{"id":31925,"date":"2012-02-23T21:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T03:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=31925"},"modified":"2021-02-11T22:02:05","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T04:02:05","slug":"ive-been-living-with-my-boyfriend-but-i-cant-get-him-to-even-discuss-marriage-what-do-i-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/ive-been-living-with-my-boyfriend-but-i-cant-get-him-to-even-discuss-marriage-what-do-i-do\/","title":{"rendered":"I’ve been living with my boyfriend, but I can’t get him to even discuss marriage. What do I do?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

I have been in a relationship for almost two years.\u00a0 We’ve been living together almost like other married couples. But in all this time I never heard any plan nor talk about our future. Sometimes I get hurt when he talks about something good in his future, but he only says “me” and not “us.”\u00a0 I really love my boyfriend, and I do pray to God that He will give me this guy as my future husband — a guy who will propose to me, meet my family and bring me to the altar.\u00a0 What I wanted to hear is that he has some plan for us as a couple. I’m not pushing him to get married to me, by the way.<\/p>\n

We are from two different countries, but we have the same religion (Christian), and we believe in one God.\u00a0 I know we have different cultures, but I’m ready to adapt to his culture, except for food. Let’s say I’m almost eating what he does, though he doesn’t like most of my culture’s foods.\u00a0 But it’s OK. I’m ready to adjust to everything as long as our religion is the same.\u00a0 I used to tell him when I heard someone was getting married, but he just says, “good for them.”\u00a0 It is making me upset because I was trying to get him to open up about whether he wants to get married.<\/p>\n

Yesterday we were talking over the Internet and he said that “He will bring his wife and have two children” in order to get benefits from his country. I don’t know what to think at the time, so I just told him, “OK, do that.”\u00a0 By those words is he talking about me as his wife? I don’t mind if that was a joke or not, but those words are clear. Am I right?<\/p>\n

I need your words of advice and encouragement.\u00a0 I really don’t know what to do because sometimes I want to talk to him if he doesn’t have any plan for our future together.\u00a0 I don’t want to leave him, and I don’t want to give up.\u00a0 All I wanted is to hear from him something that makes me feel that he is dreaming about our future together.<\/p>\n

Please help.\u00a0I really appreciate your kind words. Thanks a lot.<\/p>\n

God bless.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

There is a problem when someone desperately wants a particular answer. They think they are asking a question, but the truth is that they are demanding the answer they want to hear. When people try to do that to God, He doesn’t fight them. He lets them believe whatever they want. “And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness<\/em>” (II Thessalonians 2:11-12).<\/p>\n

You are not married. The man you are committing fornication with doesn’t want to talk about marriage. He really has no need. He has a woman to take care of him and whom he can have sex with whenever he wants, and whom he can walk away from without regret at any time because he has made no commitment to her. But you have your dreams. You want them so badly that you are willing to twist the slightest phrase to mean what you want to hear.<\/p>\n

Like your pretense at marriage, you both pretend to be Christians. “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God<\/em>” (I Corinthians 6:9-10). You may call yourselves Christians, but you do not behave like Christians.<\/p>\n

You should be upset with him. He is acting exactly as any worldly male acts. You claim you want to be married, but you gave him everything a wife gives in marriage without obligation. Why should he marry you? What reason would make it worth tying himself down?<\/p>\n

Now, if you made it this far through my scolding you, I would like to offer you the best advice I know. Tell him you love him, but that you cannot continue sinning against God. Move back home or somewhere you can stay for a time, and tell him that when he is ready to have you as his wife and marries you, then you will joyfully return to him. You will soon find out whether what you imagined was there really exists or not. I hope you won’t be disappointed, but you also need to be prepared to find your hopes shattered.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, you need to straighten up your life with the Lord. Instead of just calling yourself a Christian, you need to really become one. See\u00a0How to Become a Christian<\/a>. Only by actually following the Lord is there a hope of reaching the eternal home.<\/p>\n\t

Question:<\/h2>\n

Hi!<\/p>\n

Just read your mail and thank you so much for your kind response. While I was reading I wanted to cry, and I feel so nervous, but why is that so? I don’t know if I have the guts to tell him as you suggested. What if he never comes back to me? Would that mean he doesn’t love me that much and doesn’t want me to be his wife? How will I tell him your advice? Please tell me exactly what move I have to do. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n\t

Answer:<\/h2>\n

I did tell you what I believe you need to do. Continuing your sin isn’t going to get what you want. I think what I find particularly sad is your certainty that he doesn’t care enough about you to marry you. Yes, if he would let you go, then he definitely doesn’t love you. As hard as that would be to face, knowing it would be better than living a lie.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: I have been in a relationship for almost two years.\u00a0 We’ve been living together almost like other married couples. But in all this time I never heard any plan nor talk about our future. Sometimes I get hurt when he talks about something good in his future, but he only says “me” and not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1572],"class_list":["post-31925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-fornication"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16671,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-boyfriend-doesnt-want-to-get-married-yet-because-hell-be-dropped-from-his-dads-insurance-what-should-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":31925,"position":0},"title":"My boyfriend doesn’t want to get married yet because he’ll be dropped from his dad’s insurance. What should I do?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Ok, my fiance and I have been living together for almost six months now. We are not married. For a while I let myself get away from God and I didn't care if we were living together unmarried. I'm trying to get closer to God and receive forgiveness for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":53632,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-cant-figure-out-if-god-wants-me-to-leave-my-boyfriend-for-another-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":31925,"position":1},"title":"I can’t figure out if God wants me to leave my boyfriend for another man","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I am struggling with knowing what God's will is for my life. I read the Bible, attend daily masses a few times a week, and pray frequently asking God to clearly show me His will for my life. I have a severe anxiety disorder called agoraphobia (fear of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66357,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/we-cant-afford-to-get-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":31925,"position":2},"title":"We can’t afford to get married","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 5, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I feel awful because I was reading a post from 2010 titled, \"Should we marry now or when we are in a better financial situation? I feel the same way. The thing is, we are both 20. My boyfriend doesn't have much money, and we have been together for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49079,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-boyfriend-doesnt-want-to-get-married-and-have-a-family-but-i-do\/","url_meta":{"origin":31925,"position":3},"title":"My boyfriend doesn’t want to get married and have a family, but I do","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My boyfriend and I have been dating for over a year now. We are still young, in our early twenties, and have different goals in our life. We both live with his parents, in separate rooms of course, but I am ready to take the next step of commitment\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21632,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-thought-i-was-married-but-found-out-i-wasnt-i-had-cheated-on-the-man-i-thought-was-my-husband-does-that-prevent-me-from-marrying-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":31925,"position":4},"title":"I thought I was married but found out I wasn’t. I had cheated on the man I thought was my husband. Does that prevent me from marrying him?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question about committing adultery while being married. My boyfriend and I believed that we were married and had sexual intercourse. But during that time I strayed and committed adultery with another guy. I know this is a sin and I continually asked for forgiveness from God\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49384,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-boyfriend-doesnt-want-to-get-married\/","url_meta":{"origin":31925,"position":5},"title":"My boyfriend doesn’t want to get married","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hey My boyfriend and I are in a relationship for almost five years. We had sex in the first year of the relationship but then decided to wait until we were married to have sex. We got baptized and went without sex for over two years then we had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}