I began my public ministry about ten years ago with this blog.
Over the years, people have emailed me from time to time with questions and comments. Some of those people have been women. Almost all of those women were married women.
While some of those conversations were obviously helpful and appropriate, there has been a surprising (to me) number of threads where, out of nowhere, the ladies involved attempted to take from a completely doctrinal conversation into something less appropriate.
I am officially done writing one-off emails indicating the following:
- I have zero interest saying or doing anything that in any way detracts from your marriage.
- I have zero interest developing friendships with married women.
- I have zero interest in any married ladies leaving their husbands to come live with me or more. (Yes, this has happened more than a couple of times).
- If you are a married woman needing a private conversation, you really, really need to speak with your husband, the Lord, or the police (luckily, this has not come up yet) instead of some man who isn't any of those.
To prevent these sorts of things from ever happening again, I will be implementing the following policy for any married woman contacting me.
- Feel free to reach out in public forums. Right now, that is limited to the youtube channel comments.
- I will only respond to emails from women who CC their husbands on the email or who clearly state they are single. I know that it is easy to miss this post, so I will be replying with a link to it for those who email me without following this policy. I will block married women who keep emailing me contrary to these conditions.
I am sorry for how absurd this is, but I have to respond to human nature and the choices others make. I assure you that I am as dismayed as you are that this is necessary.