Personal Limitations: Marital Status Part 4

During the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at marital status and how it can affect our personal boundaries with fiction.

We’ve considered the single and purity of heart. We’ve seen examples of married couples and the necessity of considering your mate as well as yourself. Today brings us to the third and final group: widows and divorcées.

I understand that widows and divorcées carry very different scars, problems, and needs. However, I have put the two together here because they share one major characteristic: widows and divorcées both were in a relationship that is now broken.

So how does that broken relationship work with personal limitations? It’s hard for me to say. I am not a widow or a divorcée. Nor have I had much opportunity to discuss faith and fiction with those who are.

But as far as I am able of understanding, this group walks a line between singles and married couples. They know the experiences of someone married, but are restricted in current relationships like a single. So I would suggest two simple things:

1. Monitor reactions. Does your reading allow you to relive the good memories—or reawaken the bad? Do the movies you watch reinforce skepticism or renew hope? Chose that which brings out the good and avoid strengthening the negative.

2. Favor the suggestive over the explicit. Yes, you now have the knowledge and experience to “go there,” and there is nothing wrong with that. However, the suggestive allows you to control exactly how far you go on any particular day.

Of course, what do I know? :o)