Dating: Why Transparency Is Your Best Strategy

When you feel ready to carefully step back into the dating world, carrying hidden baggage or putting up protective emotional walls will only lead to trouble.

Overview of Issues: In this episode, we highlight why radical transparency functions as your single best dating strategy. We detail the art of sharing your story without shame, making sure your past isn't wasted, and seeing it instead as the raw material God uses to write deep redemption and integrity into your future connections. We discuss the balance of sharing your history with wisdom and finding someone who can walk with you in grace.

Bullet Points:

• Consistency vs. Inconsistency: Why you must look for character evidence over personality compatibility.
• The 'Grace' Litmus Test: Understanding that you must be able to offer the same grace you expect.
• Avoid Unnecessary Vomit: Learning the difference between radical transparency and poor impulse control.
• Your Past is Not Your End: Why you must own your story to let God write your next chapter.
• Love Equals Compatibility: Choosing a redeemable heart over a "perfect" match.

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Transcript

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The unyoked podcast navigating the pain process and possibilities after a christian divorce. Every life is a book, but what chapters do we read out loud? And who needs to know what, right? And what is transparency? He even mean in relationships? In our church lives, we're encouraged to live life together, right? It's implied that good transparency is healthy. We share our sins with one another and that's right. Right. The theology is right. But it's funny, in church, we often encourage the same sexes to hang out together to have their real talk, right? Men over here, women over here. But have you noticed the Bible is written to both genders? And it's so funny how much time we as a church put into separating and isolating and oh, you all don't need to hear that. We don't need to hear that. But God speaks to both. It's not like he's like, okay, I've got a whole book for women. You all study and read that. Like, his rules, his principles, his laws, and what he's chosen to reveal works for both genders. But it's funny this how churches work and we think that's part of our culture. Not sure every culture does it the way we do it, but I digress. But in the dating world, when we're courting post divorce, who needs to know what and when? It's a lot more complicated than some people think. When do you unload your stuff? Half of you think, well, there's some things I'm never going to admit or tell. There's no way, none of their business. Another you are thinking, I want to live a transparent life. And that does not only mean forward, it may mean backwards too. Isn't there this tightrope balance between, here's what you need to know about me and who I am, and then there's what I've done. And let's just see if that jives with who you say you are. Really complicated. So there's this like someone you meet and they're like, man, I'll make really wise decisions. I'm really good. And then it's like, but I've been married five times. It's like, do you make wise decisions? Been married that many times? Like, well, I really like to sleep. It's just in my personality. Oh, but I was a stripper for

ten years and I worked between 10:00 p.m. And 04: 2:54

00 a.m. Five days a week. It's like, well, you used to not like sleep, but I guess now you do. I came from a conservative republican background. But I had two abortions in college, or I went to seminary. Look at me. But I slept with about 100 women in my 20s. Right? Sometimes it's easy for us to draw a line and say, well, this is me before Christ. And yes, I sinned a lot, but, man, I am a changed person now, and I don't do those things anymore. But for many of us who were maybe christians since we were kids, we still have our Uto moments, what we like to call backsliding, if you will. But our seasons of life. Like, I was a Christian before I was ten, but I've had three dwis, and I have an unhealthy addiction to pills and pornography. Right. Let's be honest. We look for stuff in our dating apps in the bios. Sure. You look for looks and can they spell or not spell? And do they know how to put sentences together? I've got one that's my pet peeve. It's. I don't really know what to say here. Just, we'll talk on our first date. I'm like, well, if you don't know how to type us in it, that's pretty bad. But really we're looking for signs of what I call instability. Like, wow, look at all these selfies. Or look at this bio, what they've said with what they look like. I just don't see a healthy person here. I have a habit of, I facetime before every date. Like, if you can't look in a phone and have a good conversation with me, why would I even go? The joke I have with my friends is I'm sort of looking for the cat lady. Hey, I'm talking to you and there's 15 cats behind you. I'm like, glad to know that. Before we went to Benninghan's and shared an appetizer and dated somebody. No, I didn't date. I was talking to somebody one time. They had the phone down. I was looking at their chin and their nose, and I'm like, yeah, you can't hold a phone correctly. It's a no or I just don't know how to FaceTime. Well, okay, well, I need somebody technically literate, so I can't do that. But for the sake of this episode, I'm talking about, okay, we're three dates in. This is somebody that I'm really interested in. And we've had some long conversations, whether that be text, whether it be the phone, but it's somebody you like, you know, I'm interested and I have feelings. And there's a chance there's going to be a relationship here. When do you say? What, like the second date? You're at vinegar's. Hey, Steve, I really like you, but I just need to let you know, my husband and I used to be in the swinger lifestyle, and he's taken back. Hey, Cindy. I used to be addicted to opium. I just thought you'd want to know that up front or. Hey, Tom, I just wanted to say I can't have kids anymore, or I don't want know. At what age do we owe what? At what stage of building a relationship do we owe what information to our partner? I have a friend, actually. She's my hairdresser. And yes, I have a hairdresser. I wish I could just say I had a barber, but I have a hairdresser. I live in Collin county. We do these things, but she has a research app on her phone, and anybody that she goes out a, it's like a private investigator in your pocket. And she researches them before she does her first date. And I asked her, what's your line? If you see something like a DWI, is that a no? What are you looking for? And she goes, I'm actually not as worried about what it says. I'm looking for inconsistencies in their stories. Like, I have good credit. Look at this house. Like, oh, that's funny. You went bankrupt two years ago, or no problems for me. It's like, well, you were in prison in Oklahoma back in 86. You want to talk about that? So she's just tried to pull out of what somebody should have already told her she felt like, and then see if you're lying, and she does that research. I was on a podcast before, and we had an episode similar to this of just sort of unloading your junk on somebody. And I remember I jokingly said, if any of your body parts don't work anymore, you owe that up front. Like, if you go to a date and somebody doesn't have an arm or whatever, you feel like you owe that to somebody. I was kidding. I don't even know if it's true or not, but it certainly plays in with sex. Like, is everything real? Does it work? Do you need to know whether it works or not? When are you going to ask? Do you figure that out? When you get there? But let's make this real for a moment. Okay, Betsy, before I met with you, I've slept with 70 women, or four or 40 or 400. Where's the line? Where is your line? What do you expect? Is there a number that if you heard about it, you would end the relationship? What topic do you want to know? And what do you not want to know, and are you going to pull that out of them? Do you expect it or demand it to them? As christians, we have this perfect plan. Young couples, you leave your mom and dad, you get married, you sleep together, and you live happily ever after. But we're divorced. We've had sex, many of us before marriage, hopefully during and even after. And sometimes I think some of us say, well, it's none of our business. I don't need to know. I don't want to know. But isn't jealousy a good thing? Shouldn't we want some jealousy or disappointment in a person who cares for us? Like, shouldn't it be considered healthy to know that I am disappointed that the person I'm falling for or love or will marry didn't have a lifestyle that was potentially compromising? Or once again, maybe just disappointment. Maybe it's just as simple as disappointment. And we've had an episode on Grace, which I highly encourage you if you didn't listen, to go back and listen to it. But where does Grace fit in? Like, is there blind grace? I just don't want to know. Don't need to know. Or is there listening with Grace? Meaning I do want to know, but I forgive you. Or tell me about that DWI. Tell me how you made that tough decision. What got you and your husband or wife into that? Or why did you do that? It's called building relationship. Right? I remember I may have told this story before, but I'm going to tell again because it fits right here. I told my counselor one time, Steve. I said, steve, I will never marry someone who's had an affair on their husband. Will not do it. I go, that's where I draw the line. And so I remember dating people, and the second I found out there was an affair, I was just like, yep, once a cheater, always a cheater. That's what I told myself, the back of my head. And Steve was just so great because he's so wise. He just put his pen down his paper and he goes, just want to repeat that to you. So you want grace for all your errors in the past with your new partner, but you don't want to give them grace. That's what you're saying. I was like, yeah, I said that. I said it out loud and thought it. So I have had to chew on that a little bit. What does Grace look like? And once again, what questions am I asking? I think there is some wisdom to asking certain questions. For sure. There are post divorce mistakes, right? Versus things you might have done as a teenager or in college. And we've talked about it. Divorce is hard, unoking is hard. It's traumatic. And the numbing moments that come after it is real, very real. Many people post divorce, while they're numbing, just do stupid things. And there was a friend of mine, I know she listened to this. She'll know I'm talking about her, but you won't. I'm not using names. She dated this toxic guy. He was a horrible person. As a Christian, I'd say it with Jesus right here. This guy was horrible, toxic, narcissist, jackass. And she knew he was, but it was her numbing. She felt good. She felt well, she felt horrible around him and good, she got it all. It was the toxic, it was the ups and the downs. And she just put up with him for years. Why? Everybody was saying, run from this guy. And I told her this. And unfortunately, this wasn't the thing that switched her mind. But I just kept telling her, one day you're going to have a new husband, most likely, and you're going to have to tell him about this person someday. Be wise. You can't hide it. You can't hide this person in your life. And this guy's so bad, who knows where he's going to rear his head later. And people just do foolish things. And her husband's going to have to have a tough conversation one day. So let's talk about this. There is a difference between making mistakes and who you are, right? Who are you at your core, minus your mistakes? And our mistakes don't have to define us, but there are patterns, and there are patterns that sort of make up who you are at your core. Enough evidence, I would say. Yeah, you say you're this, but your evidence points differently. And post divorce, how long does trying something new last? Especially as you're older, like me? Aren't you who you are by now? How often can you just be a chameleon and change and try this and do this and uhoh, I did this. Do you not know who you are yet? And why are you dating somebody till you do? There's a giant difference between adapting to a situation and then being steady in your lifestyle. Sometimes I meet people who are very flexible in their choices of lifestyle and what they do and what they want, what they're open to. Very spontaneous. I'm sort of that way. But shouldn't it scare you if somebody is that flexible, if somebody doesn't know themselves that they're willing and able to adapt so much? It's almost like a red flag for me. When somebody doesn't have consistent behavior, it just screams that they may not know who they are yet. Right. Okay, this is a little aside, but we're christians here, all talking, most of us listening, right. Are divorced. I got interviewed to be an elder at a church, and I was an elder for years, and I struggled with a question. It involves this topic 100%. While we're interviewing and going through all the biblical criteria for being an elder. And one of the questions that they asked was interesting, and I get why they ask it. So they said, have you done anything in your past that would embarrass this church or the name of Christ? And I thought, what a hard question to ask. Isn't everybody's answer yes? And isn't that the hope? What Jesus does is renew us and change us, and we put on a new us and we're renewing our minds. And so it was interesting because I get the point, but at the same time, it's, yeah, but, no, I don't know. I'm not selling heroin. And then one day it finds out. You find out I was a heroin addict. But what if I was and I'm not now? And so I didn't really understand the question. I think it really ties into this. Have you done anything that I would be embarrassed to tell my friends? Were you in prison in 1992? Well, do I want to date a guy who's been in prison or not? Right? And then there's this idea of, it's sort of the litmus test is seeing an ex in public. Do you have a long line of messes? Like, I've dated somebody once before, and they're like, oh, no, my ex boyfriend came in, like, turn this way, or let's go over here. And I thought, what kind of unhealthy relationship is he the jerk or what happened? Why can't you say hi to your ex? Or what's going on there? And so do you have a lifestyle that the person you're with is always having to avoid their past because their past is so messy? Shouldn't that say something a little bit? And is your life with your ex spouse? Is it tense? One thing I see on dating apps all the time, we're like, I have a good relationship with my ex, and I think that's a way to say there's no drama in my life. My ex and I. We may have disagreed. Whatever happened, happened, but we're grown adults and we know how to talk. Not that every situation needs that. There are plenty of times you need to draw a line that is totally fair. Many of you listening are like, oh, heck no, I'm not going to have a great relationship with my ex. And that's fair. But there's a difference between who that person is and the time pass of enough forgiveness, enough grace to say, we can at least talk anymore. Right? Like, we can at least coexist. What part of who you were is a part of who you are? And what does somebody need to know? What parts do they need to know? The Bible is full of characters with bad past. I mean, we all know the stories, know Moses murdered somebody. So did Paul. David had somebody murdered while he was sleeping with their wife. And God, literally, I'm not going to say makes heroes of them, but he uses them, he loves them. He didn't abandon them. And so that tension between we're looking for a perfect person that doesn't exist. And then there's back to the christian idea here, I wasn't saved, and now I am. And then there was. I was saved, and there's all these things that went wrong. What is backsliding? The Bible never uses the term backsliding, and we created it. I think it's a term we use to say, well, I love the Lord, but I went through these. I did this thing, or I wasn't walking with him for a while. Right? Does that make sense? And in christian theology, people say, well, backsliding lasts once or it lasts a month or two, but ten years of backsliding. Are you even a Christian? That's a whole nother theological conversation. But the story is so much cleaner when you go from bad to good. But how does it work? When you are a Christian, you love the Lord and you still do stupid things. I fall into that category all the time. What is a rocky walk along the way in your faith journey? What does that look like and what does that mean? Let's go back for a minute and talk about sex. I'm going to use the word body counts is, do you need to know what the body count is? How many people you've had sex with? Do you want to know? Abortions, men and women, not just. This is not a woman thing is my girlfriend had an abortion in college. Do you need to know? I mean, mine didn't, but I'm just saying that. But yeah, is that something your spouse needs to know? Did that something between you and God and your girlfriend at the time, your boyfriend at the time, what chapter of your book needs read and what doesn't? Like, hey. Okay, well, I was in a threesome. I was in some group sex. Or me and my wife, or my last girlfriend had this kink or that arrest, that DWI, that fight I got into at the bar, that crazy, embarrassing moment. We're not dating virgins at this age. You're not going to be marrying one. So where is the line, like, before you're married? You're sort of the line of the virgin. I know couples who, both couples were virgins when they got married. I know where one was and one wasn't, and I know the tension that put in their marriage. But I can promise you, if you're listening, and you were married, 99.99% of you have all had sex. Some of you have had sex before your first marriage, during, and once again after. What do we need to talk about? Here's my argument. Thorough conversations equal great relationships. Great communication equal great relationships. So what part of this is great conversation and what part of it is, like, that's dangerous territory, right? I've really struggled with this because I want a transparent relationship with my forever partner. And so, like everybody, I've got dumb things that I've done in the past, and I've failed in my conversation of that. I've told people one person literally barely got off the phone without chewing me out. And other people, I've told them, they're like, yeah, that's nothing like, okay, big deal. They threw grace at me and someone else. It was, to them, it was a big deal. And I guess that maybe depends on what your background and where your hurts are. And if you got divorced because your husband beat you and somebody goes, well, I beat my wife once, you're like, okay, well, then you're out, and that's okay. You can have your lines. But what if you don't tell somebody whatever it is, and they find out later what it calls waves? What if you've been in five marriages? Do you tell them you've been married multiple times? I know sometimes when I go out on dates, people are very quick to say, I've been married twice, or whatever. I feel like that's their way to say, if you have a problem with it, you better have a problem now because I don't want to lean in without it. But most people don't put that in bioS. Right. But I will say it's probably wise. Don't ask if you don't want to know. Don't ask. Because once you know, you got to do something with that, and sometimes it's not healthy. I also say lying is not good. Right. We all want our new relationship to not have any lies in it, but I'm going to challenge that. A mentor of mine 20 years ago said, there are certain things that it's the lie of omission. It's best if they don't know. It doesn't mean that you're lying, but you sort of are. It's not good to go to your wife and say, I just want to apologize. I just had a big fantasy about your sister, and I really want to sleep with her. Dude, lie. That's not something you say. It's not. And I don't know if that's technically a lie, but it is. There are certain things you don't say and you don't want to know, but be willing to tell. Don't lie. But I also say it's probably not good to vomit needlessly. Your past and what parts of your past? I mean, sometimes we're put in situations that we have to. I'm going to use the word hide. We have to hide something because we're protecting someone else. In other words, me and my dad robbed a bank. Well, now I just incriminated my dad, and me and my ex did this. Well, now you just incriminated your. Unfortunately, once again, my ex wife, whatever, had an affair with Bob. Well, now you just put Bob and his wife in a tough spot. So, unfortunately, we have to use some prudency of what we reveal and how we reveal it. Right. There's a certain ways to navigate something, and this is one of those cases of being very careful that by you admitting something, you're not throwing someone else under the bus. Right. Here's a good one. I had an affair with my secretary. Well, now that you're dating this person, she's like, well, your secretary is married. Yeah, they are. You know what I mean? You have to be really careful with not incriminating someone else in your story. Why one churches and cancel culture. It's so funny how the right, far right gripe about the left with cancel culture. And literally, the church is probably just as bad about it. We cancel people all the time. The second we find out something about somebody, then it's like, well, who needs to know what and when? And sometimes it's none of the church's business, because that is a personal issue. It doesn't mean that they have the right to that topic, that whatever that was. So if you are living a place, because some of you do, the whole reason I'm making this episode is because some of you leave with this tension and this guilt and this. If anybody knew about this, they would not like me. They would not respect me. I'm so embarrassed. I did X or I had a lifestyle of x. You feel that your past needs to stay hidden. Your chapter in your book needs to be unread. But your story didn't end with that chapter. There's more to be written. Right now, God is dipping his pen into an inkwell and writing your story and mine into his larger story. God turns broken stories into beautiful prose and those unwanted pages into amazing narratives. It's just not a promise like it's a grounded truth and one that I know from personal experiences. I think we all look at our lives and we want to rip a couple of pages from the narrative, but we can't tear out a page or skip a chapter and still make sense of our story. It's part of our story. Yes, we all want to rip out the details, but I've never met a soul who didn't feel that way. But I want to tell you that your whole book, it matters. I believe that you can have a better story going forward even with these marred pages intact. You can change the ending of your story. Even it feels like you're trapped with a chapter and you've come to a dead stop in your life. That guilt is weighing on you and you feel unlovable. But there's a way to transform the worst part of your story into a work of art. God can do that. Your biggest mistakes have the potential to become God's greatest miracle in your life. Writing a better story is not an elaborate game of pretend. Let's act like it never happened. I'm talking about how we can wrestle out redemption from these jaws of brokenness and allow God to use those events for good. It may be hard to believe if you're still even living in some of that bad story, but don't give up hope. I've experienced, and I've witnessed it in the lives of so many other people, God takes hard things and he uses them to showcase his mercy, his grace and forgiveness. And you can create a new beginning. Our worst scenes become God's best. Our pain is part of God's grace. I just wanted to spend some time today to talk about how the past is weighing some of you down, and it's affecting who you date and how you date. So let's get into the weeds of that, of when do you unload that trunk of junk? How do you do it? Maybe after three or four solid dates, but before a true relationship begins to form that slow and steady, building an authentic relationship, it makes you think through who you date, right? Who can handle that information? Well, if you're just dating a guy and like, oh, he's a great orthodontist and I think he's going to be really stable, but, man, there's no way I'm going to tell him about that. No way. Was he the right guy. Don't you want somebody that you could open up and show him your scars? And he's like, I love you no matter what. Yes. And by the way, here's mine. I don't care if he's an orthodontist or not. Right. It's not like sometimes we choose people based on the results they give us and we're living these lives of just, I'm not going to show who the real person I am or what I went through or what if it is a redemption story? Why would he not want to know? Don't you want your new partner to know that you've been redeemed from something? And then what if they tell you, oh, let me tell you my redemption story. You talk about drawing you close and tight. That would do it. So find somebody who is trustworthy, who loves the Lord, who exudes grace in all that they do, that. They have a good character. Right? Some of you are just breaking relationships and you're overcomplicating things when you're looking for love. If you read my bio on the website that talked about my dating experience, I think I encouraged that a few episodes back. This idea that we look often, this is wrong. We look for people who are compatible, and once we find somebody compatible, then we'll love them. But love makes you compatible, right? So I'm repeating it here because it's important. If you love someone, then you can forgive Wade through or just say, I'm going to journey through that toughness of whatever that situation was and how it manifests itself. Right? I'm going to give a very specific. I just thought of this right now. Let's say you were very sexually active in the past and you got herpes. Well, now you're thinking, well, that just limited me. Now, obviously, most people probably wouldn't want to date someone with herpes in general, but if you love someone, you adapt. Compatibility does not equal love. Love equals compatibility. And when you get to know somebody you choose somebody wisely. You show your scars. Here's my scar. Here's my scar. Here's my stupid thing I did. And as you love someone, you're like, yeah, I'll take you flaw and all I'll take you those scars and I'll reveal my scars I know too many couples that are living lies. They didn't tell you. They're the ones who caused the problem in their divorce. They didn't tell you and they're dating now and they're living happily ever after. I'm like, you're living both lies. It will get exposed. We're all flawed. Let's start. And in there, right, this whole thing could have been wrapped up into that. We're all flawed and so don't be so scared to open up and have a transparent life. Be cautious, be careful. Maybe not on the first date, but choose wisely who you're dating. You owe some people some information. You decide where and pour grace on their situation. Thank God for grace. Go to toddturner.com divorce for more resources. Blessings.