Singles, Sex, and Intimacy

Why do married people get relational intimacy and sex, and we don’t?

Can we just put the question out there?

Maybe you love being single, and your life has been the grandest of adventures. However, even for the most fulfilled of singles, this discontent creeps in from time to time; the thought we are missing out on something even more wonderful than all of this – Marriage.

Marriage. The fulfillment of all your heart’s deepest longings. The ultimate satisfaction and joy on this side of Heaven. The only way to real and abundant life.

As you were reading that (I hope), you were shaking your head. You know it’s not true. Why, then, do we feel so deprived, as if being single is somehow a lesser existence? Why do we try to encourage single adults with empty promises like “God has the right person for you, just be patient and keep waiting on Him!” As if marriage is His perfect will for our lives, or better than being single?

Two very important people would likely disagree; Jesus and Paul.

John Piper does an amazing job opening up the words of Jesus in Matthew 19 – here’s an excerpt from his article on it:
When Jesus was teaching about marriage and he told his disciples there is no back door — once you walk in, you are committed for better or for worse till death separates you: no back door — the disciples were stunned that Jesus shut the back door of marriage. And they said, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10).

Then Jesus said something even more amazing: Not everyone is able to enter this relationship with such a high demand. And then he uses the word “eunuch” to describe different kinds of people who don’t enter marriage. Here is what he says in Matthew 19:11, “Not everyone can receive this saying” — this high expectation of marriage without a back door — “but only those to whom it is given” — in other words, only divine grace. “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this, receive it” (Matthew 19:12).

And then, Paul:

…those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that …
³² I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. ³³ But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, ³⁴ and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. ³⁵ I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
^…he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.
³⁹ A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. ⁴⁰ Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is….”

In our culture, we want to caveat Paul’s words. “Well, he didn’t REALLY mean…Surely, he meant that the best thing for us is to get married. Truly, He would have told us today that God’s best plan for us is to get married and have children. Being single isn’t a sin, obviously…but ideally, He would prefer to have us be married.” Why do we do that? We flip his words upside down. All of a sudden, marriage is the ideal and singleness is the concession.

Instead of taking these men at their word, we try to fit them into the frame of what our culture says about marriage. We’ve made relationships about romance instead of sanctification, and in doing so, have ripped the heart out of marriage and the joy out of singleness.

A married friend said this to me recently; “Marriage is a part of one’s discipleship. When we elevate it and idolize it, it becomes something we can no longer talk openly about.”

Buying into the lie that marriage is supposed to satisfy and fulfill us will discourage us if we are not married and disillusion us if we are. Paul tells us we are happier single, spared from a great deal of worldly trouble that could otherwise befall us. What if we dared to believe him?

That being said, as single adults, we have valid, painful longings for intimacy. Most of us don’t want to die a virgin. For some reason, that feels like missing out. But here’s the thing – what if sex isn’t really what we want?

Hear me out.

Union between a husband and wife is as real as anything between two humans can be. However, it is not ultimate reality. All we are, and everything we know as life on earth, are shadows and metaphors for something greater, eternal, and more tangible than our shadow-brains can comprehend. Whatever we experience here, whether love, sex, food, or friendship – and the longings we experience from the lack of these things – the Ultimate Reality and fulfillment is Him.

So, let’s ask the question; those of us who could die single…are we really missing ultimate joy?

Entertain the thought for a moment – I’ll seek to convince you of this in the next blog – that anything a husband and wife can find in each other is just a picture, a glimpse, a shadow…of something you are meant to have with God Himself.

“You’re crazy.”

Yeah, probably. But read the next one, and then let me know what you think.

-A

Singles, Marrieds, and Sharing the Table

I wasn’t sure how to respond. My friend had just admitted to fighting with her spouse -in detail- and my kneejerk thought was, “Is their marriage in trouble?” I kept trying to put a sunny spin on it, give her an opportunity to backtrack or change her words. She didn’t, and what floored me the most is this didn’t seem to bother her. I had never had a married friend be so open about their marital struggles, and it was jarring to me. I thought because I’d never heard anyone else admit to such things, if she was admitting them, surely they were on the brink of divorce.

_____________________________________________

“I mean…I get why they don’t want to be single.”
I was having a conversation with a different set of married friends about Christian singles, particularly gay singles. The thought of demanding that anyone stay unmarried, especially when we have such a difficult time loving and including single people in the church, is a deeply discomforting thought to me.
We sat in silence for a while.
“Why can’t men and women in the church be friends? Why can’t I have relationship with brothers?”
We talked about our culture for a while – why it’s so difficult for men and women to connect as friends – and then she mentioned Lisa and Harold* as an example of the exception. “They’re really good friends.”
“But what about when one of them gets married?”
He shrugged. “It’ll change. It has to.”
He went on to outline the complications of single women being close friends with married men, and vice versa, citing the scripture that exhorts us to avoid the appearance of evil.
I started to question him. “But what if-”
He continued, answering my question before I finished it. “Even if our culture is to blame for attributing inappropriate behavior to an innocent relationship, we have the responsibility as believers to avoid that.”
……..
“Why should married people be the only ones to experience relational intimacy? It’s not fair.”
She shook her head. “It’s not.”
……..
“Sometimes I wonder if, for all this talk about how singleness is a ‘gift’, married people don’t go to bed at night thanking God they escaped it. I imagine you guys laying down next to each other and saying, “aren’t you glad it’s not us?”
She laughed. “I promise that’s not what happens.”
……..
“And…what can we do? What hope is there for those of us who may never have spouses or families?”
His answer caught me off guard. “Sharing the table, and everything that entails. Married people and families need to make singles a part of their lives.”

We sat in silence a bit longer.
“And…what can singles do for the married people in the church?”
She answered.  “You can pray for us, and include us in things.”
___________________________________

I have been thinking deeply about the family of God and what a need we have for each other, particularly the relationships between us singles and our married brothers and sisters. I’ve been wondering what His design was originally for us all to fit together, and how far we’ve come from that.

I’m trying to put to words the two things that are bothering me the most, and it might not come out right, so bear with me.

On the one side, everyone knows how hard it can be to be single. We’ve all experienced it at one point. Singles are free to lament, grieve, and even complain about how lonely we are, and people have compassion on us…most of the time. However, I perceive that our married counterparts have significantly less freedom.

As a single, it’s frustrating to me that my married brothers and sisters aren’t free to openly acknowledge when they’re struggling in their marriages.

When did marriage adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?

Why is it that marital strife (Which I no longer assume is abnormal, given that marriages are only ever between two deeply flawed people) is kept so under wraps?

Why do we heap shame on men and women who have the courage to admit that their spouses aren’t perfect, and that they have needs which cannot be met by that one person? I’ve come to treasure the honesty of my friend who shared where she was at in her marriage, and wishing all of my married friends were free to do the same in the context of safe community instead of suffering silently. (By the way, this friend is still faithfully and, as far as I can tell, happily married.)

On the other side, as a single, it’s really frustrating to me that we are so pitied by our brothers and sisters…and that we so often pity ourselves. We have become like our culture by idolizing marriage to the detriment of both singles and marrieds. My next blog is going to expand on this, but for now, let me say…

As of lately, I have this vision of what the church could be. I see married people being able to talk openly about their struggles without fear of rejection or shaming. I see single people being valued as whole people, equal image bearers and equal representatives of Christ and His bride. I see us sharing life together, sisters and brothers, lifting each other up and engaging each other in vulnerability and truth. Sharing the table, as my brother so eloquently put it. Communion. Koininea. I pray it comes on this side of His return. We’ll be better for it.

-A