It’s a common complaint amongst women in our current society.
‘Why won’t men commit anymore, like the older generations did?’ Timothy Keller, in his book The Meaning of Marriage, indicates that the pressure on single people today in the areas of love, sex and marriage are far greater due to societal pressures than in previous generations.
Unrealistic idealism
This is related to how people are thinking about these things. There is a new unrealistic idealism that is bringing about an unhelpful pessimism. Although the research states that marriage – a permanent, exclusive, legal contract – benefits the couple, their children, community and society as a whole, most young people believe the opposite.
The covenantal, unconditional, love relationship and biblical model of marriage to serve and mutually submit to one another is giving way to a consumerist relationship based on self-gratification; to take what one can get and then to move on if someone better comes along. Most couples are trying out ‘living together’ before marriage even though the research indicates that co-habitation before marriage is more likely to lead to a divorce.
Challenges
Single men in our churches need understanding and support as they face challenges to commit to dating and marriage as they may be:
• Too scared or insecure – men’s hearts are fragile and they are often insecure about themselves and their abilities. Taking the first steps to find out if a woman likes them runs the risk of rejection. To commit feels like a great responsibility, which they need encouragement to do. Sometimes there may also be childhood issues that they need to get counselling to resolve.
• Too busy – men can be genuinely too rushed and too stressed by many distractions within their work, career or sports life, and managing daily life as a single person. They don’t have time to commit.
• Too picky – due to social media and photoshopped images of women, men can be too idealistic about what a woman should look like. Their expectations of all that a woman should be able to do at work, home and recreationally may be too high. Pornography has also created false expectations of sex within marriage.
• Too lazy – some men can’t be bothered to even try. They give up before they have even begun because dating and marriage is hard work.
• Too uninterested – men need someone that they can pursue and their desire to commit diminishes when women are too easy to catch, giving too much of themselves without requiring any commitment.
• Too immature – there are men with the Peter Pan syndrome who never want to grow up. They continually want to play, have adventures, see new and different people, meet their own needs, and avoid an exclusive, meaningful adult relationship.
• Too entitled – men can expect a relationship to fall into their lap without any effort and are surprised that they remain single.
• Too pressured – last but not least is the pressure men feel to be all that women are expecting them to be romantically. The romantic partner, the soulmate, is seen as the ‘saviour’ which no flawed human being can be, so this brings a crushing pressure with it. When the man feels like a failure or that he may fail then his desire to commit diminishes.
Pray for men
Although single men need to take the lead in dating and marriage, it is hard for them. Singleness is on the increase in society and in Christian churches. Single women are becoming more frustrated with the men and not always reacting in appropriate ways. We need to pray for the men to be able to commit to godly Christian marriages.
