globogirls.com has a very long and varied list of places to go and members share their experience in these places. I found all the information I needed about the places I was intending to visit and traveling tips as well. One thing that I really liked was the tips on how to avoid scam and fraud.

I've seen this a lot, too - I think a lot of girls look at their dads, their pastors and elders, and expect that they have to find someone just like that if they're going to have a good marriage. The problem is they're comparing their peers to men twice their age and maturity - and a lot of those older men, their dads and mentors, have only matured as they have because they've grown through life *with* a woman who married them even though they weren't perfect at 22. My husband is an amazing guy, but he's not his dad yet. That's okay - I'm certainly not as mature in Christ as I want to be in 20 or 30 years!! There's a lot of freedom in realizing that you don't have to have it all completely together (or expect your partner to) before marriage.

John, you may want to take your head out of the Old Testament, and put it in a Psychology Textbook, or talk to a Family Counselor. No need to be befuddled. BTW. Jesus said almost NOTHING about marriage, for or against. In fact, he did not have a problem with "Traditional Mariage" which, of coure was polygamy, or serial monogamy, but always an act of claiming a woman as property, until the husband changed his mind and instantly divorced her at will. SHE had no rights. Only work. As for Paul, he actully despised women, and recommended celebacy over "lust." Get real, and get educated.

Can we be honest here, and cut to the real problem? Men are taught that they are superior in every way to women. Most, if they were raised in Christian Traditions, treat their wives and daughters like subordinates. Their sons are given their time and appreciation, and are expected to "be a man." No sissies. No "sensitive" artists, no house husbands here. God wants men to be Warriors for Christ, not organize the Church Bake Sale. (Exceptions are made for the Church Organist....we know he is "artistic.") Even when we ordain women, and give them a pulpit, they answer to a bunch of men. We women bitch and moan about wanting a "more sensitive" husband, but we marry the most insensitive, cloddish and bossy men out there. And we surely do not teach our daughters to be strong, independent and in charge. No, we want them to be "married."

There is something unreal about all of this, almost gnostic approach to Christ in the family life. Then the creepy nomenclature of 'alpha male' 'beta male' ?! O please. Will someone pick up the Bible and start with Genesis 1-3? Then I suggest reading what Jesus actually says about lust, marriage and divorce...check out Paul's teachings in the 2nd halves of his Epistles (try Ephesians 5 for example) noting that the Holy Spirit is presupposed before the household advice is given. What do you see there? Honestly, we are all closet Pharisees if given half a chance - only we all have a way of letting the inner Pharisee out at the worst times.

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Easy problem to identify...'A few minutes later, I asked her why. "He's just not a spiritual leader," she answered.' ...it is because she didn't think he was an Alpha male type..she was just using the 'spiritual leader' excuse to disguise that either to herself or to others. Women want a man to exhibit Alpha male qualities it is what they find most attractive generally speaking. This applies especially to young intelligent women who are looking for their best potential mate. She obviously had kept beta male around because there was no other choice for male friendship and once it had gotten to the more serious next step had to dump him or risk losing face by committing and then divorcing later. If someone had told her the truth about her desires to start with she wouldn't have dressed them up in a christian guise and saved everyone much pain. She would not have seriously dated beta guy,hurt him or needed 'counselling' and instead have been looking for her own alpha guy to start with...

I feel like I'm a good person with good traits. Being someone who was dumped for essentially not being a good enough spiritual leader, reading this has brought me more peace than anything out of the Bible in the last year. Thanks, author.

I can't tell you how thankful I am that you chose to write and share this post with your readers. A good fried of mine who I met through my church has recently re-entered the dating scene, and she's having a hard time. I think this article will help her to put some things in perspective and to not be so stressed out about going on dates. Thanks!

It's unfortunate to see the comments on this post devolve into a complementarian/egalitarian debate. Marlena's point stands regardless of which approach you take to the Bible's teaching on marriage. The problem Marlena identifies is very real, and very serious, especially in Christian marriages. It's bad enough for an unmarried Christian woman to fail to see the true substance of a Christian man she might otherwise date or marry, but at least the consequences of walking away for the wrong reason pre-marriage are limited. Some Christian women take this distorted view of spiritual leadership so seriously that it becomes grounds for significant unhappiness for her in the marriage (which then of course gets translated into a lot of unhappiness for her husband) and, ultimately, divorce. Quite the paradox: "I'm so serious about my faith that I'll divorce my husband because he's not the spiritual leader I think he ought to be (but not so serious about my faith that I'll submit to Christ's teachings on divorce)." Unfortunately, I speak from experience. There's also the flip side of this problem: a Christian woman who will overlook significant red flags because the prospective husband fits her stereotype of a spiritual leader. Unfortunately, here again, I speak from experience. My ex-wife started dating online one week after our divorce was final (after 29+ years of marriage), "met" a man online 3 weeks later who satisfies her criteria for a spiritual leader (he is a lay pastor and professes to have vague missions-related aspirations), dated him online for 2.5 months, dated him in person every other weekend for 3 months (because he lives 400 miles away), got engaged, and then married him 3 weeks ago, only 9 months after meeting him in person for the first time and only 13 months after the divorce was final. It does not matter to her that all experts agree that it is folly to remarry so soon, that none of our four children are happy about her choice or the remarriage, that he has already been divorced twice, this his theology is quite different from hers, that she has never had an opportunity to observe him in person for any extended period of time, that he had an affair with his second wife while married to his first, that he has at least one verified incident of assault on his second wife, or that her relocation takes our special needs daughter 400 miles away from me and leaves her 16-year old son 400 miles away from her. These are some of the consequences of the distortion that Marlena highlights here. I hope her post has a significant impact on many women.