither did she. Although I did tell my family I was going longboarding. While I was going longboarding, in reality, I was also going to meet up with this girl. Was that deceitful and a sin?
I am going to talk to this girl and tell her that I believe we were very wrong in our relationship, but that if we are to have a relationship, we should start over and do it right. In a way, if we break up, neither of us will be hurt. We let our feelings get carried away.
Anyway, my main question is this: Because we “snuck around” do we need to tell our parents and family that we did? Even though I am planning on basically turning our relationship totally around, and if we are to be in a relationship, to do it right and biblically, including having accountability from some of our church leaders who want to help us through dating, if we are to date.
Also, if we turn our relationship around and start over, do you think it is okay for us to begin dating biblically and with accountability? Or have we ruined a potential relationship with each other?
Any input will be helpful. Thanks.
Answer:
Though you two didn’t do anything sexual, the problem is that you left yourself open to misbehaving with no accountability. Letting your parents know what is going on will help you keep the brakes on how fast your relationship develops. There is nothing wrong with a young man liking a young woman, but when he thinks he must hide that, well, then something somewhere is wrong.
Tell your family that you found a girl that you like and that you should have told them earlier, but you were nervous about it. From then on be open as to when you are planning to see her and what you plan to do. I don’t know if I could label it a sin — I wasn’t there — but it seems that you were treading the borders of sin, which isn’t good.
I’m very glad to hear that you are going to re-evaluate the relationship and decide to slow down. It is people who are in a rush who have a tendency to make mistakes by going too far, too soon, because they didn’t take time to think. Work on developing your friendship with this girl because that is what is most important. No, you haven’t ruined anything, you just had a narrow miss with potential dangers.