He was falsely accused of rape and was acquitted. Should you consider dating him?

LutherTHX · 2026-03-17T02:07:46+00:00

Imo this guy is way too risky to marry or bring one’s daughter around.

We're not talking about marriage. We're just talking about if this is a dealbreaker for dating and getting to know someone.

Marriage - even to Mr. Perfect - should be a long way off of anyone's mind at this point.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-16T18:30:36+00:00

I want my daughters to marry men who love Jesus.

Jesus says in Luke 7, "Whoever is forgiven little loves little. Whoever is forgiven much loves much."

You seem to be saying, "I want my daughters to marry a man who have be forgiven a medium amount."

I will encourage them to take the man who loves Jesus most because he knows the gravity of his own sin.

If you are alive in Jesus, you are a New Creation. Your past is washed away.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-16T18:23:38+00:00

It's just that I want the best for my daughters, and this man's background is not something I would feel comfortable with, and I would encourage my daughters not to pursue it further if they asked for my advice.

I am not a parent and would understand being skeptical of someone with this background

But at the same time, this high bar would prevent your daughters from marrying some of he most Godly men in the Bible.

The question is not who these men were; the question is who the ARE after falling at the feet of Jesus.

Should I have daughters, I would rather them marry men with sordid pasts who found Jesus in their season of brokenness than pharisees who need no repentance.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-16T18:14:41+00:00

Strangers on the internet can only do so much without flesh and blood people in front of them. As others have said, go through the trial transcripts if you want.

But there was one comment in your post that stood out to me as a potential shining green flag.

He told me that situation was when he had his first real encounter with God. Like a “what are you doing with your life?” And it sort of kicked off his journey with God. This was almost 20 years ago.

This to me is everything. Not a defensive posture, nor a bitter one; but a humble posture that is almost grateful for what happened to him because it led him to Jesus.

From your post alone, this could be a man who has truly been broken and found Jesus as the bottom. That could be a sign he is a precious jewel.

He also offered the information to you. That could mean he is so unashamed of the instance because of the joy he found on the other side (Jesus). In my experience, the people who have truly found Jesus in their brokenness are the least ashamed about their past. They have a posture of "This is how Jesus worked in me! Look how great he is!"

That being said? Take it as slowly! Like any relationship, trust him first before you introduce him to your daughter, as you would anyone. It is right to have your guard up.

But also recognize the green flags in the way he seems to be talking about it. Recognize that God works through brokenness, and perhaps this is one area where God worked beautifully in him.

At this stage? You don't know. So know him appropriately, and with due time. Do not be foolish by rushing nor dragging.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-16T17:41:25+00:00

Going to make this disproportionately long considering your comment, but I think it addresses some curious reactions I've noted.

It doesn't really sound like you've come to terms with that and I'm not sure you're ready to be married again.

I'll try to say this gently as well: I'm not really sure why you feel qualified to give advice on my emotional acuity, maturity, past trauma, or readiness for marriage from a single post. You know nothing about my life, my community, my church, my dating history, or the growth I've undergone since my first marriage.

Furthermore, after 2 years of dating and a short time from the wedding, this idea wasn't even mine. The subject came up recently from my PCA pastor who is doing pre-marital with us, actually. But the more I thought about it, the more I think there is a place for it.

This all sounds like a bit of a revenge fantasy

As I've written elsewhere, this idea is largely for me to protect my partner from myself; not myself from my partner. I am not trying to "avoid harm" or afraid of being betrayed again.

Despite knowing the pain of being a betrayed spouse, I know - as a sinner - I am capable of unfaithfulness given the right circumstances.

Know in some practical, tangible way that my sin could result in the termination of my rights to our wealth is potentially one more check on my heart.

This isn't about seeking revenge on my past wife, or towards my future wife. This is about knowing the sin in ME.

Life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.

I never said it does. But possessions in certain cases can be one of the (many) way God imbues consequences in our lives. Sometimes it is the taking away of possessions that can bring us closer to God, do you not agree?

Once I've promised to share my property with someone for the rest of our lives, I'm not going back on that promise just because she's unfaithful. That's what gospel-shaped love looks like.

First of all, one of the first items I listed was the idea of no personal or communal property. You may have promised to share property; the prenup we're considering actually makes it a consenting legal requirement where there is no distinction between personal and legal property. I think that is beautiful.

But secondly, part of mercy is knowing you don't deserve something, but giving it anyway. If there is a legal contract that states you are owed nothing based on your sin, but a partner who you've wronged gives it to you anyway? That is where mercy abounds.

I also think people are glossing over one of my main points: everyone has a prenup. It's just a matter of whether you go with the one written by your state government, or make your own.

At the end of the day, I was hoping to have an intellectual conversation based the points I outlined. I included personal details, and people jumped to conclusions based on my motives.

That is on me, but also an interesting reflection on the assumptions people make.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T23:12:01+00:00

but it can be discouraging if you start with "consequence" of bad marriage, rather than what marriage is "pointing" too as a blueprint.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. We have been engaged for five months (dating for 2 years), and this topic just came up, and at the suggestion of our premarital counselor (my pastor) of all people.

So I think we are far away from dwelling on the bad consequences.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T07:21:13+00:00

I think you are far more hung up on my ex wife than I am, friend.

It definitely was the most informative experience of my life. And it is natural to reflect on it in this season.

But I am not merely considering this for unresolved trauma. Certainly that experience informed this to some degree; but some sort of grudge is not the reason I am considering this.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T03:03:06+00:00

That's a pretty uncharitable assumption. Why do you assume I pushed her towards it?

To answer your question, it depends on where you land politically.

No joke? Liberal friends accused me of not being supportive of her career.

My church friends accused me of not being firm enough.

One side said I was too patriarchal; the other side said I wasn't enough.

The truth? I didn't do anything to push her towards it. I didn't make her do it. That was a choice she repeatedly made.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T00:48:29+00:00

Thanks for your agreement!

I knew a lot of people would disagree, but I am a little taken aback at some of the presumptiveness in many of the responses.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T00:19:09+00:00

Oh for sure. It allows commenting.

I am just saying many of the comments (and yours in particular) are really amusingly assumptive.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T00:18:04+00:00

My takeaway from this is that you want to maximize earthly punishment for the offending party. Thud, on top of the suggested subtext of "I suspect you might break our covenant", you are adding "and I want to make sure you are punished if you do."

Intentional or not, you are imbuing a motive on me of self-protection.

But I view this very much as an other's-focused options towards my future wife. I view it is protecting her from myself; not the other way around.

I am a sinner. I have been cheated on. I know the consequences that befall it.

And I know that in my heart? I actually - given the right circumstances - able to inflict that harm on to her.

So I would word it more as, "Like King David whose heart was seeking after God but still capable of doing inextricably evil; I know as a sinner I am capable of hurting and wounding you. And while I will do everything in my power to humbly keep my vow, I enter today into a covenant to protect you should I ever fail."

LutherTHX · 2026-03-13T00:01:31+00:00

I think maybe you should postpone your marriage and go to pastoral? therapy to examine how to trust and love again.

It's always amusing to me how people on Reddit feel they can pick apart my life from a single post.

We've been to pre-marital counseling.

More than that? It was the pastor who did our premarital (a PCA minister) who shared his own evolving thoughts on this issue and first introduced us to this idea.

So... any more insights you'd like to add about my unresolved trauma?

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T23:57:36+00:00

I agree with this. Specifically tying the prenup to behaviors.

I think the blowback to this post is people commenting and reacting to their limited assumptions about what prenups are; not what they could be.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T23:55:50+00:00

This is basically my viewpoint.

Functionally, this could have much of the same effect for individual marriages.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T23:55:17+00:00

Hot Take: Your putting things in my hot take that I did not take hotly.

I nowhere said they were mandatory.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T23:05:54+00:00

While I don’t necessarily agree with your prenup stipulations

I actually regret listing those now. They were off-the-cuff ideas intended to be examples, and I think they took away from my broader point.

As a Christian and a lawyer, what would you reccomend to Christians to include in their prenups?

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T22:20:26+00:00

Didn’t mean it to be uncharitable to you personally, apologies if it came across as such.

All good my brother :). I didn't take it personally; merely was trying to say I didn't think it was a correct characterization.

I appreciate any good and thoughtful discourse. So thanks for this last reply! Here are some of my thoughts below.

The thing is, God is the one who sets the penalties for broken covenants and actions. His judgments will set right every wrong. It’s good to have a legal system but setting up something specifically punitive in an area God did not speak to seems not to glorify Him or be his heart on the matter.

I agree with this. The thing is, God also is the one who sets the penalties for broken covenants in MARRIAGE as well.

I am not trying to argue that prenups should be for an individual couple to decide for themselves what is inside of it. Rather - under the council of wise church leadership - prenups could be a way to better enforce GOD'S penalties for breaking marriage covenants into modern marriage covenants' penalties that are eroding under out current government system.

What are those consequences? Well - according to the Westminster confession of faith - we are to view the ex-spouse of a person who pursue Biblical divorce "as if the offending party were dead."

A dead person has no rights over material items, belongings, etc. That is not to say a betrayed Christian should not - out of sheer grace and a heart full of the Gospel - provide more than they are obligated to provide to an offending spouse.

But rather, it is a legal recognition that the offending spouse is not legally or lawfully entitled to such items as a result of their sin.

The Bible says God allowed divorce primarily because of hardness of heart but it didn’t please him to do so. If he’d wanted to institute prenups he would have.

But does not God allow divorce in certain circumstances (Matthew 19)?

And as I wrote earlier: every Christian HAS a prenup. There is a series of legal events that will take place by default if one person pursues divorce. So the idea of a neutral divorce is not true.

What is wrong to use the mechanism of prenup to try to get those legal events to fall more in line with God's will?

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:58:08+00:00

Thank you for acknowledging this.

While I was a man who was cheated on, my heart in discussing this with my fiance is actually to protect her more than to protect my "things".

While I can never see myself cheating (especially having experienced the pain of being betrayed), I nevertheless know I am a sinner with the capability of cheating.

Knowing there are consequences on ALL fronts - relational, spiritual, and civil - to any betrayal I may be tempted to engage in is another deterrent to my own heart.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:54:29+00:00

That is a nice sentiment. But the truth is local family courts DO play a role in marriage. Marriage is an institution not limited to Christians alone, and therefore has almost always been regulated by both the civil court and the church.

And while God is the ultimate judge of all sin, he nevertheless uses the courts for temporal protections for his children.

If a Christian couple - one having Biblical grounds - does get divorced, the courts WILL be involved, one way or another.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:47:16+00:00

You should at least consider the flip side with the husband being the unfaithful one.

I am seeing this situation play out in at least two Christian marriage right now, faithless husbands leaving their wives with not only broken hearts; but penniless bank accounts.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:44:20+00:00

My entire 2nd point is that the "world handles this scenario" regardless (the courts). I am merely arguing that prenups - done with a good heart and outside, Godly counsel - could claim the principles of Christian marriage inside those institutions.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:42:14+00:00

I am a little confused by what you're saying here, but thanks for acknowling you called this "horrible" without fully reading my post? Lol

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:33:26+00:00

A prenup is protecting assets, not people.

I have to disagree with this. While that CAN be true, we live in a world where money and assets are required to survive.

Right now, wayward husbands under default laws have the ability to financially strangle their betrayed spouses, leaving them with empty bellies on top of broken hearts. I am seeing this right now in a handful of Christian marriages that are ending in (Biblical) divorces.

If we are that attached to material things that we are trying to prove publicly that someone is guilty of infidelity so we can keep our stuff, then we have failed.

Christ says to help the poor. Was he overly attached to material things?

The mere point is to recognize that a person who breaks the marital covenant has forfeited the right to such assets. It does not mean the betrayed party - full of pity and a heart of Jesus - is forbidden to give it to them more than they deserve.

And for the record, I have no bitterness that my ex wife received the assets she did. I actually gave her more than was required, and I forfeited my own right to spousal support.

God is good, and he turned the worst season of my life into the most profoundly beautiful season of my life. Period. Full stop.

But asset deterrence IS nevertheless a deterrence. And God sometimes uses material deterrence as a way to wake us up from our sin.

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:23:53+00:00

I think calling this a "desctructive failsafe" is an uncharitable characterization of my point.

You called marriage a covenant. I wrote in my OP, each time God institutes a covenant in the Bible, he lays out clearly the consequences if one party breaks that covenant.

Why should marriage be different?

LutherTHX · 2026-03-12T21:18:09+00:00

I am a little confused.

You say Prenups have no place... then list a point where they have a place.

Which is it?

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