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Top 10 Reasons NOT to Get Married

Top 10 Reasons NOT to Get Married

As a psychiatrist one of the most damaging situations I encounter is an unhealthy, dysfunctional marriage. While there are many factors that contribute to strained and broken marriages, one major problem is failing to find a suitable partner from the outset.

One factor in failing to find a suitable life partner is the reason that motivates one to marry. Over the years I have seen and heard many stories and have compiled my top ten list of reasons NOT to get married, reasons that have motivated people to marry, but which inevitably lead to problems and stress in the marriage. 

Here are my top 10 reasons NOT to get married:

10. Because all your friends are getting married:

This reason usually strikes those in their twenties, when shortly after graduating college they have been to too many weddings, been the brides maid, but never the bride, the groomsman but never the groom. A certain fear begins to rise within the mind, a fear of being alone, of never finding their “soul mate.” With this anxiety, fear, insecurity, they begin an almost desperate search for someone, and when a person comes along, who shows interest in them, even if not possessing the qualities they know are necessary, (like a common faith), they compromise because they don’t want to end up the “old maid.”

9. Because you are getting older

The wheel of time just keeps turning, and one day life’s business has caught up. College degree has been obtained, career is secure, home is established, but along the way time was never taken to find a life partner and now age is creeping up. The fear of no one to share life with rises, of being alone in ones later years. So, join an online dating service, meet person after person, experience the torrent of emotional highs and lows, and marry from loneliness not love, only to find, though married, you are every bit as alone.

8. To advance your career

School is expensive, you can’t possibly both work to pay your way and make your grades – what to do? Get a spouse to put you through school. Or perhaps, your culture demands you marry into a certain family in order to advance your station or office. Motives such as these rarely bring happiness, but instead add untold heartache and stress.

7. To obtain citizenship

Over the years I have had a handful of patients who have married for this reason. Not once have they actually been happy. The spouse with US citizenship never felt truly secure. During the first few years, where divorce would have meant the non-US spouse would not have obtained citizenship there was fear and insecurity, doubt as to whether the marriage was for love, or other reasons. And once citizenship was obtained, divorce followed.

6. To improve finances

While there are certain financial advantages to marriage, marrying for finances is a bad idea. Many patients come to see me who have married a spouse of means, but they themselves have no way to support themselves. All too often the financially dependent spouse feels insecure, inferior, afraid, and if the financially well off spouse acts domineer or controlling, which frequently happens, the dependent spouse is generally too fearful to stand up for what is right and call the offending spouse to account. I have many patients who suffer from chronic depression because they are in marriages in which they are dominated and controlled but rather than leaving, or standing up to mistreatment, submissively stay because of the financial security the marriage provides.

5. To run away or escape a bad home

The sad reality is there are many dysfunctional homes in which children are mistreated, unloved, neglected. While seeking to escape such circumstances is reasonable, too often young people, in such situations, flee into impulsive marriages as a means of escape. The likelihood of such a marriage being healthy is very remote and typically the marriage is fraught with fear, insecurity, conflict and even abuse. All too often those who marry, as an escape, realize they have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

4. To feel accepted, loved, or wanted

Feelings are powerful and healthy loving relationships will necessarily contain powerful, positive feelings of love, joy, peace, attraction, arousal, expectancy, and happiness. Yet, while healthy relationships will contain such feelings, such feelings are not evidence the relationship is healthy. Feelings are fleeting and transient, and relationships that are primarily feelings driven are generally unstable and unhealthy. Persons who seek relationships to feel accepted, loved, or wanted, are not seeking to find someone to love, but to find someone to love them. They are not seeking to give of self to love others, but are seeking to take emotional energy from others to sustain and support their own insecure and fearful selves. Such relationships are not love relationships, but dependency relationships and inevitably result in increased fear and insecurity over time.

3. Because of pregnancy

I have had many couples come to see me, often married for more than a decade, that suffer from chronic unresolved tension, insecurity, conflict, resentment and who tolerate each other but don’t really enjoy each other. As I explore the history some of these couples started out on very healthy ground, positive dating, loving affection, caring for each other, and both hearts longing for marriage, yet with engagement and marriage plans not yet made. Then, sadly, a pregnancy occurs and, out of obligation, or a sense of duty, because it is “the right thing” they marry. And the foundation of love is fractured and replaced by love crushing, freedom destroying, responsibility and obligation they must now endure. The pregnancy causes the couple to no longer experience their union as freely chosen, but as situationally forced upon them. Because love only grows in an atmosphere of freedom, as soon as their experience of togetherness is no longer freely chosen, but obligated by circumstances, love begins to die.

2. To have sex

Typically this only happens to the foolish, young and religiously rigid. But such a motive is not about loving another person, rather it is about gratifying self. Healthy marriages are built on other-centered love, so when a marriage is founded upon self-gratification, healthy love often fails to grow and the marriage devolves into each party seeking to get what they can from the other.

1. Because you have had sex and feel obligated or guilty

Perhaps this reason has contributed to more dysfunctional, unhappy, and miserable marriages than any other. From religiously pious homes young people are taught the value of abstinence until marriage, yet in our weakened humanity too many are overcome by the passion of heated moments. In the aftermath of such mistakes, a guilty conscience convicts and too many immature young people, as a way of avoiding their conscience, conclude “well in God’s eyes we are already married so if I marry the person It will make it okay.” And, sadly they pursue marriage, deluding themselves into believing it is love and God’s will they follow this course, a course established not by truth, not by principle, not by evidence, not by God’s leading, but by powerful sexual feelings and impulse, confounded by guilt and ignorance of God’s grace.

So, if you are single, and contemplating marriage, don’t fall into the pitfall of marrying for 10 of the worst reasons possible. As my mother used to say, two wrongs don’t make a right. Regardless of with what issues you struggle, what mistakes have been made, or what challenges you face, do not marry as a means to solve your problems. Instead, become the healthiest person, through God’s grace, you can become, and seek someone for your marriage partner with whom you find your greatest joy in loving, and who in turn loves you!

 

 

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Testimony 36

Thank you and may God continue to bless you as you share with others the intricacies of how we are all “fearfully and wonderfully made”. I must share that you have opened a whole new world to me, and I have found tremendous healing through what you have shared in two of your books, “Could It Be This Simple?” and “The God Shaped Brain.” I praise God for what you shared, what I have learned, and how I have grown and healed! My prayer is that My Precious Jesus will be seen by others in the way I live, act, talk, etc. and they may be encouraged to know He is truly a GREAT God of LOVE, desiring that no one should perish! God Bless you in your continued endeavors to present Him as He really is!

Joleen H. GA, USA

 

Testimony 29

Thank you for all of your work to correct misconceptions about God’s character. So many people that my husband and I have talked to seem to be against the natural law construct and view it as “errant” and “dangerous.” Having learned more about it through your blogs and lessons, I don’t really understand why they view it that way, except that it means they have to relearn theology they have known for their entire lives. But I’m so excited to relearn this. For the past few years I have been questioning how I could trust a God who punishes arbitrarily and is full of wrath for those who don’t obey His commands. That view made me afraid to “mess up” or “not be good enough,” even within my relationship with God. I really appreciated the point you bring out about God not wanting us to serve Him because we are afraid, but because we love Him.

Melissa H., IN, USA

 

Testimony 54

I had a lot of pressure, as a pastor’s kid, to conform and be “good.” I was good at being “good.” I thought my life was going along well until it all started falling apart and I could not figure out why! In my search for “why is this happening to me, God?” I came across your book, “Could it be this Simple,” and God started revealing to me the many distortions I held about His character, His principles, and how He has designed His universe to operate. I remember thinking, “Wow, I have had this all backwards.” I was happy and angry all at the same time. Happy to have the light of truth break through the darkness, revealing a wonderful, beautiful way of understanding God and His plan for His children, and angry, because I felt deceived and cheated by the church, my family, and myself!

My heart thrills when I listen to your bible study lessons. Literally I have gone from death to life. It is a journey I look forward to every day, as God reveals areas this distortion affects. Praise GOD! I will ever be grateful to God for this ministry and your cooperation with the Spirit!

Karen S., Portal, AZ, USA

 

Testimony 28

I have been following your Bible study class for about a year now. I must say I am impressed with how your ministry has grown. I took it upon myself to listen to all your lesson podcasts from the past and they have both enriched me physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I have learnt a lot from this class. I have also noticed how the class has grown in spiritual strength. One of the things that benefited me is that now I am not afraid of God. I use to be, but now it has melted away. The second thing is that you helped me to have a real life relationship with God. Now He is my friend that was always there and I love having him with me all the time. Thirdly, because of this class, it inspired me to take over and lead a class. I have called it “Let Us Reason Together,” adapting your inquisitive style and creating a class of free thinkers.

T. Banda, Malawi, Africa

 

Testimony 30

God lead me to your book “The God-Shaped Brain” while I was searching for another book about the brain and then to your interview about your book on HeartWise Ministries [where] I found out about [Come And Reason Ministries]. I’m now devouring the webcasts of your Bible studies. I have been so greatly blessed and I thank God so much for your courage to speak the Truth in love no matter what. Listening to you contrast the two opposing systems (laws) and digging deep to unearth the hidden treasures in the Bible makes me so incredibly happy and I feel very blessed to be part of your Bible Study Group although I live far away. I am just so excited that there is a group of people that is spreading the Truth about the character of God and it saddens me how few realize what our Father in Heaven is really like.

Kessy B., Australia

 

Testimony 46

Over the past couple of years God has been expanding my view of Himself and His character. Along my approximately 40-year journey, I have often had questions, but was hesitant to voice these and step outside the traditionally accepted thinking, for fear of admitting that I may in fact be eternally lost. In the recesses of my thinking has been the thought – if one blindly accepts (which is widely regarded as “real faith”) and does not question, is this really ‘truth?’ I often find it challenging to grapple with very theological ‘speak,’ but Dr. Jennings has a real gift of explaining spiritual concepts with clear practical examples. The weekly discussions are growing my Christian experience and slowly changing my view of how to live as a child of God in today’s complex world. Finally the whole Old Testament sanctuary teaching moved in my mind from fantasy to reality!

Beverly S., South Africa

 

Testimony 27

Your teachings about our heavenly Father have changed my life. Thank you sooooooo very very much! I know He’s doing some serious healing in my heart and life and I look forward to each new day to learn something new about Him and to just hear you speak about Him. Thank you, forever.

Nancy S.

 

Testimony 43

Two years ago I stumbled upon your book, “Could It Be This Simple,” and then found “The God-Shaped Brain” videos on YouTube, your bible study class, and the ‘Come And Reason’ mobile app. I shared your book with a friend and after nine months of showing love, patience, and kindness this person has been changed by the love of God, too. The same love that healed me, I now express to other women in tangible ways, such as to a Baptist woman with high anxiety and childhood trauma. She was extremely happy and relieved when I shared about the so-called “judgment of God” and burning in hell. She had no desire to serve a God that was so harsh. I have repeated the phrase dozens of times to her. “What we believe has power over us, but we have power over what we believe…”

This message that you are sharing has changed my life. I will continue to serve other women and bring this message of God’s healing love to their lives by sharing your books, YouTube videos, and The Remedy Bible app. Keep up the good work. Don’t be discouraged. God is doing a mighty work in and through this ministry!

Jill L., Midwest, USA

 

Testimony 26

Your teachings about our heavenly Father have changed my life. Thank you sooooooo very very much! I know He’s doing some serious healing in my heart and life and I look forward to each new day to learn something new about Him and to just hear you speak about Him. Thank you, forever.

Nancy S.

 

Testimony 51

I Love This Ministry!!!!!!! I see first hand how this message is desperately needed, how erroneous beliefs about God and His Character negatively affect humanity at every level. I thank God for your ministry, as I was searching on my own and was discovering some of your same beliefs and was blown away when I found your ministry. I know you hear it all the time, but it is truly life changing. May God continue to reveal His Will to you and Bless you!

Eric S., Sanford, FL, USA

 

Testimony 25

I just want to say thank you so much for your conversations via YouTube. I regularly tune in to your lectures, “Let’s Talk” sessions, and many others. Through these I’ve found greater depth and meaning to God’s word. Thanks for all that you do and please continue. I’m currently working in the middle of Silicon Valley at Stanford University. I feel like God really has me in the right place right now and I’m sensing that your teachings might be part of it.

B. F., Silicon Valley, CA, USA

 

Testimony 34

I was introduced to Come and Reason Ministries by accident, via a passing comment made in a bible study class we were visiting. I checked this website out and my life was changed. The understanding of the truth of God’s character, and how we apply it, is so right. The tricky part is consistently applying which “lens” to look through. As I began to understand, I started sharing the basics of this understanding with a discussion group I was leading and, suddenly, a lot of things started to make sense that never used to. At the same time, I enjoyed an amazing opportunity. I was able to conduct a full bible study at WORK! What an amazing experience! It is such a joy to share the truth about God and to share how it all fits in the war between God and Satan. So many people benefit when we have a correct understanding about how God works and who He really is! Thank you for this transformational understanding. Keep up the good work! God Bless you!

Tony P., CA, USA

 

Testimony 17

The blessings of clarity and understanding you and your class inspire me to take from the word of God have impressed upon me so greatly the true, loving character of our Creator. I have found amazing freedom and joy through building a stronger, more intentional relationship with Him. What is new is that this is now a relationship built on love, reverence and respect rather than fear and obligation, and as such my eyes have been slammed OPEN as I am continually impressed by the manifestations of God’s true character in His provisions for fallen man.

T.E.H., Salt Lake City, UT, USA

 

Testimony 31

It was very touching to hear the testimony of your class share how viewing God’s true character has changed their lives. My feelings are the same – there is so much freedom in knowing that God LOVES me – regardless of my… just, REGARDLESS! I’m still blown away by the true gospel, the fact that God is not ready to strike us when we fail. He is not arbitrary. He simply loves us and warns of the natural consequences because He can’t stand to see us suffer. I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS GOD!!!

Ceil V.,  UT, USA

 

Testimony 59

I’m a native Ghanan, but am currently in France for my master’s degree. Prior to this, during my final years at undergraduate studies in Ghana, I was introduced to your ministry and I’ve been immensely blessed by what you share, especially about the Design and Imposed Laws. God richly bless you for that.

One of the first things I did when I arrived in France was to buy all four of your books. They not only helped me, but those I shared them with. I shared the message with an atheist student and I marveled at how God worked mightily in his life. Today this person shares the Love of God with others and debunks theories of who God is not. I want to share what you present in your “Heavenly Sanctuary and Investigative Judgment” pamphlet, because the message brought rest to my soul and I live today as a healthy person.

God bless you so much and your ministry.

Michael A., Ghana