Marriage Myth: Your Attraction is Fixed

The Myth That Attraction Is Fixed

But each month we do a different myth about marriage. This month's myth is that your sense of attraction is fixed. Your sense of attraction is fixed. The fact is that senses of attraction are variable.

I experience this a lot when I try to introduce women to men or men to women. A lot of times people will respond that, oh, this person is just not my type. And I'll say, oh, OK. And so I'll introduce them to somebody else and somebody else.

And I find out a lot of times people will be very picky. And they'll have something particular that they're looking for. And sometimes they have trouble even articulating what that thing is. I notice with a lot of people, too, is because of what they're looking for and their sense of attraction, they've really put themselves in a hole where it's getting harder and harder to find someone because they themselves are growing older and there's less people in the dating pool.

There's a lot of qualities that they might not have anymore that they had in their youth. And so it's becoming harder and harder to find someone to marry. And so by this sense of attraction being so fixed, something that's just not flexible, it really has made it impossible for someone to find a spouse.

Well, biblically, the Bible tells us that fruit of the spirit is self-control. We have self-control. That is not just self-control of your actions given your desires, but that's even self-control over your desires themselves.

And if they are oriented the way that God would have them to be oriented, I think you'll find that it wouldn't be so difficult to find someone. We live in an era where it's difficult, but it wouldn't be so difficult to find someone.

Nature, Nurture, and Scriptural Commands About Attraction

Now, let me argue for this because maybe it seems obvious to you that a sense of attraction would be variable, or maybe it doesn't. I don't know where you're coming from, but let me just argue for this.

Your sense of attraction is something that is not fixed. It is something that can be legitimately changed by you. First of all, just think about where attraction comes from. Okay, there's nature and nurture you could talk about.

Obviously, there's a nature to your sense of attraction. If you're a man, God's made you with an attraction towards women. If you're a woman, He's made you with attraction towards men. And a lot of times people have in them something that desires someone similar to them.

If you've ever heard the question asked about a couple, are they siblings or soulmates? Have you ever heard that before? Because a lot of times people are drawn to people who look somewhat similar to them.

So there's something about nature, but why would we assume that our nature is as it ought to be? Aren't we born in sin? Aren't we born with a corrupt nature? Isn't it frequently the case that people have poorly oriented desires because of their corrupt nature?

If you were to meet someone who says, I'm a homosexual. That's just how God made me. I've got these desires and He gave those desires to me. Wouldn't you point him to the Bible and say, this is not what the Bible says.

The Bible says you actually need to orient your desires as God has told you to. So it may be the case even with desires that are heterosexual in nature, but just not oriented quite like they ought to be.

On the second half of that, there's nurture. Now, your environment is going to shape the kind of things that you find attractive. If you are in a very small town and there's not a lot of options, you will look at the best things available and you will find that attractive.

If you live in a very big area, you're going to have a very different sense of attraction. Isn't it not the case that people have dating apps where they're just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and a lot of those are just bots and people have a sense that they have far more options than they really do and there are way more fish in the sea than there really are.

Once again, why would we assume that we are just fixed in what we've experienced such that our sense of attraction cannot be changed or that what we've experienced is what we ought to have experienced and our sense of attraction is what it should be.

Clearly, you're shaped by media, you're shaped by the people you're around. There's just all kinds of things shaping you. And we live in a very special era of human history where we're shaped by a lot of things that people were not shaped by for thousands of years.

You should be aware that there's a lot going on that may not be the healthy experience that people had for thousands of years. And there's all the more reason to make sure that your sense of attraction is in check, is what it ought to be.

Okay, so that's just nature and nurture. Those are the factors. Just looking at those, it's obvious that this is something that can be changed. Secondly, there are commands given in Scripture that tell us what kinds of senses of attraction we should have to men or women.

First of all, we're supposed to be attracted to godly character. Proverbs 31 .30 says, Typically, when Scripture talks about something being vain, it's not talking about it being meaningless. That's often what the word vain means.

But in the Bible, I've noticed that when it uses this word, it usually just means fleeting. These are temporary things. And so it tells us rather not to look at what's fleeting, what's temporary, but instead look to what lasts much longer than that.

A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Okay, so we're supposed to be attracted to godly character. If you're not attracted to godly character, would someone say, okay, well, that's just not how God made you.

You don't have to be attracted to godly character. You would recognize, oh no, I need to develop a sense of attraction for godly character. The same thing for ungodly character. The Bible commands that we not be attracted to those who are ungodly.

In Proverbs 5 .25, it speaks of the adulterous woman.

It says,.

So it instructs us not to be attracted to certain people. And then it commands attraction to your own wife. Proverbs 5 .18 -19, A lot of times the way people talk about attraction and how fixed it is for them, you would think that if they were in a marriage where their spouse loses their physical beauty or physical handsomeness, that they would then just have no capacity to find that other person attractive.

You are commanded in Scripture to find your spouse attractive through all your days. In fact, that's the point of the phrase, the wife of your youth. A lot of people hear that and they think that I should enjoy my wife in my youth.

Not your wife in your youth, your wife, the wife of your youth. Okay, what is the wife of your youth? Solomon's writing the Proverbs. He's got a lot of wives. Okay, what's the wife of his youth? That's his oldest wife.

This is talking about enjoying your wife even in her old age and finding her body a delight. So we're commanded to be attracted to things that we might not be initially attracted to. Now there's another passage that I think illustrates this very well.

Amnon and Tamar as a Warning About Disordered Desire

So moving on from just the commands that were given to this narrative. Consider how Amnon had a sense of attraction that was greater than what it should be for Tamar and then afterwards was less than what it should be for Tamar.

Very clearly, he loves more than he ought to love in a physical beauty sense. And he hates more than he ought to hate afterward. If you're not familiar with this, I'll just read the text. Now Absalom, David's son, had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar.

And after a time, Amnon, David's son, loved her. Okay, so Amnon and Tamar are half siblings. And Amnon was so tormented that he made himself ill because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin. And it seemed impossible to Amnon to do anything to her.

But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, a son of Shimea, David's brother. And Jonadab was a very crafty man. And he said to him, O son of the king, why are you so haggard morning after morning?

Will you not tell me? Amnon said to him, I love Tamar, my brother Absalom's sister. Jonadab said to him, lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill. And when your father comes to see you, say to him, let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat and prepare the food in my sight that I may see it and eat it from her hand.

So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill. And when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my sight that I may eat from her hand.

Then David sent home Tamar saying, go to your brother Amnon's house and prepare food for him. So Tamar went to her brother Amnon's house where he was lying down and she took dough and kneaded it and made cakes in his sight and baked the cakes.

And she took the pan and emptied it out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, send out everyone from me. So everyone went out from him. Then Amnon said to Tamar, bring the food into the chamber that I may eat from your hand.

And Tamar took the cakes that she had made and brought them into the chamber to Amnon, her brother. But when she brought them near to him, he took hold of her and said to her, come lie with me, my sister.

She answered him, no, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel. Do not do this outrageous thing. As for me, where could I carry my shame? As for you, you would be as one of the outrageous fools in Israel.

Now, therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold you from me. But he would not listen to her. And being stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her. Now, just to stop there for a moment.

Clearly, Amnon has a sense of attraction to Tamar that is greater than what it should be. Okay, he needs to use self-control, get in check, not just his actions, but even his desires, even his sense of what he's finding beautiful.

Right, if you have a sibling, you find them, you can be aware that they are an attractive person, but you should not be attracted to them in certain ways. And if you find yourself attracted to them in certain ways, you need to get that in check, not just your outward actions.

Okay, now after that, then Amnon hated her with very great hatred, so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, get up, go. But she said to him, no, my brother, for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me.

But he would not listen to her. He called the young man who served him and said, put this woman out of my presence and bolt the door after her. Now she was wearing a long robe with sleeves for thus were the virgin daughters of the king dressed.

So his servant put her out and bolted the door after her. And Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore. And she laid her hand on her head and went away crying aloud as she went.

So clearly afterward, Amnon should care enough about her to take care of her to make sure she doesn't end up desolate as she ends up becoming. But instead he hates her and despises her and finds her less attractive than he ought to.

Rather than caring for her, he's so disgusted by her after he's had relations with her that he doesn't want to be near her. And so once again, his heart needs to be in check. Okay, so here you have a clear narrative example of someone whose sense of attraction is too great for someone on one point in their life and then too little for someone at a later point.

Clearly, attraction is something that is not fixed and is something that often frequently needs correction. All right, now people will often respond though, well, I don't wanna fake it. If I, you know, I don't wanna marry someone that I'm not attracted to and then I will have to fake it.

Okay, so physical beauty is a real thing. I'm not denying that physical beauty is a real thing. If you marry someone who is physically beautiful, it will be easier than if you marry someone who has less physical beauty to enjoy their company.

That is a physical reality that I am not denying. All the same, your appreciation of someone's physical beauty being a variable thing, you can begin setting yourself up now for success by not having such a limited sense of attraction that you would not be able to appreciate the person that you may end up marrying.

Okay, so I'm not saying fake it. What I'm saying is truly change it. Right, a lot of times when I'm counseling someone from God's word about some sort of obedience that they should go reconcile with someone that they're at odds with and they tell me something like, well, I don't wanna fake it.

I don't wanna, I don't want to, you know, pretend that I'm good with them and I'm not. Well, sure, but you should start changing your heart now. This is not about just the outward action. This is also about the heart.

Other people will say, well, you know, I have a type. Perhaps you're looking for a particular shade or for a particular shape. I think a lot of times though, what's going on with a type in addition to everything I've already said about nature and nurture, et cetera, is that a lot of times people just wanna feel special and they hang on to that, just kind of like their favorite color or something, you know, or like a kid and that's part of their identity.

You know, my favorite dinosaur is a T-Rex and I'm just gonna hang on to that until the day I die, right? Sometimes that's what's going on when people say they have a type. It's part of their identity.

It's part of what makes them feel special. You know, if that's what's going on with you in addition to just the nature and nurture stuff, recognize that and just get rid of it. Don't let that hold you back from what God has for you.

Why You Should Change Your Sense of Attraction

So why should you do this? Well, first of all, the Bible's commanded it. The Bible's commanded that we value certain things above other things, right? That we not overvalue physical beauty, that we not undervalue spiritual beauty, that we not value wrong kinds of beauty.

It's commanded. And then not only that, but even like we talked about last time, be fruitful and multiply is one of the commands in scripture. There is imperative to get married, 1 Corinthians 7, because of temptations to immorality, each person should have their own spouse, their own husband, their own wife.

There is an imperative to pursue marriage if you are not gifted with the kind of self-control that you see in 1 Corinthians 7 of the person who would be licensed to not pursue marriage. And so if that's a command, in addition to the command to value certain things, certainly you should start changing your sense of attraction to be in line with what God would have it to be so that you could marry successfully.

Secondly, you don't want to miss out on the opportunities that you may have. Now, I don't know each and every one of you, but think about your history. Has it been the case that you're looking for something that doesn't exist or something that you can't have?

Maybe you're looking for something that's just too good to be true or it is so rare that when you do find it, that person's not interested in you. Don't limit yourself in this way. And what's going to happen is as you get older and older, you are going to have more and more things that you care about in a person.

You know, a lot of people pre -2020 didn't really care if someone was vaccinated or not vaccinated, but now that's one of the things on their checklist, what they care about, right? People are, you're going to develop all kinds of things that you care about more and more over time.

And it's going to be harder and harder to find someone who's grown in a different direction than you rather than someone who is growing with you. So do not miss out on the opportunities you have. It's going to get harder and maybe it already has.

Maybe you're at a point where you realize it's gotten hard. Well, go ahead and recognize that now and deal with it now rather than continuing to look for something that you can't have. Okay, so what should you be looking for?

What should you be valuing? Okay, first of all, value, and this might be surprising, but real physical beauty. You might be looking at the wrong things when you're looking at physical beauty. For example, a lot of people are very distracted by clothing and makeup and the presentation of beauty, right?

So you could have two women that are equally attractive, but one of them dresses more sensually, right? And a man will be more attracted to that rather than to the other and won't even realize what's going on, won't even realize the way that he's being tricked.

There should be something in you that doesn't like that, right? And says, that notices that you're being tricked, you're being manipulated by someone in the way that they're presenting themselves rather than that being real physical beauty.

So once again, physical beauty is a real thing. And so first of all, start off with valuing real physical beauty and not something fake that is distracting you. Secondly, value godliness, real spiritual traits.

1 Timothy 2 .9 says, likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire. Elsewhere in that book, Timothy commands that women dress themselves with good works.

This is what you should be looking for. You should be looking for good works. You should be looking for a lot of spiritual qualities that someone would have. So you should value both those things. And then more comments on what you should be looking physically for.

A lot of times the physical traits that you should be looking for are things that would communicate something about spiritual traits or maybe not even spiritual traits, but physical traits that indicate capacity for marriage.

So just a real simple one. You know, if once again, pretend we don't live in Silicon Valley where you can get a job just sitting at a computer all day. If you're looking for a husband to be a provider for you, it would make sense in a lot of circumstances to look for someone who's physically put together in a way that can do hard work.

Right?

So that says something about his capacity for playing the role of the husband. If someone is overweight, that says something about their capacity for self-control.

Right?

If they're someone who is fit, that says something about their capacity for self-control. So as you're evaluating these things, think about them in light of what they are communicating spiritually. Don't just think of them narrowly and what is my, you know, instant chemical reaction to seeing this picture.

Think about what it is that you are finding attractive about it so that you would be making, you would be acknowledging real physical beauty, but at the same time, not just sensuously being led astray by your body and your own fleshly reactions.

Same thing with clothing. What does the clothing communicate about this person's qualities? You know, are they covered in tattoos,.

Et cetera?

What does that communicate about them? These are things to consider because once again, not just the instant chemical reaction, but then think about what is this communicating about someone and then let me be attracted to that physical thing because of what it's communicating or unattracted to it because of what it's communicating.

Okay.

So when you pick up a book and you read it, everyone knows it's foolish to just judge a book by its cover. Now, sometimes you want to do that.

When I was a kid.

And I would go look around the library, a lot of times I would get the books that would have the most interesting covers and sometimes that was a good read. Other times, not so much. But you would be foolish to just lock yourself into only judging book by cover, rejecting all recommendations from people about a good book.

So it is with other people. Don't deprive yourself of the opportunities that you could have if you were to just be a little more open to the kinds of things that you should be looking for. To point us to the union between Christ and the church, did Christ go around looking for that bride that had all the right kind of qualities that anyone else would be looking for?

No, he really didn't. He was looking for the capacity of that union, his ability to provide what it would mean for her beauty eventually as she is dressed with the righteous deeds of the saints as it describes in Revelation.

He was looking to something more than just what immediate impressions might have given. Physical beauty is a real thing, but do not be so distracted by it that you cannot understand either what it's communicating or spiritual beauties that lie beyond it.

Prayer and Closing Exhortation

Let me go ahead and pray for us. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for all these people and for their pursuit of marriage. We ask that you would give us sensible judgments, that you would give us wisdom and that you would guide us to find valuable what you find valuable.

And that we would find.

Lacking value what you find lacking value. We pray that even though we are in a culture that makes pursuing marriage very difficult, that you would remove barriers that do not need to be there, especially when those barriers are found in our own hearts.

We ask that you would pour your blessings upon us, especially in the pursuit of marriage. In Jesus' name, amen. Yeah, it does seem like a common thing. And I think sometimes that can be meaningful, right?

Like, oh, I'm going to be a missionary in Russia. It helped to have somebody who speaks Russian, you know, something like that. But yeah, a lot of times people are, they have something.

That they want,.

But they want that more than they even want marriage itself. And so they're willing to throw away marriage itself to get this other thing.

That they want.

Or just have nothing at all. Which, that's the real problem is that people want certain things.

More than they want.

Marriage itself. And we are to want marriage. Those certain kinds of requirements. Yeah, because I've never heard a woman say, you know,.

A guy's got to be.

At least this tall or anything like that. Never heard anything.

Like that before.

But no, I think you're right that men have, they tend to have more requirements that are about physical beauty, but women do have.

A few of those requirements.

Often.

And not that that's nothing. I mean, it is something to have a couple where the man looks like he's someone who could protect this woman because he's taller than her, you know, et cetera. So it's not nothing.

At the same time, are we keeping our hearts in check with the degree to which we're desiring certain things? Bible says that man looks at the stature, but God looks at the heart. Moving quickly to being exclusive.

Exclusivity, Courtship, and Getting to Know Someone Wisely

A lot of people want that. How do you deal with that? If you go back on our YouTube channel a few months ago, there's a message that was about boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. So I think two things are true.

One, you should actually move quickly. Two, you shouldn't have exclusive relationships prior to getting engaged slash betrothed. The Bible does not authorize.

Any kind of.

Exclusive relationship outside of marriage. People who want a claim on another, like 1 Corinthians 7 describes for husband and wife so that they could have a jealousy about someone, claim that they own that person in a certain way that they can't have a relationship with others.

I don't think there's any legitimacy to any of that. Yet at the same time, it shouldn't take, especially for people who have been adults for a while, it shouldn't take years to figure out whether or not you would want to marry someone.

In fact, it shouldn't even take a whole year, I would say. It should take on the order of a few months if you were being very intentional about the kind of conversations you're having. So I would go back, watch that particular video that talks about the reasons.

You shouldn't have.

An exclusive relationship and that will give you more ammunition for that. But then at the same time, I would very much encourage you to pursue serious kinds of thoughtful conversations about marriage that would help you discern the matter quickly.

Well, a lot of people are trying to get to know each other solely through things like leisure, right? And you're not going to find a lot about someone just through leisure, just through enjoying time with one another.

Really, the way you're going to get to know someone is by interacting with them in other kinds of social contexts that are particularly targeted to discussing the matter of marriage, right? If you're discussing marriage with each other, if you have your family involved, this is the other thing.

You look at the Bible. It always has family involved in these kinds of things because it's not just a couple trying to figure it out. It's like a whole community trying to give them advice. The more you have things like that, the less you have to be so worried about it, right?

If it really is just, you know, in this few months have I figured it out, that's one thing. And you do have reason to think that you might be getting bamboozled. But if it's really, well, we've looked at this pretty intentionally and there's five people involved in this, you have a lot less reason.

To worry.

So I think I'm going to end up talking about that next month if we're able to meet next month because I really do think that that's the biggest problem that's missing in the pursuit of marriage is that most people are just doing it by themselves.

Yeah, and then there's the day-long interview.

And then the final interview.

And the behavioral interview.

Yes, exactly. You've got the...

So, sorry, was that a criticism that it sounds too clinical or was that just confirmation?

That's what it sounds like your answer is to me, which I think is a really smart way to approach it.

Yeah, if it does sound too clinical or sterile to folks, the Bible doesn't really, once again, it doesn't have that category of the kind of exclusive romantic relationship that we imagined before dating.

Now there's a place for excitement about the possibilities, for fondness for another person, but it doesn't have the kind of romance that most people imagine is supposed to be part of the process prior to actually having a claim on one another, which happens through betrothal.

I keep using the term betrothal because that's the biblical picture. It involves a real commitment as opposed to just engagement, which is something that could be broken because there's no vow involved.

Yeah, I don't know.

If years is a good idea. Once again, I don't think it needs to take very long, but maybe I am under the impression that a lot of times these would be years in the making in part because families are involved even before children are ready for marriage and they're thinking about these sorts of things,.

But a lot of times.

Even with something that goes by the name of courtship, there will be an exclusivity that the Bible doesn't permit. So this really isn't about the kind of word that you would put to the relationship. This isn't about dating versus courtship.

It's just about are we following the biblical model of not claiming something that isn't true prior to marriage and do we have that community involved or is it just me? Yeah, there's obviously always the basic stuff.

What do you do for work? What do you do for fun? You know, just getting to know someone, period. Then I think transitioning to and maybe this isn't the best way of framing the question, but a question along the lines of how long have you been.

In the market?

You know, what are you yeah, what are you looking for? What are you hoping for in your future? That kind of thing. You know, transitioning to talks directly about marriage.

Like I said,.

That might be a silly way of broaching the topic, but asking what a person's plans and hopes are for the future I think is a pretty good way of doing it. And you could also ask about their church experience.

What kind of things they've asked about their testimony, where they've come from spiritually, where they hope to go spiritually. Yeah, those are all good topics.