Can I Marry a Woman Half My Age?

00:00:00.000 | Here's today's email.

00:00:05.480 | Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast.

00:00:08.320 | Is it okay for me, an older Christian man, to marry a Christian woman half my age?

00:00:15.600 | I know I will be scoffed for asking such a question.

00:00:18.680 | Many will assume I'm chasing sex, youth, and beauty.

00:00:21.480 | However, that's not the case.

00:00:22.920 | It wasn't until this past year in my late 40s that I found myself for the first time

00:00:27.020 | attracted to women.

00:00:28.480 | I have struggled with same-sex attraction all my life, but I have never acted on those

00:00:31.700 | feelings.

00:00:33.060 | Just recently, I have experienced the Spirit moving me to walk more closely with Him.

00:00:37.140 | Simultaneously, I have been filled with the desire to get married to a woman and to become

00:00:41.460 | a father.

00:00:42.460 | I never had such desires before, nor did I think it was ever possible.

00:00:46.200 | I have felt ignored by God as I watched my friends get married and have children and

00:00:50.860 | seemingly get blessed by God, whereas I was always alone.

00:00:55.500 | Now in middle age, Jesus seems to be changing me, shaping me to become a husband of a wife

00:00:59.620 | and the father of her children.

00:01:01.860 | There is a young lady I'm friends with, and I find myself thinking about her a lot.

00:01:05.500 | She's exactly half my age.

00:01:07.500 | I'm old enough to be her father.

00:01:09.260 | Is such an age gap acceptable among believers?

00:01:13.100 | I think the first thing I would like to say is a word of thanks to God and then a word

00:01:20.040 | of commendation to our friend in his late 40s, that in spite of the brokenness of this

00:01:27.220 | fallen world manifest in his same-sex attraction all his life, he has not been disobedient

00:01:34.420 | to God's call on his life to be sexually upright in abstaining from homosexual practice.

00:01:41.820 | That is a remarkable triumph of God's grace, and for that I give public thanks to God and

00:01:51.540 | commendation to our friend.

00:01:54.200 | The Apostle Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4.3, "This is the will of God, your sanctification,

00:02:02.780 | that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body

00:02:11.220 | in holiness and honor."

00:02:14.320 | And I know that many people today think that such instructions concerning the will of God

00:02:20.440 | for our sexuality are simply human power moves, a means of shaming and oppressing and constricting

00:02:30.060 | and denying one's full humanity, when in fact God's ways are good and wise and far

00:02:38.000 | more satisfying than the lawlessness of this world, especially when you take into account

00:02:45.140 | all of reality and all of eternity.

00:02:48.740 | So I praise God for any instance like this one of triumph over the God of this world

00:02:56.540 | and over the power of sin for Christ's sake.

00:02:59.460 | This does mean, however, that the case in front of us is more complex than simply a

00:03:05.260 | matter of age.

00:03:07.180 | He has honestly stirred in the matter of his own experience of same-sex attraction.

00:03:14.140 | The question he puts is, "I am 48, she's 24."

00:03:18.700 | I'm just guessing because he said late 40s and twice her age, so let's say 48 and 24.

00:03:24.100 | I am 48, she's 24.

00:03:26.840 | Is such a gap acceptable among believers?

00:03:30.720 | And he probably knows as well as I that the question of this marriage is not going to

00:03:36.060 | be settled by an explicit biblical command.

00:03:40.100 | There isn't one that forbids this gap or commands it.

00:03:45.420 | The issue is resolved.

00:03:47.060 | It's going to be resolved by reflection on biblical principles which we pray will yield

00:03:54.020 | mature wisdom and discernment.

00:03:57.820 | So two brief thoughts. First, about the challenges of same-sex attraction in heterosexual marriage.

00:04:06.820 | It would be wrong, I think, of me to overlook that issue.

00:04:11.380 | The first is that the Bible puts a very high value on sexual relations in marriage.

00:04:18.100 | 1 Corinthians 7, 4, and 5, Paul says, "The husband should give his wife her sexual rights,

00:04:25.940 | and likewise the wife to her husband.

00:04:28.980 | For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does.

00:04:35.020 | Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

00:04:39.300 | Do not deprive one another," meaning of sexual relations, "except perhaps by agreement

00:04:46.700 | for a limited time."

00:04:49.260 | In other words, both husband and wife should seek and find in the marriage partner what

00:04:57.420 | they need for sexual satisfaction.

00:05:01.180 | Neither should be deprived by the other.

00:05:04.700 | Therefore, those who enter into marriage should be confident that they can fulfill this.

00:05:11.860 | The other thought is simply this.

00:05:14.380 | A woman in marriage should have her husband's entire sexual affection.

00:05:21.100 | His desires, his eyes, his actions should never go after another woman sexually or another man.

00:05:31.060 | In this way, he loves her, he honors her, she feels cherished as the unique and sole

00:05:38.220 | focus of his sexual pursuit.

00:05:43.340 | Both man and woman should enter into marriage with that expectation.

00:05:48.260 | Now, with regard to the age difference, there's no biblical prohibition of a 48-year-old man

00:05:57.540 | marrying a 24-year-old woman.

00:05:59.780 | The question is, will this difference present challenges that may prove so great that the

00:06:08.660 | marriage would not last or the marriage would be mainly miserable?

00:06:13.940 | That's a question for the man and the woman to think through, study through, pray through

00:06:20.620 | with much counsel from not a podcast like me, but a pastor or some close spiritual associates

00:06:28.940 | who know them well.

00:06:30.900 | They should be in a strong Bible-believing church.

00:06:35.260 | So let me mention a few things to take into consideration from my distance.

00:06:40.740 | Statistically, the greater the gap in ages, the greater the likelihood of divorce.

00:06:46.740 | One group of statistics that I consulted said that a gap of 10 years increases the likelihood

00:06:54.360 | of divorce by 39 percent.

00:06:56.340 | A gap of 20 years increases the likelihood of divorce by 95 percent.

00:07:00.980 | A gap of 30 years increases the likelihood by 172 percent.

00:07:06.220 | So if three out of 10 marriages fail, if both are 25 years old, then 8.7 marriages out of

00:07:15.340 | 10 fail when the 25-year-old marries a 55-year-old.

00:07:22.260 | Now one of the reasons for that failure rate is no doubt that physiologically, mentally,

00:07:31.520 | the gap widens as you get older rather than shrinking.

00:07:36.980 | The physical difference between a 48-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman is negligible.

00:07:43.980 | Mentally, physically, they can do all the same things.

00:07:48.140 | But when she's a vital, energetic 56, he will be 80.

00:07:54.100 | And the strength and the mental acuity of an 80-year-old does not relate to a 56-year-old

00:08:00.900 | the same way a 48-year-old relates to a 24-year-old.

00:08:05.100 | So both partners need to take very seriously this fact.

00:08:11.380 | The experience of aging will not be a shared experience as it is in most marriages.

00:08:21.780 | This will present unique challenges for both.

00:08:26.620 | So let me venture one other exhortation and a kind of warning for this man in particular.

00:08:34.740 | In order to flourish within those peculiar challenges, which is possible, by the way,

00:08:40.540 | it is possible where there's great biblical maturity and great wisdom and great love,

00:08:46.300 | I think our friend will need to be sure that he has grown in his relationship to God beyond

00:08:56.220 | what I heard in his question.

00:08:59.640 | He said, "I have felt ignored by God as I watched my friends get married and have children

00:09:09.420 | and seemingly get blessed by God, whereas I was always alone."

00:09:15.500 | Now that's an understandable feeling, not a good one, not a mature one.

00:09:22.500 | I could be very wrong, but I hear a view of God that is not as big and wise and trustworthy

00:09:31.900 | as it ought to be.

00:09:33.840 | And I hear a relationship to God that is not as deeply shaped by God's good and wise sovereignty

00:09:41.860 | as it ought to be.

00:09:44.100 | It's not a sign of mature, stable faith when a Christian feels ignored by God, as if other

00:09:52.340 | people are more loved by God than he is.

00:09:56.580 | Either the view of God is flawed or faith is flawed.

00:10:01.980 | And so I would exhort our friend to go deep into the sovereignty of God, go deep into

00:10:08.540 | the goodness of God, go deep into the wisdom of God and sink your roots down so deep into

00:10:16.160 | God's sovereign grace that you are so firm in your sense of his sovereign care and love

00:10:22.780 | for you that you never feel abandoned by him, no matter what good is coming to other people

00:10:30.720 | or what bad is happening to you.

00:10:35.220 | Then I think you will be in a very good position to say a faith-filled yes or no to marriage

00:10:48.020 | to a woman half your age.

00:10:50.740 | Thank you, Pastor John, for walking through all the various entailments of this scenario.

00:10:55.360 | And thanks for the question.

00:10:56.460 | You can ask Pastor John your own question or search our growing archive or subscribe

00:11:01.060 | to the podcast.

00:11:02.060 | You can do all that online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:11:07.300 | We are taking a break for the weekend and then back to your questions on Monday.

00:11:10.740 | Thanks for joining us.

00:11:11.740 | I'm your host, Tony Renke, and we'll see you on the other side of the weekend.

00:11:15.180 | [END]

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00:11:20.680 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Can I Marry a Woman Half My Age?

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