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wellthatsclever · 6 months ago

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Finding A Husband With God’s Help

Roosh Valizadeh

The second edition of my book for women, Lady, has been released. It now contains a Prologue (shared below) intended for Christian women to aid them in their search for a suitable husband while avoiding secular behaviors and traps. Lady is available in eBook, paperback, and audiobook. Click here to learn more.

I originally wrote Lady for secular women who wanted to get married and were ready to make changes after failing to find a husband with casual dating. I was agnostic at the time and attempted to offer an intermediate step between the secular world and the world of God for women who felt that casual dating was wrong but didn’t yet trust God to provide them with a suitable husband.

It would be impossible to retrofit Lady as a Christian work. It contains too many secular ideas and cost-benefit arguments, and promotes behaviors that could be classified as sinful, so instead I have written this prologue for Christian women who want to get the best out of Lady without risking their salvation. Below you’ll find direct quotes from Lady followed by a correction that has been guided by my developing Christian faith.

“In life, there is a time for hearing ‘sweet little lies,’ as the Fleetwood Mac song tells us, and there is a time for knowing the truth so that you can improve your life.” “Improve your life” in what way? In terms of the benefits, comforts, and pleasures you can receive? In the amount of pride you develop for being a beautiful or “good” person? In Lady I advised you to embark on a journey of self-improvement to increase your “value,” but in the eyes of God, your value is determined by your faith, not your skill at appearing better before worldly men. The only improvement you need is to increase your faith and turn away from sin, and doing those two things alone will yield enough for you to bond with a man who has a similar level of faith as you do. The last thing you want is to make yourself appealing on a skin-deep level to a man lusting after external beauty. More effort should be put into improving the internal, in the form of the spiritual, than the external, for if you want to drink from a cup, it’s more important for the inside to be clean than the outside.

“Our basic nature is to survive and pair-bond with our sexual opposite… to accomplish this end, nature gave men and women their own set of specific tools.” Our basic nature is first and foremost to serve the will of God. For most people, His will entails getting married, working out your salvation with your spouse, and sowing the seeds of salvation for your children. It is true that God gave women a set of tools that are different from those He gave to men, but those tools must ultimately be harnessed to serve God’s will, not your own will or goals. If you want to get married and have children, and you’re not praying to God for strength or help to achieve this end, you will be tempted to date many men so that you can make the “right” choice. You will try to find out whether you are “sexually compatible” with a man. You will wonder whether taking a trip to Italy will allow you to obtain a better-looking man with a pleasing accent. Disconnected from God, our choices are likely to be infused with deception, and so God must be involved every step of the way. In the practical sense, this means intense prayer and receiving guidance from priests, monks, and devout Christians around you.

“[T]he point of all this is not merely to get married, but to transcend the material world for the immaterial experiences of love, family, and a life that is compatible with your feminine essence.” I was close with this statement but still off the mark. Where does love come from? God. Who “invented” the family? God. Who created your life? God. Without God, love is lust, family is just a checkbox on your bucket list, and life is meant to be enjoyed in this world only. There is no transcendence if you’re deceived by the schemes of the world. Only God allows you to transcend. Only God can grant you salvation and eternal life. God must be a part of whatever you pursue, and if you can’t see the man who desires you as sent by God, you should wait for another man.

The materialistic goals you pursue are business transactions. You weigh the costs and the benefits, and may even write the “pros” and “cons” on a piece of paper, just like the self-improvement gurus teach. You marry a man because he passed your analysis and is the best you can get, but what happens when the marriage gets difficult? What happens if he gets sick or loses his job? Now your business transaction is not looking so great, your piece of paper needs to be updated, and you’ll want to abandon ship—like so many women do—instead of enduring. But if you believe your husband was sent to you by God, and you are serving Him through the marriage, you will endure the trial as a way to please the Lord instead of running away. You will stay in order to deepen your faith. This is the difference between a secular woman and a Christian woman. The secular woman will remain in a situation only if there are material rewards but will flee when things turn sour. The Christian woman, on the other hand, uses her faith to preserve the family “in sickness and in health” and walks away only if God wills it.

Be careful of making a false god out of motherhood and family. Yes, being a mother is by default the best thing you can do with your life, but motherhood is not the god. Family is not the god. Your husband, an icon of Christ, is how you serve God, but he is not a god. The One God must come before everything in this world, because when isolated from God, you will simply not make the right choice about which man to marry or be able to bear the multitude of problems that happen within any marriage.

“Before you can get into a relationship with a man, you first have to attract him… a man must be attracted to you physically before he will begin to attach himself emotionally.” Your physical beauty comes from your faith in God. You are thin because you turn away from the sin of gluttony. You have long hair and act like a woman because you cherish your God-given femininity. From accepting how God created you, you don’t have to put on makeup, shape your butt in the gym through hours of exercise, or apply fake nails or eyelashes. The natural beauty that flows from your faith is all you need to attract a man. Otherwise, you’ll disfigure yourself into a trendy ideal of beauty with a focus on being sexy, which merely attracts men who want a trendy woman. Women who obsess about external beauty inevitably become objects of sexual desire by men who just want to get laid.

In Lady I explained how the main form of bait you should use to attract a man is beauty, but it should be your faith, because only with faith can you be truly beautiful. You can place a supermodel in front of me right now, with her perfect facial structure and hair, but I wouldn’t see beauty. I would see a fallen woman who sold her soul for fame and money. Many men covet porn stars, but you can imagine the type of man you will attract if you try to imitate them. You don’t want a man who cannot tell the difference between a disguise of beauty and the real thing, but to get there, you must actually possess the real thing, and that only comes with faith. The stronger your relationship with God, the more beautiful you will appear to a man who also has a relationship with God. Think of beauty, grace, humility, and elegance as side effects of leading a Christian life, not the goals themselves.

“I know it’s frustrating that so many men just want to use you for sex, but from the standpoint of men surveying the available women in their local environment, it’s the most logical default option to have.” Wrong, it’s the most sinful default option to have! Just because so many women are bad, that doesn’t mean men should follow them with their tongues hanging out of their mouths, and just because a supposedly “good” man demands sex before marriage, that doesn’t mean you should follow him.

I can’t stress how much of a reversal I’ve experienced when it comes to premarital sex. As of this writing, I’m chaste. I do not fornicate or masturbate. I do not implement game tactics to meet random women in public. I do not date with the goal of physical intimacy, and would only consider traditional courtship. If, after several years, I do not meet a suitable woman, then it is God’s will for me to remain single. I definitely would not whirl up the Tinder app on my phone in a panic or change myself to conform to the fallen world, and neither should you. If there is no man out there who allows you to maintain your walk with Christ, then God may have given you the gift of lifelong chastity, like He may have given me.

Be extremely careful of men who are sexually active, and by that I mean a man who is not against premarital sex, masturbation, or pornography. At a minimum, he should be struggling to reduce or eliminate his sinful habits in order to please God. What is the point of choosing a secular man who will reluctantly wait until marriage to have sex with you but in the meantime masturbate to naked women on a computer screen? Whether he masturbates or fornicates, he is controlled by the deadly sin of lust, and this will damage any marital home in the future. While no man is perfect, he should be ascending to Christ and attempting to control his sins with God’s help when he encounters you. It is not your responsibility to present the Gospel to a man for the first time or be his personal savior.

“If a man has a stable job, has similar family values to yours, and you enjoy spending time with him in spite of his flaws, there isn’t much more you can look for in a long-term partner.” As you would expect, we need to add to that his faith. In fact, it should be number one, because all the family values you seek will sprout from faith. If a man has the right values but doesn’t have God in his life, I must wonder how good those values will be when he is tested, or whether he may be putting on an act in order to achieve his materialistic goal of marriage. On the other hand, if by all appearances a man is in a woeful state but has the right faith, or at least a faith that is deepening, I would put more stock in him than in one who is faithless yet appears more polished.

Since God ordained a husband to lead his wife, a man’s faith should be developed enough that you feel secure following him. While no one’s faith is perfect, you should not identify so many problems with his that you feel he’s doing it all wrong or is deceived. If his faith is less developed than yours, you should at least feel that it’s growing fast enough so that he can soon surpass you. The last thing you want is to serve as your husband’s spiritual leader. God created Eve from Adam, not the other way around; if a man is sorely lacking in the faith department, leave him be until he can fully receive God’s grace.

“[You should] postpone physical intimacy to weed out men who only want sex. I therefore advise you to kiss a man on the lips no sooner than date two and to have sex with him no sooner than date nine. (Oral or anal sex counts as sex.)” If you’re serving Jesus Christ, you should not participate in sex before marriage, or in any other behavior that could potentially lead to sex. This includes lip kissing, cuddling, and holding hands. The ideal is not to do anything with a man who isn’t your husband that you wouldn’t do with your grandfather. Refrain from behaviors that put you or a man in a state of physical arousal, because once that occurs, fornication is not far off. If you’re with a man who refuses to abide by these rules, or makes a big show of not being able to stay in control because you are turning him on, ditch him. He doesn’t care about serving God and only wants to manipulate you in order to receive pleasure from your body.

It’s upsetting to see so many self-identifying Christians throw sexual morality out the window. You will encounter many of them who declare their love for Jesus Christ while fornicating and cohabitating, but the teachings of Christ have not changed in 2,000 years. His expectations of us have not altered. He does not want us to fornicate before marriage. If you love Him as He loves you, abide by his commandment to turn away from sexual immorality. In a sex-obsessed world, this will be an impossible task without His help. Whenever sexual temptation knocks on your door, recite the Jesus Prayer until the temptation fades: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“If you’re out in public, walk slowly as if you’re not in a hurry to be somewhere [so that men will approach you].” I can no longer advise you to meet men in public. While it is statistically possible to meet your future husband in a beautiful park, you are far more likely to meet a player or secular man who wants to fornicate with you. There is a reason random encounters were the principal means by which I obtained fornication in the past: they are the best way to meet a lot of women in a short amount of time and screen for those who are sexually willing. I gave detailed scripts for men to meet women in bars, cafés, and public venues where social ties were not needed. Men who have no attachment to their community can just pop right in front of a woman, make her feel happy, and take her to bed. There is too much temptation involved with meeting a man in such a way.

That said, it is always possible that Divine Providence will send you a man who appeared out of the bushes in a park, but don’t seek out that outcome. Instead, focus on events that draw in the right type of man. For example, you may want to attend the yearly Armenian Food Festival held by a church, and there in the corner is a man with a large beard who explains to you how his mom makes dolma and börek. For every one woman who meets a man at a food festival or farmers market, a dozen will meet them through their church or social groups. It’s better to invest in community-based avenues than random encounters.

“I do think traditional ways are best for long-term relationships, but achieving this in a non-traditional age is impossible.” This statement is an indication of how little faith I had at the time. If you serve God, you will become traditional without trying. Lean on God and He will give you the strength to resist the temptations that the non-traditional world offers. If I ever have children, I don’t doubt that the family home would be traditional. We would grow our own food and repair things that break down. We would homeschool. We would keep out television sets and damaging entertainment. Most importantly, our home would be centered on Christ, and manifesting from that faith will be what outwardly appears as traditionalism. I’ve met countless Christians who are doing it, and I’m sure that, with God’s help, you can do it as well.

“Experiment in the bedroom with sexy outfits, dirty talk, role-playing, and different-colored wigs. Wear a short skirt in public so that he’s aroused and can’t wait to get you home.” Sex-addict Roosh was talking here. Most secular men fear that their sex lives will suffer in marriage. In essence, they’ve made an idol out of sexual pleasure, putting it above the marriage. If a man does the opposite and puts marriage above sex, he will be able to endure the prospect of never again having sex with his wife if—for example—she develops a serious medical condition. You do not want a man who is obsessed with sexual pleasure, because once the sex gets boring, and it will, he will start to make demands that reduce you to a sex doll or a pornographic actress he saw on the internet. This extends to performing anal or oral sex. If your husband is not satisfied with normal sex, then perhaps the problem lies with him. You certainly have a wifely duty to provide your husband with sex if you are physically able, but you should not have to morph into someone else to satisfy his uncontrolled lust or perverted kinks.

“I know many men who are avoiding marriage solely because of divorce laws.” And you should leave those men alone. Let them remain single and shout to the world that divorce is unfair and life is stacked against them while they pursue fornication or masturbation. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, life has been difficult for both men and women. Traps set by the demons are all around us, but those traps should not stop us from serving God in one of His most important sacraments: marriage. A man who is scared of marriage because of divorce has put worldly concerns above trust in God. He has no faith that God will deliver him from any future tribulation, and is more concerned with his money and comforts.

Let’s say I get married to a Christian woman and she later becomes influenced by Satan and divorces me. She takes my house and most of my money. Should I curse God for this misfortune? Quite the opposite. I should thank Him for putting me through a trial that is designed to deepen my faith in a way that only God knows. Perhaps I would have sacrificed my salvation if I had stayed with that woman. Perhaps the house and money distanced me from God in a way I couldn’t see. Besides, why did I accumulate so many possessions? Is it through serving God that a man’s fortune is amassed? If I marry a woman who I believe is sent by God, and she later divorces me, I have nothing to lament, for that is God’s will. The problem is therefore not unfair divorce laws, or that marriage is rigged against men, but a lack of faith. Christian men should not let Caesar’s laws prevent them from serving God through marriage, an institution that He created for us.

One point I didn’t address in Lady is how to know whether or not a man is right for you. I tackled the problem as if it were something of a checklist, where if a man has certain qualities, he should be good enough, but those qualities are materialistic in nature and do not provide any assurance that he will be a good husband in the future. In the end, only God knows whether you should marry a man based on how the marriage will affect your salvation, and the only way to find out if a man is sent to you by God is to pray about it continually and seek spiritual guidance from elders, priests, and monks who God may enlighten to help you make the right choice.

God may not want you to have a “happy” marriage that resembles a Disney movie. From God’s perspective, your salvation is His utmost concern. He wants you to be saved, and it’s very possible that for you to be saved, you need to enter into a difficult marriage, or a marriage where your husband dies young, or perhaps not to be married at all. By marrying the wrong man from God’s perspective, you may have a great marriage materialistically but risk your salvation. By marrying the better man, your life could have significantly more struggles, but you will be saved. Pray to God for weeks or months about the man who is courting you. Ask Him whether this is the man for you, and to enlighten others around you to help you make the correct decision. Don’t go it alone and don’t depend entirely on your emotions or instincts. Depend on God to make the final decision.

If I rewrote Lady today, God would be on every page. All good comes from God, and if you want to serve Him through marriage, you need to seek out God every step of the way. Thankfully, Lady is not wholly incompatible with the Christian life. This isn’t a surprise, since I wrote Lady right before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. He was working through me even though I felt that He was absent from my life. Praise be to God for producing a work that served as a rudimentary beginning to healing the immense damage I had done to both men and women through my prior writings. I pray that He will continue to work through me not only for my salvation, but also for the salvation of those who follow me.

#marriage #matrimony #Christ #Christianity #orthodoxy #roosh v #valizadeh #faith #relationships

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queer-as-used-by-tolkien · 2 years ago

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You once said “there is no wrong way to do girlhood” but what do you actually mean? The Bible and Christianity do present certain standards for men’s behavior and for women’s behavior, it doesn’t treat men and women as identical (ie women can’t be priests/pastors for example, cross dressing is generally sinful, etc). This is coming from someone who doesn’t quite fit the expectations of the stereotype of gender in modern culture by the way not from a place of some radical, I know Christianity is not so shallow as to say something like “men can’t be emotional/women can’t be brave” or something stupid like “men can’t like flowers/women can’t like sports” but Christianity also favors “traditional gender roles” and I have been simply confused for a long time..

Womanhood and Biblical womanhood are two different things. I also, for the record, generally see a difference between political statements and religious ones, because I do not like the idea of giving the government spiritual authority or allowing it to legislate morality. Making rules for a wide swath of people that don't necessarily conform to a single religion is tricky, and it's not the government's business.

Now, to answer you question: Biblically, yes, there are specific roles that men and women play, especially in marriage. But I don't believe that not perfectly fulfilling Biblical womanhood makes someone not a woman. At best 'woman' means someone who was created/designed to fulfil Biblical womanhood; the fact that many women are not does not make them less of women, and that's what my original comment was about: being a woman is not dependent on a person's behavior, inclinations, likes and dislikes, etc.

You mention the Bible having specific standards for men and women, and a lot of people, we both know, don't conform to those standards. But the Bible also has standards for human beings in general, and not conforming to those standards doesn't make us not human.

I could talk more about how I don't think the government should have as much authority as it does over marriage, but I'll leave my thoughts under a readmore since you didn't exactly ask those questions ;)

Thanks for the ask, I loved responding! If you have any more questions feel free to reach out, these are topics I love discussing :)

Marriage is a Judeo-Christian religious construct, with the specific role of foreshadowing/being a type of the relationship between Christ and the Church, and if it doesn't fulfil that purpose in all the ways outlined in the Bible, it should not be called marriage. Alas, the world has taken the word 'marriage' and I don't see the church gaining exclusive rights to it anytime soon, so I'm advocating for the idea of the church using the word 'holy matrimony' (as, with the word 'holy' in it, I don't see the government/politics picking it up anytime soon). So in that sense, you could be married (legally married, living together, having sex, raising children) without being bonded in holy matrimony (married by/in a church, being Christian, being an opposite-sex relationship, following Biblical gender roles, being faithful to each other, raising children the way the Bible instructs, not getting divorce except in the case of fornication, etc).

The government should have no say in who can and cannot get married (even when 'marriage' is a purely secular social construct). Any two people, regardless of gender, political or religious ideology, etc. should be able to sign a document for all the legal trappings of marriage, the only exceptions being in areas that the government has legitimate authority over, in this case, for example, minors and legal consent, etc.

I don't believe the government should ban gay marriage, because it's not the government's business. I don't believe there should be any legislation for or against marriage. Marriage is just a pre-written contract the government lets you sign to give both spouses some legal benefits (such as hospital visiting rights).

Holy matrimony, on the other hand, is wholly the church's business, and the church should (and should be legally able to) refuse to bond in holy matrimony any two individuals who do not plan to live up to God's design for it, being the expression of the union of Christ and the Church, and it should be acknowledged that, as holy matrimony is the expression of the union of Christ and the Church, God has final say over what is and is not holy matrimony.

#marriage #faith #Christianity #bible #holy matrimony #gender roles #biblical womanhood #biblical manhood #biblical marriage #traditional gender roles #Tio's thoughts on gender

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