When I was asked to review Boundaries in Dating by Henry Cloud and John Townsend, I jumped at the opportunity, hoping to be both challenged and affirmed. After all, I’m always game to glean additional information about healthy dating relationships for my future. I did learn some things. I was challenged on certain topics. And I finished the book with confirmation that I’m on the right track. But, to be honest, I also struggled to connect at times. I cried a few tears. I even wanted to throw the book out the window at one point, but hunkered down and kept on reading. This was a tough assignment!
Here’s the deal: Dating is a topic on which I have a whole lot of head knowledge, but no real practical experience. I’m that girl who reads almost every relationship book on the Christian market. I’m that girl who wants to Start Marriage Right. I’m that girl who loves Jesus, and fervently desires to get married, have children, and continue to serve in ministry for the rest of my days. But these good, God-honoring desires have been, by and large, unfulfilled. Despite over a decade of prayer, a proper attitude toward the commitment and responsibility of marriage, and realistic expectations, it just hasn’t happened. I’m stuck in “no man’s land”… literally.
At times, I’ve felt overlooked and like I was missing out on all the fun of dating. But, at the same time, in this long season of singleness, I’ve had a lot of time to think and pray about these things. I’ve wrestled with what I believe about dating, its purpose, and whether or not it’s good for me to date (with proper boundaries, of course!), or if it’s better to wait until a man—my man— pursues me with the intention of marriage.
Christian dating has become so complicated!
I’ve realized by personal experience and by observing the dating (or non-dating) lives of the Christian adults around me that many of us are relationally stunted. We don’t know what to do once feelings develop. We don’t know how to date, because we’ve never done it or we’ve never done it right. We don’t even know if we ought to date.
From the very first chapter, the authors set up the premise that they are, in some ways, addressing the “kiss dating good-bye” approach promoted just a couple years before Boundaries in Dating was released in the year 2000. While traveling the country, speaking to singles about dating, the authors, psychologists Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend, clearly noted the confusion which resulted from so many mixed messages floating around churches, college campuses, and other Christian young adult circles. So this book addresses the common missteps in dating due to a lack of appropriate boundaries, as well as establishes the good benefits that result from healthy dating relationships, whether or not these relationships lead to the marriage altar.
Some highlights of the book for me were the sections that addressed the importance of a solid base of friendship in dating relationships, the warnings of premature commitment and over-involvement (in other words, “too much, too fast”), and the admonishment to live out relationships in the context of community, as opposed to isolation. I also liked that the authors addressed respect and disrespect thoroughly, as how we treat one another, confront one another, value one another’s experiences, and listen to one another’s opinions are key to any healthy relationship. Cloud and Townsend also discuss sexual boundaries, conflict, risk, romance, unresolved family problems and their impact on dating relationships, and other essential topics.
“Dating right side up,” an exhortation to fit our dating life into our spiritual life (not vice versa) was another highlight for me. The authors remind the readers that we ought to “bring dating before God and ask for his guidance. After all, the One who designed emotional connections knows best how they are best conducted, in a way that is satisfying for us and glorifying to him.” They also pose the all-important question young adults need to honestly ask themselves: “Does [the dating relationship] bring you closer to God, or push you further away?”
An additional source of encouragement to me, personally, was that this book wasn’t written by twenty-two year olds, and it wasn’t written by authors who married at twenty two either. This was a breath of fresh air! Dating is simply different in post-college adulthood, and, overall, the topics addressed in Boundaries in Dating are geared toward adults, not the high school and college demographic. Both Drs. Cloud and Townsend married their wives well into their thirties and, therefore, had to navigate dating throughout their twenties and early thirties themselves. Their personal experience of being “older” Christian singles brings a perspective sorely needed to the Dating & Marriage section of our local Christian bookstores.
I’d recommend Boundaries in Dating to Christians who are actively dating, grappling with what they believe about dating, or have had dating issues in the past. It’s also a great book for those who have made positive changes and need some affirmation that they’re dating well. Cloud and Townsend speak to the most common relationship challenges, provide responsible advice, and encourage good parameters that we need for all relationships, romantic or otherwise.
Simply put, my fellow Christian singles, let’s learn all we can and figure out this healthy dating stuff now so that we too will be able to start marriage right…even if it takes some struggling and wrestling, a few tears, maybe a few years, and perhaps even some book tossing and retrieving! Implementing dating boundaries are, for sure,a step in the right direction.
Have you established boundaries in dating? What are they, and how have they helped you?
