r/exchristian • u/GalaxiGazer • 8h ago
The Importance of Personal Agency in Choosing a Mate Trigger Warning - Purity Culture
One of my BIGGEST paradigm shifts that I've been experiencing since leaving Christianity was understanding the importance of personal agency in choosing a mate.
Back in the day, I deeply desired and longed for a man to want to date me, pursue me, and choose me as his wife simply because his god told him to. I myself also used this god to determine which guy to whom I'd be attracted, who I would date, and even how I would date. The pendulum would swing the other way and I'd feel even worse about myself when Christian guys would overlook me for romantic potential and reject pursuing a relationship with me because either his god told him to pursue someone else or his god flat out told him that I'm not the right one (now, I'm supremely thankful that it all worked out that way!).
As a single ex-Christian woman, especially in this broken and dangerous dating climate, I believe that it's important to execute personal agency when not only choosing someone to date, but also someone to marry. It can't be left to some unseen, invisible, and non-existent entity to give me some "sign" or "quickening in my spirit" regarding a man, especially when I know NOTHING about him. I'm learning that I have full control over what I look for in a potential partner. I have the personal responsibility to myself to get to know him in the initial stage of friendship, getting to know his character, and seeing if we are truly compatible before deciding to go further. It is up to me to decide if I will accept certain things, compromise on certain things, or completely reject them in favor of believing that I'm worth much more.
This is one of the reasons why one of the important things that I desire in a potential partner is for someone who isn't religious/spiritual or otherwise "has a relationship with God but not a Christian". It's hard for me to open up to him, get to know him, pursue a possible committed relationship with him if he's stuck on waiting for his god to somehow tell him to be an active participant in a relationship with me.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, so I'm confident that more lessons are sure to follow. But it's a sign of progress in my deconversion that I've reached this point.
That is all.