Navigating the world of dating can be tricky. While the Bible mentions marriage and the relationship between a woman and a man, there’s not really anything directly related to dating. Unsurprisingly, the people of the Old and New Testaments weren’t exactly playing mini-golf and sending memes to the opposite sex for long periods before getting married.

However, in our culture getting dating right is important because for most of us dating is what leads to marriage. It’s not fair to expect perfection from the men we date. After all, none of us are perfect ourselves. But, we also need to be mindful as we date and look for the person we hope to marry one day. 

Dating is the time to figure out whether you want to spend the rest of your life with a person. Yes, it’s also romantic and fun to date, but for Christians the eventual goal of dating is to find a spouse. 

There’s nothing wrong with deciding to end a relationship during the dating phase because you realize that you and your partner are not a good fit for marriage. 

I’m far from an expert on marriage and dating. I dated sporadically until I met my future husband at 27, and we’ve only been married for a little over 3 years. However, I have a lot of thoughts about what went wrong and right while I was in the dating stage, and I’ve also paid attention to what’s happened in the relationships of people close to me. 

Every relationship is different, but here are a few of the most common red flags I’ve noticed in my own experiences and those of the people I know well. 

Not being on the same page about religion and children

You and your partner don’t have to be the exact same person. It’s fine to have different tastes and preferences when it comes to trivial matters like movies or music. For big life plans, though, you both need to be in agreement. 

Friends, you and your partner need to have the same outlook on these two big topics. 

If you try to date and eventually marry someone who isn’t Christian, then it will make your journey as a Christian more difficult. 2 Corinthians instructs,

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” -2 Corinthians 6:14, NIV

While this verse does not specifically refer to the context of marriage, it is applicable to that area. 

The person you decide to spend your life with needs to share your beliefs and values. 

Similarly, if you date and marry someone who has different views on having children than you do, both of you will end up frustrated. Don’t assume that one of you will eventually change your mind. It’s fine whether you both want children or you both don’t want children, but being split on this desire will create resentment in the future. 

My husband is actually the one who brought these topics up after our first few dates. If we hadn’t been in agreement, we would have stopped things before moving from casual dating. We don’t have children yet, but I’m currently pregnant. To be honest, the first trimester turned out to be more difficult than I expected. If we hadn’t both wanted children, it would have been a miserable time. I image the same will be true as we move forward in our lives as parents. 

Difficulty communicating, including frequent arguments and misunderstandings

Communication is one of the most important parts of marriage. If you can communicate well, your marriage is much more likely to be successful. 

When dating, the stakes should be lower than in marriage. You’re probably not in the stage of making daily decisions that affect each other’s lives. So, having too many problems communicating early on is not a great sign. 

Understanding each other takes time and work, so a few communication snafus while dating are understandable. However, if you and your partner constantly struggle to communicate before marriage, it’s not likely to get better just because you get married. 

Unkind actions or words toward others

Even if your partner is always polite and kind toward you, it’s important to pay attention to how he treats others. If he bullies others, makes rude comments behind people’s backs, or worse, he may do the same to you once you’ve gotten married. 

In Thessalonians, Christians are told,

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” -1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV

In a healthy relationship and as Christians, both you and your partner need to seek to build up each other and the people you interact with. 

Even if your partner is only unkind to others, but never unkind to you (which is unlikely), do you really want to spend the rest of your life seeing that behavior on a daily basis?

Staying in a relationship just to avoid being single

This is a red flag about your own behavior. If you know that you’re staying in a relationship just to avoid being single, you need to end the relationship. 

It’s hard to feel like the only single person around, so it’s tempting to stay with someone you know isn’t right for you. There doesn’t even have to be anything “wrong” with the guy you’re dating. Sometimes, you just know they aren’t your person.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”-Isaiah 55:8-10, NIV

When you realize that someone isn’t God’s plan for you, it’s worse to continue dragging things out even if it’s disappointing for the relationship to be over. Dating for too long just makes it more difficult to break up in the long run. We all know someone who married a long-time boyfriend just because it was time to get married or move on, not because they wanted to build a life together. 

Being on your own is better than being in an unhappy relationship or marriage. You don’t have to be in a romantic relationship to have worth. 

Any situations you would advise your friends to avoid

Most of us give our friends great relationship advice, but we don’t apply that advice to our own relationships. You deserve just as good a relationship as you would expect for one of your friends. 

If something comes up in your relationship that you would immediately warn a friend against if it happened to her, you need to take your own advice. It’s easy to explain things away by making excuses “just this one time,” but dating is the time to realistically examine your relationship. 

No one is going to be perfect in a relationship, but the problems you have while dating will most likely continue or even get worse once you get married. 

Your butterflies should come from happiness, not uncertainty. 

Dating as a Christian may look a little bit different than what the world expects dating to look like. It does mean that while you should have fun while dating, you should also be realistically examining the romantic relationships you form. 

Although I probably wouldn’t have believed it when I was single, the relationships that didn’t work out never crossed my mind again once I found a solid relationship that I wanted to continue. 

It’s easy to get caught up in the pressure to form a romantic relationship and get married without stopping to pay attention to the signs that things might not be right. Starting off marriage on the right note is important to having a successful marriage though. 

Are you paying attention to what’s going on as you date? Marriage is a wonderful experience, but the difficult times can be impossible to weather together if you ignore the warning signs while dating.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth is an educator at heart. So far this has taken the form of a camp counselor, a museum assistant, and currently a middle school teacher. She loves to watch people grow and learn. You can read more of her writing at her blog Chronicles Of A Southern Belle.