AshleyMadison.Com November 13, 2007

I commute to school Monday through Friday. I’m up at 6:30 am and out the door at 6:45 am. Usually I like to listen to Z100 in the morning and usually enjoy the Zmorning zoo. It’s something to listen to even and I enjoy some of the topics they discuss. It can be very emtional like when they get on serious topics like veterans on Veteran day or about September 11th. Most of the time they are talking about random and entertaining tidbits like buying a tazer or the top ten ugliest shoes (uggs were the ugliest…no surprise).

Today, they were talking about these commercials they had seen about this website called AshleyMadison.com. The commercials said,”Are you married? Do you want something more?” with a slogan of “When Monogmy becomes monotonous.” What could they be advertsing? They joked about what they could be advertising, but they knew and agreed that it was a site that advertised cheating. It is specifically aimed at married people.

They went into some detail about how that whatever “services” you purchase from this website will come up as something random so that your spouse will not find out or be suspicous about the charge. For example, instead of saying “Ashleymadison.com” on the bill, it may say “McDonald’s” or something along those lines. This site allows for somone to have an affair and keep it quite.

I listened to there discussion about it until I got to school. I was really disturbed on many different levels. As a girl who has a boyfriend, it bothers me that there is a website that makes it easy for someone to hurt someone in this way. They make it easy for someone to cheat and not be found out. As a christian, it bothers me how society is distorting this sacred bond between a man and a woman, and ultimately with God. Even on another level of a person who has seen the affects of a cheating spouse on the family as a whole.

But this whole discussion on the radio only brought up another feeeling that I have been dealing with about marriage.

As I have said, I’m not single. I have been dating my boyfriend for about 2 years now. It’s been an interesting 2 years, but as of late the whole topic of marriage has gotten to both of us. It seems that everyone expects us to get married. Okay, we both had the idea that if we were going to date, it had to lead ultimately to marriage. Recently, I have been questioning that whole idea of dating.

It seems in our Christian world that if you are dating, you must have marriage in the back of your head. It seems that we focus our relationship in that direction from the beginning. I’m beginning to question this idea. I understand that we should not date with no purpose, but why does the purpose ultimately have to be marriage.

I feel like I’m not making any sense and I have barely begun. It’s just lately I have been feeling that there is to much pressure in our Christian World on dating leading to marriage. How can we fully understand someone with pressure on us? How can we concentrate on having a healthy relationship with this peron and with God when people are constantly on top of you about marriage.

Marriage should be about you, the person, and God. It shouldn’t be about people pushing you or the pressure of being married. If you, that person, and God think it’s time to get married, then get married. Don’t plan out your life around that idea of getting married at a certain time or point in the relationship. It may not be God’s will. God has the perfect timing for everything and I think that we tend to forget that we should just listen to him and not worry about the person we are going to marry.

Dating is tough and tricky, but I don’t think we should frame our relationships around the idea of marriage. It makes things rough.

Trust me on that.