Video Transcript: Lesson 2

Okay, welcome back. So the most common answer that I get when I ask people about their relationship status is it's complicated. How many people have had that experience? Right? Okay. People are confused right now about relationships. Singles can't find someone commitment minded and sensible to marry. Married people are trying to figure out what they've gotten themselves into. Because it's challenging, right? Divorcees are afraid to try again because of broken hearts, fear, distrust and betrayal. And then we have the widowed who are struggling to decide if they have it in them to be with somebody again, right? Especially after a lifetime, probably the majority of their lives and being with somebody else. And then so many of us are products of relationships that didn't work or barely working.

We are producing generations without respect for marriage, who are afraid of marriage and who don't understand marriage, but we want love. Right? So this is what we're dealing with. God's not the author of confusion. Confusion and impotence are the inevitable results when the wisdom and resources of the world are substituted for the presence and the power of the Spirit. Right? And this comes from Samuel Chadwick. Now, the world has five types of relationships, okay? And it's really important that you know those different types of relationships because the people who are coming to you are participating or have participated in these relationships. And they're also looking into getting into one of these again. Okay, so what they need is not proselytizing, they don't need judgment, they need education. Why are these not a great option? Right? And then they can come to their own conclusions. And the truth is very simple. And it's very compelling. None of these are a great option. But this is what many people feel is available to them. Right? And we had talked earlier about, there are a lot of women who they're afraid to say that they want a commitment, or they want a marriage because they're scared, they're going to turn the guy away. Right? Now, this is an even greater phenomenon, going back to what we talked about earlier, with New York, Los Angeles, and Washington DC. One of the interesting things, especially about LA and DC, is that there are more women than men. One of the things that happens when you study environments where there are more women than men is that commitment goes down. Right? So there is a great book that was written by a fortune economist, and he was living in New York City with his wife and met so many of her friends who were single, and he couldn't believe it, because these women were educated, smart, beautiful, kind. They were the whole package. And for the life of them, they could not find a husband. And so he started researching and he wrote a book called Date-Onomics. Really fascinating book. And not only did he look at populations of different cities, he also looked within religious communities and the Jewish community, the Christian community, the Mormon community, right? He looked within those communities. He also looked within animal populations. And one of the things that he found was that when there are more men, there are monogamous, committed relationships, right? When there are more women there are a lot less committed relationships because the women are competing against each other for the men. Another interesting fun fact, completely random. In cities where there are more men, the men have higher credit card debt. These men are competing against each other for a wife and they're willing to spend money to do it. So, another interesting fun fact. Okay, so let's talk about the five different types of relationships: the first one that is probably the most common is intimacy without commitment and here we have I'll have sex with you but don't expect anything from me. And also, I want you to have my baby but not my money. This is intimacy without commitment. Right. It's the booty call, it's the friends with benefits, it is the, you know, we're just dating, right? The next one, number two, co-habitating, which is let's not get too committed or complicated and just enjoy each other for a while. So we get free sex and pay the rent together. And that's really the extent of it. Okay? Then we have the trial marriage, before we get married, let's live together and see if we're compatible. Right? This situation is a ticking time bomb. You have people who are sitting on a time bomb for years that are waking up every morning thinking, is he going to leave today? Or is he going to stay? Right?

These are people who are really afraid of having problems, who cannot be authentic in their relationships, right? Because they're scared that they're gonna, they're afraid they're gonna scare the other person away. Right? And this is, that's what this says, I, I'll be here as long as we're compatible, and it's fun. But if there are problems, this isn't going to work for me, right. And we all know that that is not a realistic expectation for a relationship, or a marriage, right? So most of these people are not going to end up getting married. And we're going to get into those statistics too. Then we have marriage with preconditions. I'll marry you, but you have no right to put your name on my house, my property or my assets. Okay? My first ways wife and children get everything. This is really common in your older couples, right? So even if you're dealing with people who are in the church, that are widowed, and they might be in their 60s or 70s, and they really want a companion in their life, right? But they don't want to get married again, because they're worried about their assets and how that would affect the inheritance of their children. Right? But it really does set up a bad situation for seniors to be in. But this is, you're gonna see this with seniors, even in the Christian world. And then we have prenuptials. This is the Hollywood marriage, right? I'll marry you. But you have to sign a contract that you don't want any of my stuff. And what they're saying really is, I don't trust you already. Let's get married. Right? So this brings us to the conclusion, how can we love without trust? How can we base love on suspicion of what you came to take from me instead of what I came to give to you? Right? We've got it all backwards. Now, I want to talk a little bit about a Yale study, where why some of these relationships are more compelling, why are people making these decisions? Because of course, when you're challenging people on their thinking, you need to know what motivates them. Right? And so one of the things is, right now there's decreased stigma, right? It's culturally totally accepted to participate in any one of those five types of relationships. In fact, it's almost expected. Really, right? It is the expectation and the norm. Because there's decreased stigma. The countries that we saw that don't have children out of wedlock, there's a lot of stigma in those countries, right? I'm not saying to bring back stigma, right? But it's an interesting correlation. People want to try things first. And as we talked about tests, the compatibility, people want to avoid a wedding expense, your you know, especially when you're talking about the millennials, right? These are people who are in a lot of student loan debt, maybe even living with their parents. They want to avoid divorce, the legal complications, the family entanglements, the emotional stress and the financial costs, right. But this is, and this is all a deception and a fallacy. Because when you are living together for years at a time, you're going to have all of these issues. You're not going to avoid any of these things. But we do have generations of people who have come out of situations where their parents have gotten divorced. And as children, it was very, very hard on them. And so you're gonna talk to a lot of people who've been through that hurt and that pain, right, personally, who witnessed their parents going through it. And one of the things that I hear over and over again, for people who are delaying marriage is I'm afraid to make a mistake. Right? So fear is really motivating things and we already talked about what fear attracts, right? Another reason is that, you know, women are in control of their reproduction. And in some cases, they're making more money and have a higher education. So if women can delay having children, they feel like they can also delay getting married, right? Why get married, if I'm not ready to have kids yet? I want to talk about this statistic here about women making more money and having a higher education. Because this is something that the media is pumping out there constantly How many of you have heard this, women make more money than men?

Right? Or they're now making more money than men? Or there are more college graduates who are women than men? Okay, this is one of those statistics that's half true. Right? And the reason that that is, is that the the real data shows that, yeah, women are making more money than men in urban areas, up until the age of 30. Or until they have children. Okay, this is really important for you to educate people on because women are making decisions of I can do this on my own, right? I don't need a man, I'm independent, right? And I can have children by myself, even, and financially support them. But what they don't understand is that after they have those kids, and after they turn 30, they're earning goes down less than men, or even evens out with men, right? But they're making these decisions, and they're finding out later. And how many of us have also heard the stories of the women who are in their 40s being interviewed by a magazine or a TV show the regret not having children and having a family? Right. So this statistic makes women make a lot of bad decisions. Right? Now, here are some of the stats on co-habitating. 55% of co-habitating couples get married within five years. So 45% are not getting married within five years. 40% split up, 5% stay living together. Okay? 20% of women get pregnant in the first 12 months. So here's where out of wedlock babies are coming from, some of them. And let's go here. Now, here's where the statistics get interesting. I saw your face, you're like, wow, that seems lower than I thought. It's not. 85% of couples who are living together breakup or divorce within 10 years. Okay? So here's what you want to communicate to your people who are saying, I want to live with my boyfriend and have a trial relationship and test our compatibility, right? You want to communicate this to them. You have an 85% chance of breaking up in 10 years. If you're a betting and gambling person, the odds are not good. Right? Now, in co-habitating situations, women are more likely to suffer domestic abuse and mental health conditions. And so, if you decide to go into matchmaking, I want to continue, I want to encourage you to sign up for continuing education through the International Association of Matchmaking Ministers and there is a class that we're putting together exactly on this topic here. Because you're going to have women who are coming to you for advice on whether they should stay in their relationship or stay in their marriage, right? And it's really important that you know and understand the signs of domestic abuse because most domestic abuse is not physical. In fact, most women will tell you that if they were hit, it would happen one time and they would be out the door. But there is mental, emotional and psychological abuse that is much more common, and actually much more damaging than that. That is sometimes very hard to identify, right? And so as people are coming to you, it's not always your job to encourage them to stay in the relationship. Right, or to work things out. So you really need to know the right questions to ask. And sometimes they're not going to come to you and say I'm being emotionally abused. Right? So you really need to know the right questions to ask. So, this is a class that we're going to be offering that I think is very, very important if you're going to mentor singles. Now 65% of Hispanic women are co-habitating before the age of 25. Okay, and three out of four 3rd marriages or co-habitations end in divorce or separation.

This was something really fascinating I learned in my matchmaking travels, which are two of the most Googled terms by women: how do I get him to commit, and I hate my husband. Okay? Now one of the things you're going to come up against is that there is, especially if you're on Facebook, you're going to be bombarded with ads from coaching and online relationship programs that are targeting women on how to get a man to commit. And you're going to see in some of our other material today, it is not a woman's job to get a man to commit. Okay? But that is the insecurity and the fear that some of these coaching people are preying on. It is a billion dollar industry, right? The dating industry, when you think of online dating/coaching, we have a billion dollar industry that is preying on people's insecurities and trying to convince them that there's something wrong with them, right, that they're doing something wrong. So how do I get him to commit, and I hate my husband. 70% of divorces are filed by women. Now, when both people are college educated in the marriage, 90% of those divorces are filed by women. We have 43% of children living without their fathers involved in their lives. This is from divorce lawyers for men. But I also want to talk a little bit about this statistic. This is really a high number, right? You look at this and you go oh my gosh, 43% don't have their father involved in their lives, right? But here's the thing that I want to point out to you. There are even more kids who have a father who's living at home who is not emotionally and spiritually present. And one of the reasons that we are dealing with so many of these problems is fatherlessness. Right. So when I mentioned to you, before we got started, that I was so happy that there were men in the room. And last night when Henry was telling me that so many women were interested in matchmaking, that makes me happy. That's a given. But my first response was I want men involved. I really want men involved in mentoring other men and women in relationships and fatherhood. It's so important. And I think as a church, sometimes we do a good job on families and fatherhood. But we're not doing such a good job on preparing men for relationships. Right? Okay. And here is an interesting statistic from the former director of the UN Population Division. He says the children born out of wedlock are disadvantaged and they failed to receive the necessary protections, support, and assistance to ensure their health, development, and well being. This challenge, too often ignored to the detriment of children, communities, and countries must be addressed. Right? So earlier when we were talking and you were saying, when you're a pastor, and you're interacting with people, relationships inevitably come up, right? Because it's all intertwined. And we do talk a lot about the fact that the family and relationships are the building block for our communities, our societies, and our countries. Right? And we're going to talk a little bit more about that kind of being true, but not really, later.