Welcome to The Heart of Dating Podcast. Hey, it's Kait. I'm so glad you could join us this week as we try to entangle the ever-so ambiguous world of dating as a Christian. Over here in Heart of Dating, we get real as we answer some tough questions and uncover transformative ways to approach Christian dating. Oh, and you better believe we have some laughs along the way, because last time I checked, the struggle is hashtag real. You know what I'm saying?
Now let's get to the heart of the matter. Hey, hey you guys! Welcome to The Heart of Dating Podcast. I'm your host, Kate Warman, and I'm so excited that you're tuning in today because if you are here today, you need to know a really big announcement. For the first time ever, we are doing video podcasts. That's right. You can find us on YouTube over on the Heart of Dating channel, and you can now watch us on the podcast. You can watch me
on the podcast today. You can watch JJ and I together for this conversation. We wanted to add this fun new element to the podcast. We'll see how it goes. We hope to continue to do video podcasts, but we want to see what you guys think of this. And so if you listen normally on, you know, Apple Spotify, any of those things, encourage you today to check out on YouTube and watch us do the episode and see what you think. Now I'm really excited
for what we have in store for you today. I brought my boo, JJ Tomlin back on the podcast, and today you guys, we are going over pace and boundaries in a relationship. And why knowing what these two things are and really being able to have a strategy when it comes to pace and boundaries is so important in your relationship. And we're also going to share how JJ and I did this as well. And give you a whole bunch of tips on how to do this
in a very practical way. This isn't going to be your classic episode where we just talk about physical boundaries. Now we are actually going to talk about multiple different kinds of boundaries. We're going to talk about spiritual, emotional and physical boundaries. And we're also going to give you an actual model on how to actually pace your dating relationship. Okay. It's a really, really, really good episode filled with a lot of content.
You're probably going to want to take notes. And here's the thing. I want to know personally, if you are enjoying these episodes with JJ and I, will you let us know by sending us an email by giving us a DM by resharing this episode or you could also just show us some love by rating and reviewing this podcast, which always means the world to us specifically over on iTunes. Okay, guys, I'm so excited. Let's get into the episode for this week.
All right. All right. Hey guys. We are here today on Heart of Dating. Aren't we, babe? Yes. We are. I got invited back. This is your fourth episode. Yeah. Technically, there's another one that people are asking for now. Oh, there's technically a fifth episode. Okay. All right. You know what? I still haven't got there yet, babe. Yeah. Okay. Why is that? I mean, I'm asking on my house. Well, I have to listen to it back. I don't remember
what it sounds like. Okay. I thought it was pretty good. We'll see. We'll see. Well, today, babe, what are we covering? We're covering pace in boundaries. Pace and boundary. We're we. We're we. Biggest buzz word ever. Boundaries is for sure. I know. We're just going to label this Christian boundaries and dating and it's going to go off. I know. As
if yeah, we're going to that would be a great title. But the thing is you guys that boundaries and we are going to touch on them a bit today, but they're more than just physical boundaries. We are going to be touching on three kinds of boundaries. Babe, do you want to tell them three kinds? Yeah. They're spiritual, emotional, and physical. That's right. And I think it's probably important to think about the day you learn these boundaries. Yeah. Whether
it's today or whether it's like a mentor or have not. Yeah. Because it's a it should be a really big day of how you change your approach to dating. Yeah. I agree. So there is so much here that we want to like unpack with you guys both to share some teaching elements and to share how this obviously applied with us and also what we've learned and recommend. And so babe, should we start with pace and then we'll go into boundaries? How about that?
Yeah. That sounds good. And to kick it off, I have a question. Okay. So we're just going to jump right in. Okay. What's the question? Do you think that Christians commit too early and dating? And if so, like, why do you think that is? Yes. I definitely think Christians commit far too early. And I also have been this person that committed far too early. But I think we often meet someone who is our quote unquote type. And then we put all of our
eggs in that basket and we commit really early. And I did a quote on Instagram a while ago that was like, we put our eggs in a basket really early and we commit it right away. And then we slap the word intentional on it. Well, I'm being intentional. Like as if the commitment makes it so you are more godly because you're committing early. And I'm just going to say it. I actually think this is unwise. I really think it's unwise.
Well, and let's clarify, when you say commit, you're not talking about like committing to an exclusive dating relationship. Are you? Well, that's what a lot of people do. Yeah. But what do you mean? Like, I'm just really committing a lot to them up front. Like it doesn't have to be exclusive. Yeah. I think hope. I think that you put, you put a lot of weight on the relationship. But I'm talking commitment. I'm talking about like I'm
exclusive with this person right away. Okay. And you know, we talk about the stages here being single dating relationship engaged married. And in the dating phase, there's like kind of two parts. There's like your dating and getting to know the person on a friendship level. And then at some point, you may establish like, I, I've know, I know enough information that I want to keep dating just this person. But I'm not ready to go to the relationship
yet. And that's what I call exclusivity. Technically, it's like, I'm exclusive meaning. Because that word means it means I'm not, I'm off the apps. I'm not seeing anybody else. I'm just focusing on this one person, right? And so, but what I see Christians do is like, we go on one day or two dates. And then it's like, we're exclusive. Now we're together. We're like the following week, third week, we're shown up to church together with our
hands to like holding, you know, it's almost like you have to, right? Like we went on two dates and, you know, like, just like, there's no have to. Yeah. Well, like, that's the mentality. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They've just, we feel a pressure to be exclusive too fast. Yes. And so this is what happens when Christians commit to early and you're right. Because there's a lot of pressure, babe. So that's a really good point. But I think, you know, this,
this develops a hyper, like a hyper emotional attachment with someone. And it disconnects your head and your heart. And it makes you just lead with your heart. It's like that whole love is blind, which we talked about the other week. Actually, the show, but like love is blind. Like you're blindly going into it saying like, I'm going to commit to this person. I'm going to love this person. I'm going to do whatever I can to make it work with this
person. But you are not using other parts of your head. You're not using wisdom. You're not using discernment necessarily. And it's like they turn on the love button. And suddenly, they're just like, okay, whatever I can do to make it work with this person, which you can't, sounds good, right? Like commitment sounds good. I'm going to do whatever I can't to make it work with this person. But actually, if you don't know that much about this person,
it's not that wise to jump both feet in. And we talk about guarding our hearts, babe, right? Like we talk about that a lot. And guarding our hearts is, is also not just on responsibility of the other person. It's also responsibility on us to take ownership of guarding our own hearts by not committing too early before you actually know someone. Yeah. It's like the hyper intentionality, like just fuels that drive to be committed. Yeah. And it's like,
I would say it's all good intention. There's a good intention behind it. But it's like uncapped, you know, untamed, it can develop into an issue. Yes. I agree. And so I think and we are going to talk today that there needs to be boundaries and you need to be able to see somebody through time because that's the only way you can make a truly wise decision
about if you want to be in a relationship with somebody. So right now, I'm speaking to the people where you want to put all your eggs in one basket early on, where you like, you have you go to boyfriend, girlfriend stage with very quickly. I'm going to say within
one month or less, that is too quickly. In this episode, we're talking about the fact that we believe the pace should be 90 days of getting to know someone 16 and 90 days, 90 days would be better of getting to know someone before you truly commit to being in a relationship. And this just isn't just because this is what you and I practice babe. This is actually backed by like therapists like and in different studies that say it's
healthier to see a person through time. Yeah. And if it gives a little bit more incentive when you put the steak in the ground after that time for 60 days, 90 days, it's super exciting. It builds up a lot of patience because you have to kind of like deny that excitement, that hyper excitement. And you can you can approach it a little bit more clearly. Yes. You know, yes. You can approach it a lot more clearly when you've seen a person through
time. Now in order to have this kind of a healthy pace, this includes boundaries. You need to have boundaries in place to be able to see someone through time. Okay. And the biggest reason for this is for your own safety, your internal safety or emotional safety. There's a lot. This is all about safety for you as an individual. And the second reason is actually for the health of your relationship. It's not only for you. It's also for the health
of your relationship because truly you're because guess what? You're either going to if you take the time to see someone you can put it before truly diving in, you may discern. This actually I thought in the beginning first month, my feelings, all the feels, I thought I was going to marry this person. But if you actually pace yourself and let every all the different areas build, then through time by the end of 90 days, let's say you might be like, oh wow,
I'm super glad I didn't commit to this person. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I just had a great thought. So right now we're in California and the housing market across the US is going crazy. They basically the Red Fence CEO came out and said in the last 10 years, they just didn't build enough houses. So inventory is super constrained. Of course, everything else, insurgents were really favorable. But basically, if anybody's bought a house lately and if you
haven't, I'm sure you've heard all about it, what is everybody doing? They're sometimes not even visiting the house, they'll look online, they'll see it and they'll put an offer down 100k over, they'll wave inspection rights. They'll let that family stay there for an extra three months. They go above and beyond just a secure of the house. Yeah. Because guess what? There is a real scarcity mindset because there's not a lot of inventory. Well, guess what? If you walk into dating,
that's right. With a scarcity mindset and saying, this is a great one. And I have to do whatever, I can to keep this one. Because there's only one out there. Yeah. And you always hear that, oh, you got to lock that down. Oh my gosh. And so guess what? You're going to wave the inspection rights. Yeah. You're going to go a little crazier up front and you're going to say, no, this is the one. I have to have it. Oh my gosh. And instead of, you know, because imagine if there's
infinite houses out there, you could go through a 30 day inspection. You could even go through a 30 day trial of like living in the house. You could do a lot of things. And then at the end of the 90 days, yeah, this is the one. Yeah. This is the one I want to live in for at least a couple years or a year and see, you know, if I want to make this my lifetime home. Yeah. Same thing with dating. That's so important. And so I think the funny part of what you're saying to you, I just want to clarify
for people listening, if you are, this is, this is, we are about commitment. We are about making a commitment in a relationship. If you're somebody listening that has a really hard time with commitment, then like you need to challenge yourself. Probably if you don't commit to anybody, you need to probably challenge yourself more to commit to people. Again, after 60 90 days, ideally. But so this may not be exactly the same for you because you may need to learn how to be more vulnerable
and expedite the pace just a little bit like quick in your pace, just a little bit. You're maybe the tortoise right now, a little more pep in your step and a little more commitment because we are living in a consumeristic culture where it says on to the next, on to the next, on to the next. And Kate and I talk a lot about like this idea of a pendulum. Like if you think about like a grandfather clock and that pendulum is swinging left and right, you know, we're always kind of on
these issues one side or the other. I would just say with dating, like it's like TLC, the 90 day fiance, like this should be like 90 day girlfriend, 90 day boyfriend, like really pace it out. Because, you know, we'll say this again and again, character shines over time and same thing and dating like you really need time to see who this person truly is. And if they are, you know,
healthy, like that will shine more clearly over time. And I truly believe I've dated unfortunately a lot of toxic people and not all of them again, want to shout out the great guys I have dated. However, there have been some toxic guys out there that I've dated and I will be real that in following more of this model, I, it has been proven to me that a guy who may seem amazing at first, if you let it go for longer and you don't commit to them up front, even if they want to
and the, you feel the feels and you just wait for me. There has been instances that it's 60 days where it's like, whoa, wait a second. This is colors. I was not seeing the beginning. I am so glad I didn't commit. I'm so glad we didn't take this any further because I didn't now. I'm truly getting to know them more parts of them. I'm being able to, I'm building, I'm seeing if I can trust the person. I'm seeing if I can rely and we actually have a model that we're going to go through
towards the, or the middle of the episode today. I'm a really great model from Dr. John Van Ep, which I'm excited about, which will actually give you guys practical ways to measure the pace. But I'm just saying like, there's people out there that really can like come across really awesome
for a certain amount of time. Yes, but you know what, if you were that person like me that you have fallen for more than one toxic guy or even just one really, really, really as much as you can start to helpfully pace yourself over 16 and 90 days and really develop friendships, see that person's character, learn if you can trust them and don't just go in more than not. What I hear from people is that they regret moving in too quickly. But what I don't often as much here is
people really regretting that they took their time to get to know one another. Yeah, I've never heard rarely. I've never heard somebody say, we're boyfriend and girlfriend now, I kind of regret you know, taking my time in an extra month to decide whether or not I'd be an exclusive with them. Yeah, nobody's ever regretted that. No, not that I've heard, but people do regret, oh my gosh, we jumped in really quick because we felt the feels and I wish I didn't because I missed these
red flags because that's what it happens. The hyper emotional attachment makes you like hold on to love for dear life before you know them. So therefore you're missing these red flags or you're overlooking them now because now you're committed and you're trying to make it work. And even yeah, overlooking is probably more often. Yeah, you know, it's because you're not oblivious. But you're it's thing about when you, you know, I don't want to pull this sin example, but you know, the heart
can be very deceitful. And when you want something, you will do anything to justify it. Like mentally, yeah, mentally, these little mind loops, there's mental. Yeah, it's a little short cut. I'm like the king of a little mental short cut. I know that honey. I do know that. But you will your brain will literally come up with a mental short cut like it's magic. Yeah, and you're like, what? Oh, yeah, but there's a loophole there. Wasn't it? Yeah, or I can fix it. Yeah,
oh, that one too. So to maintain a healthy pace, we highly recommend some boundaries. And quickly, we're just going to go over the three types of boundaries. And then we want to give you a model for how to pace in your relationships. So the three kind of boundaries, and there are more than these, but I think these are essential to really pay attention to in your dating and relationship stages. And these three boundaries are emotional, spiritual, and physical. So babe, why don't we
just quickly go over each one of these stages? Okay. Okay. So do you want me to start? Yes. Okay. So emotional. This is more about vulnerability and safety. And so can do you feel seen by this person? Do you feel safe emotionally with this person? Have you been vulnerable and has it been a safe place for you? Do you connect in emotional ways? Do you feel like they're hearing you and are genuinely
curious about you? This is like an example is like you share something really intimate to you, and they are present, they are curious, they make you feel safe, they don't judge you, and in a moment of crisis, this is also an area where this could be really important as well, emotional safety. And so that's, but it's very important to have emotional boundaries, because what a lot of people do, especially Christians, is we get emotionally naked on the first date. And how
do we do this? By telling our testimony on the first date and our entire come to Jesus story, here's my entire live vulnerable story in the first moments of meeting someone. Yeah. And look, you can tell your testimony, but let's maybe do a spark notes version. You know, like, I like, I personally think space it out. I don't think tell them on the first date your entire testimony.
Yeah. And it's not an absolute rule. We might disagree here. If you do want to do it, just go spark notes, super high level, you know, two minutes, and let it ride from there, because maybe you have a summer experience, but the one thing you don't want to do necessarily is dive straight into trauma, dive straight into the issues, and dive straight into, you know, this is my
struggle. And it still is my struggle. Yeah. You're emotionally getting naked, and especially, okay, if you are going to tell your testimony earlier on, give the spark notes, but especially don't do this, do not text it. Don't text it over a dating app with somebody that you have never met before. I agree. Oh my goodness. No wonder. Oh my gosh. Yes, it is. Guys have asked me like, well, tell me your testimony. I'm like, no, sir. I want to tell you that in real life, when I've
gotten to know you better, I'm super excited to share it. It's great. But I'm not going to give you my whole life story of testimony here over DM when I've never met you. Yeah, I've never heard that. Oh, it happens all the time. I'm kind of surprised. You're surprised? Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess I'm not surprised at this point anymore, but I mean, I feel like that's such an important question. You don't really even want to leave it
up to a text. None of these questions should really be that much over text. None of these vand... emotional, spiritual, physical. I shouldn't be telling someone my physical past over DME. Oh yeah. And the thing too is that's such an authentic answer that you also need to be observing and weighing because you also, that's a great temperature check in the first three to five dates. If you're getting the spark notes of like, okay, where does this person kind of stay in,
you know, like, how did you become a Christian? What's important to you in your faith? These are like, feather questions, but they're not meant to go 10,000 feet deep. No, and that's what people do in the first eight. Yeah. And I just will say, because we're going to tie this in with how we've been in this area. I want to tell you guys about my emotional boundaries. I had no emotional boundaries. Earlier in my life, I just would tell people everything because I wanted to be heard and I wanted
to be validated because I didn't get a lot of that growing up as a child. And so my remedy for that was to really expose myself in the hopes, well, you love me. Will you accept me? Will you not judge me? Will you validate me now that I'm sharing you with you? These deepest parts of my heart. And I had such vulnerability hangovers and I had such regret. And then I was angry at both the other person and myself, this happened in friendships, this happened in dating relationships,
this happened in so many scenarios that I started realizing. It's not even because I shouldn't even be mad at these people. It's because I should really be looking at myself and taking ownership because I did not have emotional boundaries. And I need to own that I did not have emotional boundaries and healthy emotional boundaries. Yeah. So what about you, babe? Anything with emotional boundaries that you want to share? Maybe it's not. Maybe it's that you didn't have great emotion.
Maybe it's like that you had too high of emotional boundaries and you didn't share enough with people. Yeah. I this oh my gosh. There's a lot to say here. Something like just stumbling, you know, into it. I think if you haven't gotten to a place of realizing what your tendencies are, that's a really good place for you to just pause in your dating life because I would say I naturally kind of fell into some places with Kate and when I dated her that happened to be
pretty good practices. And there are also some that weren't fully tidied up. And so even as I've asked myself this question, I was like, oh my gosh. And as I've with emotional boundaries. Yeah, for sure. And as I've grown my knowledge of dating and dating practically as a Christian, I definitely look back at some of the way I some of the mental approaches I had of dating. I was like, dude, I was way off. And my intention was good. Give us an example because this is I want to know
specifics. Yeah, I think I with emotional wise, I think I swung on both sides. There would be some opportunities where I would get way too excited upfront. I would really look into her responses back to me, her mood, you know, how much she enjoyed the date. And then I would over invest my emotions into the success of it working out. Guess what? When it doesn't work out, you're just setting yourself up for a really big disappointment. Yeah, lots of emotional pain and confusion.
And then which can in turn, you kind of look, you know, right for a causal big while it has to be me. Yeah. And something's wrong with me. I did something wrong. I wasn't perfect. I wasn't funny enough. You know, I didn't do X something well enough. And then it's just kind of like a very defeating mindset. And then the other one would be putting so much pressure on the first date or the first two dates. Like, can I see myself with this person in the long term or not? Instead of
designing friendship. Yeah. And so both of those for me would be, you know, if I didn't happen to find someone to check out a lot of my boxes. But do you think emotionally because we're talking about sharing and emotionally like, which yeah, you over committed in your mind. Do you think that like verbally you over committed or verbally you ever asked questions that were maybe crossing the line? Like just curious. Actually, no, because I think before I even started dating, I fortunately had a
mentor who really walked me through. You know, he like, and my mind was blown the day because I came from the South and it was like all physical boundary, all physical boundary, all physical boundary. And the day that you know, somebody pulled me aside and was like, Hey, by the way, you know, there's more than just physical boundaries. I was like, Why didn't he look? Yeah, there's emotional and physical physical and spiritual boundaries. And I was like, Oh, that makes sense.
Unfortunately, I didn't have a long enough dating history to really push any of these. Yeah. But he was just like, Yeah, I mean, emotionally, just think about it. It makes sense. You shouldn't be getting into daddy issues. You shouldn't be asking those really probing questions. Yeah. Like you should not be doing an investigation on your first date. Yeah. I was like, Wow,
that's a really good point. Because the other thing that happens, besides like, you know, advertising your weaknesses, you know, and hopefully it's not an abusive person because they will definitely take note of that. Yeah. That's true. Again, this is having boundaries is about your safety. And for the health and the relationship as well. And then for the health and relationship, it's, um, it creates so much false intimacy way too early. You're getting emotionally naked.
You're getting emotionally, yeah, you're trauma bonding. That's what it is. You're trauma bonding. Sharing things like guys, if you have a pornography addiction, you should not be sharing that on the first date. It's not like a, it's not like a vulnerable badge of honor. I was so vulnerable with her bro. Yeah. Dude, that's like, that's not wise. Yeah. I agree. Not smart. And of course, if the other person like receives it, well, you're going to feel good. You're going to feel really
close to that person. You're going to feel like, oh my gosh, like we're on the same page. Yes. And you shouldn't be that early. Yeah. I agree. So I want to give you guys an example quickly. And then we'll go to spiritual and physical quickly and then give you a, a little bit of a, a model for how to pace things out. So a guy I was talking to in the last few years, I remember I had only really been dating in the dating phase with him for one month. And we were having a great
time. And I remember he asked me a question about my family. And it was a question that I typically don't answer. Honestly, with somebody early on, it's something I've never shared publicly or I don't share this stuff publicly. And so I actually decided in my spirit in that moment, I was like, nope, I can't share this with him right now. It doesn't feel like a safe place. This is not a good place for me to do that. And so I basically said to him, I was like, thank you for asking me that. It
shows me that you really care about this area my life. And I really see your intentions. And I appreciate that for me, this is actually something really sacred and actually really, really vulnerable. Like it's a high high on my vulnerability list. And I look forward to being able to share that with you through time. But I'm not comfortable quite yet with where we are sharing that. But I do really look forward to one day being able to share that. That's great. And yeah, we're for where?
Yep. Yes. Unfortunately, the person didn't take it well. But and that's a control thing on his end. However, for me, I felt really proud of myself and that I didn't push past it and share just because he this person asked a question. He didn't know that it tapped into something super vulnerable for me. But I was like, nope, not going to share. And so that's that's a way also just
practically how do you actually manage having emotional boundaries? And you need to know what you're willing to share early on when I talk about vulnerability, I typically talk about it like an onion and knowing like there's different layers of vulnerability. So at the core of your onion, that's 10 out of 10, 9 out of 10, the top areas of vulnerability. Those are like the locked trauma moments of things that you've worked really hard through, hopefully. But you don't just
broadcast those to on from a rooftop. And then you need to then from there, it goes down, layer by layer. In the beginning, you're sharing the top layers. And then you need to know what's in the middle layers. And you need to be able to do this exercise for yourself. It's so important to know what you're willing to share upfront and know what is off limits for you until you build trust. And then you need to stick to it because somebody may try to cross your emotional boundary
unintentionally. And you need to still be able to stick to your emotional boundary and know what it is. Yeah, just because they might set the pace doesn't mean you always have to, you know, reply at the same pace. Yeah. And that, you know, your answer is really good. I could see how, you know, somebody might be like, Oh, you don't trust me. Yeah. But that's probably more insecurity on that their sign. Yeah. So I would just say guys and girls, if somebody answers the
way that Kate answered, that's super impressive and really attractive. It's super emotionally mature and really commendable. So if a girl answered a question like that on one of my, you know, first dates, I would have been like, wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sure. That's great. I'm sorry. I don't know if I would apologize for asking. No, but I really appreciate her answer. Yeah. And then I would also probably take a second to reflect me like, was that question to probing? Was I, you know,
what was I looking for there? Yeah. And if I answer or if I ask that question again, how can I ask it in a more white-hearted manner? That's, you know, not really asking her to go deep. And the question this person asked me was not deep. It was, it was a very basic question about, and it was just like the answer to it, the honest answer to it was super, super, super vulnerable and deep. It wasn't, it wasn't a casual answer. So it was like, hmm, can't answer that. Yeah.
It seems really basic, but it's actually really complicated and deep for me. He was a bit. Yeah. So let's get into the next one, spiritual boundaries. I don't think we need to spend a crazy amount of time on this one, but I think it needs to be touched on. And what I want to say here is spiritual boundaries is, you know, not getting, if you're not getting hot and heavy in the bedroom, you're not getting hot and heavy with your prayer life and your spiritual life with this person.
Correct. And so, you know, same with emotional. So it needs, these need to be balanced. And so spiritual, I knew, I knew a couple that they had really great physical boundaries that were honoring to what they wanted. They had okay emotional boundaries, but their spiritual boundaries were not there. And they, from an early time frame, they, you know, went to church together, they did everything and spiritually together, but then they would end up praying for hours on
end with one another hours and hours and hours. So the wee hours of the morning praying for not only other people, but praying for each other and their relationship, like early, early, early on. And that is a classic case of crossing spiritual boundaries. Yeah. And, you know, and again, we said it early, and we'll say it often in this episode, the intention was probably
amazing. Yes. Super focus on God, the Lord, you know, their mission, Jesus impact on their individual lives, but an actuality probably unwise to share that much intimacy between God and themselves. Yeah. That early on. Totally. Great intention, though. Like I love, I love it. Most of these, that we've even said don't have a bad intention. However, the reality is that spiritual intimacy to early can create just as much of a bond as some of these other forms of intimacy.
Here's practically what I would suggest. I would suggest like pacing it out, but yes, you can pray or ask for prayer requests. I would just avoid praying too intimately early on, especially for each other and your relationship. Before the relationships even defined, what are you praying about with the other person specifically? You can be praying by yourself for it. Of course. I hope so. I would hope so. But like, hey babe, let's spend an hour tonight praying over our relationship,
but even our in one. You know, I just, you can pray for the meal. You can pray, you know, after certain things happen, but you should not be having the same prayers with your early partner or girlfriend or non-exilist partner. Like, you should not be having the same prayers with them that you do with your mentor or with your Bible study or with your men's group. Like, yeah, early on. Yeah. They should not be similar prayers at all. Yeah. I agree.
So good. Babe, do you want to go to physical boundaries? Yeah. Okay. So this is the hot topic always. And we aren't going to spend our whole episode talking on this, but physical boundaries. There's a lot to say here. I wrote about this. I wrote about sexual desire and defining my sexual ethic or redefining my sexual actual ethic in chapter three of my book. Thank you for rejecting me. And the first thing I want to say is this really needs to come from a place of
holdness, of health, of healing. And it should not come from a place of shooting, meaning someone is shooting on you. You should do this. You should not do that. You really want to get to a place which the purity culture often and like informed us in that way. And so you're, I think, our connection to physical boundaries as it relates to being a Christian needs to come from what does God say about sex and sexual desire? What learnings have you had on these things? Are any of them based
and rooted in shame? And if so, we need to rewrite some of that so that we can come up with a healthy sexual ethic for us as individuals that's connected to the heart of God. Yeah. And it's based off God's heart for sex. And you know, the best way to describe this is I grew up in the rural south and the youth pastor without a ton of access to really great boundaries and resources. Like this, just I don't feel like it was quite as prevalent 20 years ago, you know, as it is today.
Like the intention, I feel like this, I've said it a thousand times, the intention behind the purity culture might have been good, but the why behind the shouldn't is a million times more important. Like the why we should not do these things is God's story of procreation of sex, of the beautiful gift of sex. So the why behind a boundary is so much more important than, you know, I can't do this, you know, and you know, I signed this card and these very legalistic
ABC rules. And even when you're saying should not, I'm still I'm getting a little I'm sweating right now because even that what you said to me and I'm just I love you, babe, I'm going to call you out. Like some of that even still to me feels like a little legalistic like for the person listening, I want people at my hope and prayers that people can truly debunk instead of having
a list of should and should not. Like what is that for me pressing into the heart of God and reading the Bible and truly understanding versus just all these narratives I received and her teachings I received based in shame that always did say should and should not. Yes, a a 10-second shooter should not for this boundary should not suffice. Like because there's so much more of God's story behind that boundary. Yeah. Of why it's so important to have this as a very
intimate sacred space that we, you know, protect for something so much better down the road. Yeah. Like go ahead. Oh, and I was going to say it's even more than that. It's like also it's that is the pinnacle. But then there's also like so much scientific research on why it's also bad to not bad. I hate the word bad, but but why it connects you to somebody prematurely and creates a bond to somebody prematurely like the oxytocin is happening. The hormones are flying. You now have a
soul tie to somebody in a sense because those are bonding agents. Oxytocin is a bonding agent. And so when you cross and you do specific physical things, they're like oxytocins being released. They're it's flying all around and then you are going to feel so connected to that person. And you may be connected to somebody that you don't actually want to be committed to. And then
that creates a whole lot of like unsafety for you as an individual. Yeah. Like as if it wasn't already hard enough to kind of decipher and make a really great objective decision about this person and their character and their fit in your life and a life together that glorifies God. The physical just like spiritual and emotional all three of them just blur the image. Yeah.
They really blur it to like who are you looking at across the aisle from you? Yeah. And the physical is the more tangible but spiritual, emotional all three of them like they really blur that picture of who you're looking at and kind of start to you know let sin weave itself in and really kind of just murky up the waters and then these ways. If you do emotional connection to early spiritual physical it's murking up the waters and all of them. They're just as important and that was also
a huge lesson free. It's because it's always physical always physical. It's just as important to have the emotional guard and spiritual guard that you do the physical and just like we charge you guys with knowing your emotional boundaries. That's how you need to figure out what your physical
are. We're not going to sit here and say you can or cannot kiss you can or cannot hold hands like this is that is honestly ridiculous like you need to figure that out as a grown adult knowing and debunking what the purity culture said because there was a lot of harm done there.
Even though again not all that was bad intentions but there was a lot of harm. There was. I was I had a lot of harm done to me based on that and a lot of horrible things happened because I was living in deep mounds of shame based on the teachings of the purity culture and so I had to look to heal that, rewire that and get to a better healthy understanding of sexuality and my
sexual desire which is is a beautiful God giving gift. So here's the thing. I want to quickly go from these three boundaries into pacing and into this model because I think it's really important it will help even speak to even the physical which I know everyone wants to know more of. So let's get into the ramp model and Dr. John Van Nepp is incredible. He was on an episode of the podcast a few years ago and he wrote a book called How to Avoid Falling in Love with the Jerk.
I love it and Jerk is gender neutral. Okay. It could be a guy or a girl. All right. He's for clarifying. Yes. For all the men who still beat up. No, it's gender neutral. He says it in the book. So he says this. Okay. If attachment is a glue in relationships then an accelerated attachment is like super glue. It activates a willingness to overlook and minimize obvious problems. It blinds your visions that you only see the part never the whole and it intoxicates
your emotions and hormones so that you feel safe and secure in this newfound love. It is crucial to realize that your ability to form strong and loving bonds can betray you if you do not intentionally pace a new relationship. This is wild. I love that part. It is crucial to realize that your ability to form strong and loving bonds can betray you if you do not intentionally pace a relationship. This is it. This is what I said earlier. We hand over our hearts to early
and I want to call myself out because I am and have always been the hopeless romantic. And so I saw a guy who was willing to give me affirmation. Hear me see me quote unquote love me. And I was like you're a man we are getting married. All the Disney stuff and I was like let's make it happen. And I was like it blinded my vision. It intoxicated my emotions like Dr. Van Upp says. And I felt safe and secure without really knowing somebody. And so you know this is how do you
know if you want to marry them? If you don't actually know much about them the people saying in the beginning God told me your wife your God told me your husband I'm like how do you know if you want to marry them? If you don't know that much about them. Even if you feel any of that in your heart you feel like this could be it. Don't say that and don't over commit to that. You need to see this person through time. Y'all anyway. Okay. So John Van Upp created a model. It's called
the Ram model. And there are five different sliders in this model that go up through time. Now it's led by the first slider and then the other one should follow. But the first one is where it should start. The first slider is no. This is the fact that you should be getting to know them through time. It goes up. The slider and this category goes up as you get to know more things about them, which only happens as you get to know them through time. The second slider is do you want to go
over this one, babe? It's trust. Yeah. And you have to have more positive, confident trust in the person. And so when you have those deeper, positive layers of trust, you can have stronger feelings. But that slider of trust. And that can only happen over time. Yes. If you think about it, trust is a really good one over time. You can you can only have more confident, positive, feel it. Well, not you can't only some people put trust in person when they don't know them. That's the point.
So trust is the second one. The third one is rely. Can you depend on that person to follow through? Can you depend on them to meet some of your needs? Are they reliable? That's the third one. Relive. Really important. Then the fourth one is commit. This is where we're talking about. Commitment should be in our opinion slow and steady. JJ and I dated for about three months before we truly committed. And that was important. And then the last one is what they touch.
Touch which ties into the physical stuff. Yeah. Physicone and chemistry. And I would just say, you know, it's touch is exciting. It's tantalizing. But I think with a lot of surrender, when that becomes on the back burner, it really just clarifies the picture of who you're dealing with, why you're attracted to them. And I would just really challenge the guys on this.
Yeah. When you can start, we talked about this in the last episode. When you can start to emotionally be attracted to women and spiritually be attracted to the women, the physical just starts to fade and wane and just become the least important thing. Because you just become so emotionally attracted and spiritually attracted to their character and who they are. You're like, and that's kind of like David Lynn, that story I shared last time. Yeah. He was like,
when I first saw Lynn, I didn't think anything of her. Oh my god. And I was like, but he learned to love her. And more importantly, they grew an awesome friendship that at age 70 is still thriving. Yeah. He's a 70 guy. He's a veneer. All so cute. You know, the physical comes and goes. And if anything, I've learned it's the physicals the most deceiving of all of them. Yeah. Well, it's because a lot of us also don't understand ourselves in the physical bucket
because we haven't had any proper education on these things as Christian. But touch is important. That's your physical chemistry. That is physically being attracted to somebody. And those things are important. We talked last week about the buckets of attraction and that attraction is like an equation. It's multifaceted. But physical and the touch part of your relationship is important. But here's the thing. Like the key to this Ram model is that the balance of these buckets
produce the health of your relationship. And so for a lot of people, let's just go into an example for a lot of people for me. Okay. For me, I used to go straight into touch. Let's just hook up in a sense. And that may not be you on this podcast, but trust me. For me, that was me in my past. It was like, touch. Let's hook up. And then all of a sudden, I feel like I can rely on them. And I'm committed to them in my mind and my heart because now we have this bond. Right. And so
what is supposed to be the fourth and fifth lever are now suddenly my first two. They it swapped the process. I don't really know them yet. I haven't built trust. I don't know if I can rely on them. But suddenly now I'm hooking up with them. And I have a commitment to them with it's and I laugh. But that is that is what I often did that I had to really figure out and rewire. And so, you know, the point of this is maybe it you're not like me. Maybe that wasn't your crutch
of hooking up and committing really early. But maybe let's remove the touch one, for example. Maybe you are committing really early. You go in a first, second, third date, and you're like, I'm exclusive or this is my boyfriend, girlfriend. Oh my goodness. Now you have committed. But guess what? You have gone straight to the fourth lever without the first, second or third being in place. Which is very dangerous for the health of yourself. Again, your internal safety and the health
of the relationship. Well, think about the order. No trust, rely, commit and touch. If you put if you swap up the order of any of those, you can it gets really messy. Yes. And especially if you put anything above knowing and trusting, it gets really messy. Yeah. Really fast. And so Kate's
was like an explicit version of touch. Right. But even if it's not, you know, hooking up, if it's just kissing, you know, or making out and stuff, that's definitely blurring the lines really quick, really fast committing like think about that like committing to somebody before you know and trust them. Obviously, that's a really big no no. And then rely on them for stuff. I think, you know, you're just it's just so risky. Well, that's what happens also to the relying can often happen
when you get emotionally naked. Because now you're you're relying on them to mostly be able to take care of your needs. Cause now you expose different emotional parts of your self. Like I'm pastor you and mentor you and help you out with your struggle. That it should be your best friend of the same sex or your mentor. You're the other person to never be your mentor or your pastor or your accountability partner. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Never. Oh, honey, you're so funny. Yeah, I agree.
Ever. I agree. So here's how it should go. It starts with the no bucket. This is all again, Dr. John Van App. Go check out what he does. My love thinks also his daughter Morgan on Instagram at my love. Thanks is amazing. Shout out to Morgan. Check out the book. How to avoid falling love with the jerk. But here again, so starts with the no bucket and you should not go any further in one bonding area than the previous meaning as you get to know someone through time, then you
start to build trust as you trust them. Then you can rely on them for some specific needs and things that are important to you. And then commitment should come after a healthy amount of knowing trusting and relying on someone. I'm going to say that again, commitment should come after a healthy amount of knowing, trusting and relying on someone, which means, in dating, we really have to work to not escalate one or more of the buckets until we begin to know someone. And as Christians, we fail
this a lot. Yeah. And I love y'all. And this is not to shame you at all. It's just to say, let's wake up and say, there, you know what? It's not a badge of honor to commit to someone early on. I have sometimes people in my DMs. I had a DM lately. I'm not going to name anybody because I don't do that. However, a person said, I knew from date one, God told me, this is my person. I was like, oh, you're here. And then like a week or two later, they're like, we're getting engaged in the spring.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, like literally, I'm like, Lord Jesus can, you know, Holy Spirit can make them right now because they don't really, they haven't gone through this process. And I definitely grew up in church circles where I heard the similar story. And they were still married 20, 30, 40 years later. And it was really cool to hear. But it's really rare. And you get married really quick. Yeah. And you know, like, I'm not questioning people's ability
to hear God. I just have a lot of doubt or I have a really strong desire to test that. Like, did you actually hear that? And here's the thing, babe, even if they did hear from God. Okay, let's just take it a step further. We said this earlier, people, we never hear people really regretting taking time. Yeah. So even if you heard from God, let's just air quotes, you heard from God, we, I still urge you do not rush into anything with this person. See them through time.
Why are Christian marriages also out of 50% divorce rate? Yeah. Because people are not getting to know the other person through time. They are saying, God told me, this is it. I see a great potential in this person. Let's go. Let's move forward. Yeah. And they're getting married. But then Christian marriages are also 50% divorce rate right now. Yeah. And look, and, and I hear this a lot. What if as far as like the getting emotionally naked or physically very intimate, it's like,
I have to know if we're compatible before we get married. We have to build comfort and trust in these areas before we get married. And to that, I say two things. One is time is your friend. You are in no rush, no matter how old you are, time is on your side. Gary Thomas, this should be etched in your brain if you're single. Would you rather be married for two years and have 48 years of a miserable marriage? Oh, would you rather date for four years and have 46
years of a great marriage? Right. Like it is the trade off is just so not worth it. And we just think in like days and weeks and months when we should be thinking in years. Yeah. And then the second thing is especially physically, that's probably the biggest one because I hear from like a secular perspective. It's like, how are you going to get married to somebody without even physically knowing them? You know, you got to try out before you buy it. I hate it. It's so horrible. But yeah,
here's the reality and she didn't know this. I'm not married. So we'll report back on this in six months. But like sex and some of these things that spiritual nakedness, that spiritual intimacy, becoming one, the emotional, you know, connection and becoming one, that should be a very new, like unfamiliar experience. It like awkward, you know, because there is so much beauty in figuring out together. I don't know if it needs to be awkward. But yeah. Okay. What look?
Awkward, heavy work. But unfamiliar. It should be very unfamiliar. Um, I just agree. Because you build, because you build, yeah, you should build together. But I do believe that we as Christians have had very very little and limited sexual education about ourselves. And, and so with that, I believe that we should be re educating ourselves as singles because the purity culture said, don't look, don't think, don't do anything or else you will get
a chlamydia and die. Basically. Yeah. As you enter into the test, the waters, I'm saying to understand your body, how it functions, understand yourself. Yeah. Well, and you always have engagement, you know, and primarily on all those, and all to figure that stuff out. Yes. But that's where it's like you can't be super shut down to your sexuality either. Anyway, side conversation, side note. That'll be a good one. Yeah. Oh, I've talked about that. That's my chapter three of my book,
honey. Um, but anyway, it's so, you know, within this model, we're not saying that with touch, like you should necessarily be having sex as the, as you're knowing, trusting, relying, committing, goes up, that's not what we're saying. You need to develop your own sexual ethic. JG and I have not had sex at all. And so that's not what we're saying. And we are engaged. We're just saying really think about, especially the like you're pacing and your priority in like the way you're
doing relationships, no trust, rely, commit, touch. It should be going in that order. And you should be like, and then eventually this is great too. It's a great model also for when you're in a healthy relationship and in a marriage, like those levers should all be decently high and in balance in order to have a really healthy relationship. I hope so. Because I mean, imagine, imagine touch being super high, but trust and rely being really low. Yeah. Doesn't really sound like an emotionally
healthy marriage. Yeah. Exactly. You know, or the inverse, you know, trust and relies really high, like that's not the issue, but touch is really low. Yeah. Like that's not healthy either. Yeah, I agree, babe. Um, well, guys, we really hope and pray that this helped you talking about boundaries and pace. And, um, you know, this has been something, JG and I, we haven't done all of this perfectly by any means, but it was, we are really intentional about the pace of our relationship, I would say.
Yeah. And that was, you know, that was because of you, you know, in your dating challenge. Yeah. You know, so it happened to work out really well because I did the dating. Yeah. But even if it didn't, we probably would have taken our time. Yeah. I think so. I mean, that was, and we said this before, taking it one day at a time. Yeah. And it's our motto. And what was pretty fun was like the last like two to three weeks of that three month challenge was pretty exciting because we,
we both, you know, felt that gravitation. And we were just kind of, she, Kate was, you know, what I was so attracted to is Kate had mentors and very close friends. Because she was getting the, you know, blessing from. Yeah. And that was like, oh my gosh, that is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Because she knew her tendencies. She knew her weaknesses. Yeah. And she relies on the council of godly wise friends. Yeah. Which I'm like, what more could you ask for from your partner?
You guys, what a great time talking today. We really hope this helped you, blessed you, and we can't wait to do even more episodes. I know. J'enjec. I hope this was fun. It was fun. Yeah. I had fun. I had fun. He did a great job, baby. I love you. I love you too. And we love you guys. All right, guys, we'll see you later. Bye, bye. Bye. The Heart of Dating podcast is created by Kate Wormen. It is a part of the converged podcast
network. Our incredible editor is the one and only Scott Carro. Our theme music was developed by the amazing Christian Ladou, special shout out to Andrile Maga and Gabriela Asperu, who make the show possible each week and help to keep me sane. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, or if you've never written us a review or ranked us on iTunes, we'd encourage you to do so because it helps us so much to get this podcast into more people's ears. We launch our podcast each
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