Be careful little fingers who you text:

This post has been on my heart for a while. Marriages fail on a daily basis and the majority of them are due to infidelity. Something as simple as a text might be to blame. Many folks’s think that I am old fashion with my views on the “chain-of-command” in a marriage. Many wives see God as the authority (which is correct) but they see their spouse as an equal. While we are created equal we have drastically different roles in a marriage relationship.

To take this further, I wholeheartedly believe that we need to hold onto and safeguard the sanctity of our marriage. Bible (even mutually respectful) marriage is a thing of the past. Women are encouraged to promote themselves to equal and furthermore dominate the relationship. It doesn’t take much research into the Word of God to realize that this is NOT what God wants a marriage to look like.

You see, God has these particular role’s in place for a reason. It’s not that God doesn’t think that I can run an entire household, see THIS POST on handling submission when we run the house. I believe God designed these roles too, and us with them, to use our abilities to their fullest extent.

You’re probably wondering what texting people has to do with safeguarding the sanctity of marriage. Well, I don’t text other people’s husbands. I won’t say that I never do, but I make it an extreme habit NOT too. I purposely avoid it unless it’s absolutely necessary. If it’s unavoidable I either make sure to show my husband, purely for accountability or do a group text and add my husband so he can see what’s going on.

This might sound extreme, but it’s one more way that I can keep those lines of marriage from being blurred. As you know, texting is private. It’s personal, quick, and private. This is why we like it! That’s why it’s so useful and liked, but it’s also why it is also dangerous. Getting caught up in a texting conversation with someone who isn’t your husband, can slowly break down those boundaries without you knowing. You get comfortable talking privately to a man that isn’t your spouse.

Texting someone’s husband is disrespectful. Not only to your spouse but to the spouse of the person that you are engaging in a private conversation with. Granted this is my personal belief, but I think deep down you know this too. When we have those private conversations with a man that isn’t our husband we are interacting on a level that should be saved for our spouse.

Texting someone’s husband is a “gateway drug”. Let’s be honest for a minute here. Marriage is hard. It takes work, communication, compromise, and love. If you let something seep into your marriage relationship, even in the form as little as texting someone of the opposite sex, it can plant seeds in your heart. The next time you fight with your spouse, that seed grows. If the marriage relationship isn’t taken care of and tended too that seed becomes a fully-grown plant and can lead to discontentment, resentment and could possibly lead to cheating.

Be careful who you text:

Yes, I know I just made an analogy that texting someone of the opposite sex can lead to cheating. I realize that’s far-fetched. However, we must make ourselves aware that “emotional cheating” is a thing. That’s where affairs start; in the heart. We need to take every opportunity to safeguard our marriages against the rampant disregard of marriage in our society.

Lastly, texting friends husband can be misinterpreted. Not only by you, or the person you’re texting, but by others around you. Like I said earlier, texting is private; most of the time. If you and your spouse have an open phone policy, as I do in my marriage, it could cause issues. Our open phone policy means that we have free range to look in each other’s phones any time we want. Knowing this, however, if it makes you feel the need to delete conversations you could have a problem.

I’ll leave you with this to chew on. If you wouldn’t have the texting conversation face-to-face, in a private setting, with only you and the person of the opposite sex then you shouldn’t be texting that person at all, at least not without a third party present (group text) or some accountability. Make an effort to protect your heart. Make a commitment to build a fortress around your marriage to sustain the sanctity of it. What are you willing to do to protect your marriage?

Cheers,

Nila