UNFILTERED Q&A: Physical Boundaries in Christian Dating ????

hey guys welcome to morning sickness videos this is my first trimester of pregnancy as you Dow and oh my word morning sickness has kicked in hard Tiffany basically doesn’t feel good unless she’s lying down tough today we are gonna go over your 23 pages of memories jumps amazing questions about boundaries and dating so this video is specifically for those of you who have decided I want to see sex for marriage how do I do that when I’m dating which is a great question so today we are gonna talk about physical boundaries and next week we are gonna talk about emotional boundaries because there were tons of questions on that too so welcome back to another episode of life advice that you do not hear in church my name is Tiffany this is my husband James and if you’re new here hit subscribe to see more videos like this let’s start with one of the first questions this was a popular question how do you bring up the boundaries discussion how do you determine what honors God and each other without being proved so I think a car ride could be a great place to start that conversation because it’s not a sexually charged situation the two of you riding in a car but it’s also kind of a private place I don’t know that I would talk about this in a restaurant because other people might overhear and you might not really be yeah and I think especially if you haven’t really done anything physically just start saying I just wanted to start talking about our physical boundaries and you might then share some goals that you have you know I’d really like to save sex to a marriage but you can also be can and be like I’m not really sure what other boundaries I should have or do have or maybe you do have specific things like I really I don’t know that I feel comfortable kissing so that’s kind of some ideas for a conversation that’s kind of preemptive you’re talking before anything has really happened other times though it might be more in the moment that your boyfriend is hey would you like to do X and you might think I’m not really sure and it is always okay to say no not right now if you need time to think about it or I want to think about this more that I would feel comfortable with that and a good guy is always gonna say alright that a hundred percent of the time huh he’s a good guy that’s gonna tell you a lot about who he is yes yes well by that did Shimon run yeah a good guy will always respect not only your boundaries but also you not being sure what your boundaries are and being patient while you guys figure that out together and embrace that this is an ongoing discussion this is not a talk you have once fame then it never comes up again so a lot of you asked like about specific boundaries is it okay to make out is it okay to cuddle what were your guys boundaries would you decide on yeah so the biggest takeaway we have for you is there’s not a list of boundaries that we’re gonna give you you can hold hands you should not kiss you can’t french kiss there’s not a set of rules about what you can or should do physically that’s going to apply to everyone so it’s V top keep that in mind this is really your journey that you get to go on because again god wants a relationship with you and so there are not a lot of these things are not spelled out on black and white in Scripture we’re giving kind of the map the guidelines of saving sex until marriage this is where you and your relationship with God really comes into play we would never want you to think hey James and Tiffany say you can do whatever you want that’s not true you need to be committed to talking to your partner talking to God and talking to mentors about what’s a good way for us to honor God when our relationship because that’s the goal the goal is not yes we didn’t make out until we got married yeah that’s not the goal and of itself the goal is we’re trying to honor God we also need to be humble and not think oh well my boundaries are the best boundaries and everyone else who doesn’t take my boundaries is missing it’s missing the boat right because that’s not true why that so for us I guess we decided our three main boundaries were we don’t take all her clothes off in front of each other second one was we don’t touch they on right and I mean that didn’t mean like sweaters had to stay on it stuff felt like we were never gonna be naked together um boundary number two was that we didn’t sleep in the same bed even if it was just sleeping and not having sex for us we felt like that was something we wanted to save yeah it just yeah I think and that’s there was nothing more than we talked about it we were both like it’d be kind of weird to share a bed with someone you weren’t married to yeah we agree so what’s up yeah let’s not do that yeah I think also part of that was like to avoid temptation because like when you get tired it’s like James said another part of your brain can come out and no I think like it yeah sleeping all night in the same bed together that’s like it can lead to more temptation we knew like that would be hard for us um and the third thing we decided was we don’t touch each other where our undergarments go really you use the word undergarments yes I did wow I don’t even know that was still a word but so those are our boundaries and they just they felt good that doesn’t mean we did all of that up to those boundaries right away but those were kind of our like basic idea of this is what we feel like is okay okay our next question is this I love this one it’s my heart made of ice if I want to have my first kiss on my wedding day lots of my friends were laughing at me when I said this to them okay I’m so sorry people were laughing that’s really hurtful and rude that is that’s totally fine if that’s what you thought was totally fine yes what do you do with you and your significant other disagree on boundaries and dating you have to talk about it a lot Tiffany’s favorite thing to do is talk and talk a talk you’re going to need to agree on a compromise that you’re both really comfortable with and you might even agree on and compromise that you both think you’re comfortable with and then you do decide to french kiss and the other person says you know I’m really not comfortable with that in which case you might then need to back away from this compromise and if you’re with someone who is of good character they’re gonna say oh why would want to do so I want one and have you do something that you’re uncomfortable with so let’s stop and let’s talk about it yes my pastor once told me that my goal is that a guy can send a girl home with a good conscience every time and I think that goes both ways that the girl is looking to help the guy have a good and the guy is looking to help the girl have a good conscience me my boyfriend and I have been having a difficult time keeping our physical boundaries should this influenced our timing planning for when we should get married I don’t want to rush into marriage just because of physical boundaries but I also don’t want to let disobedient habits drag on I feel like a lot of people are gonna identify with that yeah if you have boundaries that you keep blowing past there’s there’s more going on here and you need to kind of dig into that I think you really need to seek counsel and mentorship from an older Christian couple or you know maybe you and then your significant other need to meet one-on-one with a counselor or a mentor because accelerating when you get married because of your boundaries that doesn’t seem super healthy I agree but again I think you really need to dig into your situation with someone who can get to know you and what’s going on agreed so someone also asked is it okay to go on vacation yeah that was a popular trend in can we go travel together I mean we went on a trip together yeah we had a road trip so like 20 hours south maybe we stayed with different friends along the way I remember one couple we stayed with we stayed in their living room I had the couch she had the floor I mean I think it’s it’s like anything else you want to talk to some older Christian friends and like legitimately seek advice if you’re thinking oh we’re gonna go on vacation and not tell anyone all of a sudden we’ve morphed into the hey we’re gonna keep part of our relationship a secret from people and that’s that’s when you’re starting to get into dangerous territory and that’s not at all about the vacation that’s more about what’s going on inside the heart yeah this person says I try to pay more attention to where my heart isn’t trying to honor God and my boyfriend when studying boundaries that being said I feel like it’s normal to babble with the desire to go further so I just want to say like what we were together we lived in this place of tension there was the tension of we’re really attracted to each other and gathers the desire to go further but there’s also the tension the other side is we really want to honor God and are committed to that and living in that tension is exactly where you want to be because you want to be attractive to their person but also I don’t want to stop trying to honor God and being committed to that so I used to feel guilty for living in that tension but I think that is exactly where you want to be that’s how you know that you’re in a healthy place yeah one thing I’d like to say is an aside in reading a lot of these questions one thing I was struck is you want to have healthy boundaries but you also want to have a healthy relationship with your boundaries if you let you breaking your boundaries bring you into a place of guilt and shame like oh my goodness I had said that we wouldn’t take our clothes off and we did oh my goodness should we break up yah yah no people write that in or like I still feel the shame eventually break up that shame is not from God I really believe that and you need to be able to ask God for forgiveness and that’s your significant other forgiveness and also forgive yourself that doesn’t mean that you can just go do whatever you want but it does mean that there’s there is forgiveness that’s part of the beauty of following Jesus as Jesus gave his life so we can be forgiven for big things and little things and if we feel so much shame that we feel like I’ve made a mistake and therefore like I need to end my relationship up living in shame then we’ve put our boundaries in a place they were never meant to be we put them almost like the law that they talk about in the Bible as like this is what’s gonna make me right with God your boundaries cannot make you right with God that is what Jesus did not your boundaries this is just a way to honor God so the next question is it okay for boundaries to change the longer you’re in a relationship I think you want your physical seriousness and involvement to kind of match your emotional seriousness and involvement so when we got married that was like our ultimate physical act to which was having sex together but leading up to that we wanted to slowly progress with our relationship and actually the one thing I wish we’d done differently is when we first started dating I felt like we kind of were making out a lot which was really fun but I think that it would have been wiser if we had waited to make out later on when it matched the seriousness of our relationship because in the beginning it wasn’t we weren’t talking about obviously we weren’t talk about marriage right away yeah we were just getting to know and so I think it would have been wiser if we’d waited so that there had could be that like continuity where our honey’s were and what we were doing physically what have you wrote in my family and friends have some pretty strict ideas of what physical boundaries should look like I agree with them for the most part but how do I handle it if I want to do it differently I think I’d be ashamed to be affectionate just because I know they might not totally approve how do I separate out my own personal convictions from people-pleasing I think you actually struggled with that when we first started dating because I remember being like at your church and every movie what you put your arm around me I’m gonna be right your church you’d sit like deliberately apart not like we’d be next to each other but there’d be like enough space for the Holy Spirit and a Bible there you know like which does not know anything else yeah I think that’s true I think that’s true how did you work through that I think I definitely mentioned I was like gee I think you might think call me out on my cuz I didn’t I think it was subconscious yeah I I think I had to spend some time thinking about it thinking about well you know how serious is this relationship realizing hey it is serious and it is okay that I put my arm around my girlfriend yeah and I think it came slowly don’t rush yourself yeah it’s a process that does yeah yeah being displaying defection publicly was something that took a while for me I I think you you basically you have to have a discussion with friends and with yourself well I’ve heard this but I think this and I think in the process of talking through it you’re gonna come to a place where you feel comfortable yeah this is what I think I’ve kind of worked through it and I haven’t just adopted someone else’s beliefs guys thank you for these amazing questions so next week we’ll talk about your emotional boundaries my prayer for you girls is that you would walk in God’s freedom and that you would be secure in his love we’ll see you guys in the comments bye