Dear Daughter: 6 Rules for Dating and Marriage

This week’s “Dear Daughter” letter comes from another friend across the pond, Helen Kerr. Helen is a writer, mother, and English teacher in Scotland. I love the guidelines she gives her daughter to help her choose and keep a worthwhile mate. Below are Helen’s six rules for dating and marriage.

(And yes, I changed her British spellings again! I’m no fun.)

Dear Daughter,

In our humanness, we share the mistakes we make in the hope the people we love won’t make the same ones. We take our wisdom and knowledge and make it meaningful for someone else, hoping, praying that their listening ears are attentive and that they will not fall into living momentarily – thinking that their decisions have no eternal significance.

But girls, modern girls, are soaked to drenched in a world that beguiles them into believing lies about who they are, what they are and how they are supposed to be.

And that image isn’t really pretty.

It’s destructive, it’s deceitful and it’s entirely unattainable.

But more than that, it’s not God’s design.

So here are six rules for dating and marriage…

Six rules for dating and marriage

1. Jesus is your first love. No other love comes close.

No one will love you like Jesus loves you. Don’t expect anyone to. Look for the man who wants to love you like Jesus loves you, but remember your first love.

Remember that Jesus is there everyday, in every situation, in every place. Keep him first. Look to him first. Let Jesus be your help, your guide, your light.

Don’t replace Jesus with a man. Because when you do, you set a bar so high, you destine him to fail.

Men are men. Jesus is God.

2. Look for a husband, not a boyfriend.

There will be a lot of men who come and go. Honorable men. Not-so-honorable men. Men you work with, men you socialize with. Men in your church and men down your street. Well intentioned men and, well, men whose intentions pay no mind to glorifying God.

Look for someone who will take care of you for life. Not for a season that is short and momentary. Look for the one whose heart is utterly fixated on putting God first.

Do not look for the perfect man. You will not find him.

But do look for the one who knows his role and his responsibility when he pursues you.

3. There are no princes.

Such a blow, isn’t it?

We love a good Disney princess, but we’re not her. Prince Charming might exist physically. He might look the part. He might sound great and have words that are shivers down your spine. But he still snores at 3 a.m. and doesn’t seem to be able to tell when the bathroom is dirty.

There are no princes, and to be honest, I’d be skeptical of the ones that trill into your life with a heady love song and the flash of a pearly white smile. Is he true love’s first kiss or is he just a good talker with a great dentist?

There are no princes.

But there are good men who love God. They are the better choice.

4. Yep, you’ve been lied to.

When your eyes meet across the room, actually a song won’t come on. The soundtrack to real love isn’t a weepy love song with overly sentimental lyrics and the veneer of wisdom (when we all know it’s really just cheese, and if you say the words out loud as though you’re talking them, you’ll realize that rhyming was the driving force rather than meaning).

He probably won’t stand, dripping wet in torrential rain, holding that rose you always wanted, keeping it dry in the umbrella of his jacket. He’ll text you from the car and ask you to run out because it’s raining.

He probably won’t show up on your birthday with that one thing you hinted at so many times that you really wanted, but he pretended not to listen – and then, by jings, he bought it for you. He’ll more than likely ask you to write your birthday on his calendar and give you a tenner and tell you to knock yourself out.

Or maybe he will be full of grand gestures, and thoughtfulness, close attentiveness and more flowers that you would have at your wedding.

But these are not the things that matter.

The soundtrack to your life needs to be a different tune.

It needs to be prayer and patience. Forgiveness and trust. It needs to be laced with scripture and soaked with God’s truth.

Then the other things don’t matter so much.

We can all love a good rom-com, but we mustn’t think real life is anything like it. That will steal your joy.

Just remember: good rom-com – great lie.

5. Don’t build him a dog house.

If you have a dog, and a dog house, keep it for the dog.

If you don’t have a dog, don’t have a dog house anyway and put him in it.

He might make you angry. He might forget those important dates that mean so much to you. And he might ask questions that you think are the most ridiculous questions you have ever heard. Wasn’t he listening?!

But he’s still a fallen man in a fallen world, trying to make his way. Don’t hold those things against him. Don’t rue his differences, his attempts, his failings.

Do not give a grudge an inch of floor space in your house. It will seep like woodworm into every crevice of your home until it rules it. Then at every low point, disagreement and failure, it will march out, bold and brazen as though it owns the place. And it will own the place, whispering memories into your ears that will begin with don’t you remember when he… or isn’t this just like when he…

Forgive. Forget. No dog houses.

6. Let love rule.

Somedays love doesn’t come easy. Somedays it’s an absent friend. You’d rather it be there, but you’re in a fight. Or a muddle. Or things are hard. Someone is ill. There’s not enough money in the bank. You lost your job.

He’s disagreeable, and you’re discontent.

Then love is a choice. Love is not love if it’s flighty and fickle. If one day it gushes and the next day there’s not even a drip.

The Lord does not love you less when you are moody or tired, or grumpy. He does not love you less when you lose your way, argue with the kids, break that expensive gift.

Love as the Lord loves you. Don’t expect it to be effortless all of the time. Because some days loving him will be the hardest job you’ve ever had.

Choose love.

Let it be the mortar in your bricks – the very thing that holds everything together. Then when the storms come, you will not be shaken, because Jesus is your foundation and you’ve built from something that will last forever.

Work it out together.

These are my six rules for dating and marriage.

With grace and love,

Your mum

Helen Kerr

Helen Kerr is a wife, mum, high school English teacher and resident of the Shetland Islands in the windy North of Scotland.  She loves Jesus, coffee, baking, and when she has time, writes at Home-Spun Hearts.