Our culture is really screwed up. There are some things that the individual inherently knows is wrong, but does not allow it to be a big deal because culture says it is the norm. Something is only wrong if you get caught in our world today. It almost seems as though the punishment for a bad act is for getting caught doing it rather than for the act itself.
As my wife and I were sitting in the airport I overheard a conversation going on behind us. There was a woman around my age expressing her frustrating about her fiancé to another woman. As this conversation went on there were other random women who were strangers to these two who chimed into the conversation.
Why was this woman upset at her fiancé? He went to a strip club with his friends and got a private dance by a woman who worked there. There were some statements in the following conversation that surprised me. For one the woman said she wasn’t necessarily upset her fiancé did that. She even said that she expected that from him, but she was upset that he told her about it.
What a sad philosophy to have. Women all over do not feel concerned if their husband goes out and lusts after other women so long as they never hear about it. As long as they are the woman their husband comes home to then everything is fine. There is more to relationships than this though. Never settle for a spouse like that. It simply is not worth it.
The advice the strangers gave equally surprised me. “It’s not really that big of a deal. He would not have been allowed to touch her, and it’s not like they had sex.” Now that is a common view in our culture today. It’s ok to look as long as you do not touch. It’s ok to get right on the edge of the line as long as you do not jump over it.
It is sickening. Why would you feel happy in a relationship like that? Culture tells us it is normal so we should not expect anything different. What if we expected better though? What if we had reasonable yet high expectations in a spouse? What if we decided we wanted someone who would remain faithful in body, heart, and mind?
There are a lot of factors to why men are pigs. I believe one of them is that they are expected to be pigs. We let men get away with this lifestyle because it is considered natural and even evolutionary. We don’t expect more so they are never challenged to rise up and be more. The same goes for women. They are not more because we do not expect them to be more.
I’m not saying your expectations should be unreasonable. No one is perfect. We all have faults. We should expect to have the kind of marriage that Scripture says is healthy though. We should expect our spouse to have those same views. We should expect more than a guy who goes to the strip bar but does not touch, or the guy who makes a habit to look at pornography. We should expect more than the woman who disrespects her husband and manipulates her relationship.
Don’t let culture define your expectations. Cultures expectations are incredibly low. Take back your own expectations.
Utterly Dependent 