Need Help? Call Now

Question 74

Q: I’ve been dating a man who’s had previous sexual relationships. We’re happy together, and I’d really like to marry him.

But he has, at times, lied about his past, so I don’t know if I can trust him. He’s a Christian, but sometimes I don’t think his attitude toward God is right. He can be kind and caring, in other words, he’s the kind of man I’d like to marry… but I have doubts.

Asked by: Ruth


A: Well Ruth, from my heart to yours, you have a right to have doubts. If he hasn’t been totally honest with you, I think that dishonesty could be a deal breaker, so to speak.

You see, it’s much better for you to be unmarried than to be married to someone who, in the end, is going to betray you.

Now I need to tell you the way most men think. They think to themselves, “If I tell my wife my whole story, she’ll reject me.” What they don’t understand is that if they don’t tell her, or if they are dishonest, it will only create more doubts, more questions, more unsettledness. So at the end of the day it’s better to just lay everything out on the table—and you need to tell him that.

You also need to tell him that because of his dishonesty the relationship has to be put on hold. And I think that in order to test him, you have to test him in many different ways which is going to take some time. Test him in terms of what he says to you, test him in the small things, test him in the larger things. Because, you see, the Bible says that the double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

If he’s dishonest, he’ll show it not only in his relationship to the past and the past women that he’s been with, but he will also show it in other ways. If he’s continuing to be dishonest, then run—don’t walk—from this relationship.

Next, what you need to do is enlist the help of others, what about his friends? Trust God to have conversations with people who know him well. Check him out, so to speak. Third, give the relationship totally to God and mean it. It’s easy to say that, but it’s important to mean it.

So, my dear friend Ruth, there are many, many people who have proved this adage: “It is much better to want what you don’t have than to have what you don’t want.” And I hope that you’ll take it to heart.

Scripture references

  • There are no Scripture references.

Related Materials

Search