Navigating dating after a faith-based marriage
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A woman I know recently went on a date with a man who, somewhere between the appetizers and the entrée, made her an offer. "Look," he said, "at our age we'll keep our finances separate anyway. So if it doesn't work out, no
advice-column
A post in the LDS Dating Midsingles group last week lit up the feed in a way that felt very familiar. A woman posted a pointed, plainly worded question: why are so many men hitting 40 still choosing their mothers over a potential wife? She cited scripture. She named the
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There is a version of this story that plays out quietly, without drama, in thousands of LDS homes. No affairs. No cruelty. No villain. Just two young people who got married because everyone around them made it feel like the only reasonable next step, and who then spent the next
advice-column
Scott Turing and Laurie Pascal, Unchaperoned Life We've been reading the LDS Dating - Midsingles group for a while now. Thirty-five thousand members. Hundreds of posts every month. Thousands of comments. Posts about what men want. Posts about who should text first. Posts about shallow dating pools and
advice-column
Scott Turing and Laurie Pascal, Unchaperoned Life In March 2026, someone in the LDS Dating - Midsingles group asked members to describe their current dating life using an 80s song title. The post got 361 reactions and 360 comments. It was the single most engaged post of the entire month
Faith & Dating
In the Facebook group, a man named Aaron posted a simple red image with five words on it: "If you want to get married, why?" That's it. No story, no setup. Just the question. Nearly 200 comments followed. And what emerged wasn't one answer.
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Impact of Religious Trauma Series: The Unchaperoned Life | Post 1 of 6 I was five years old when I learned I was trash. Not metaphorically. Not as a passing frustration someone immediately walked back. I was told I deserved to be thrown away — and to make the lesson stick, I
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Impact of Religious Trauma Series: The Unchaperoned Life | Post 2 of 6 She was everything the church ever told me to look for. Faithful. Devoted. A mother who clearly adored her kids. A woman whose social media feed — over six years of staying loosely in touch — told a consistent story
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Impact of Religious Trauma Series: The Unchaperoned Life | Post 3 of 6 She stopped letting him hug her. Not because she didn't want to be held. She was desperate to be held. But every hug had become a down payment on something she hadn't agreed to
Faith & Dating
Impact of Religious Trauma Series: The Unchaperoned Life | Post 4 of 6 I want to say something that men in this situation almost never say. I wasn't ready. Not for what she needed. Not for what she was asking. Not for the thing she had every right to
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Impact of Religious Trauma Series: The Unchaperoned Life | Post 6 of 6 The most intimate moment of my post-divorce life wasn't a vacation. It wasn't a candlelit dinner or a grand gesture or any of the things we're trained to think of when we
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Here's what nobody tells you when you re-enter the dating world at 40 or 50: your profile isn't a sales pitch. It's an invitation. And the goal isn't to attract everyone — it's to attract the right people. That one shift