The “one” god has for you
Purity culture prioritizes all the wrong things
A Note From Megan | Publication Date: March 10th, 2026
Recently my 17-year-old brother and a girl he really likes “became official” (a.k.a. they agreed to become girlfriend/boyfriend).
It’s his first romantic relationship, and I’ve been watching from the sidelines with big sisterly excitement.
Well… I was excited until just a couple days in, when he started sharing some statements from his girlfriend’s mom that revealed she’s deeply bought into some of purity culture’s most toxic messaging.
The thing that triggered me the most was that the mom won’t allow her daughter to meet me and my husband, Michael, unless they’re “engaged.”
I’m sorry—did you just say “engaged??”
I would like to reiterate here that these are 17-year-olds… And the word ‘engagement’ is already being bandied about?!
After a significant spike of nervous system activation, I settled down and realized—of course this is how she’s approaching her daughter’s relationship.
In these high-control religions, marriage is the goal. And basically, dating is pointless unless you can see yourself eventually marrying the person.
Sometimes I forget just how young many of us raised in purity culture really were when we began thinking seriously about our marriage prospects. Considering who might be “the one god has for us.” Wondering whether they would make a godly husband and father or wife and mother…
And, even though I look at my little brother and still think of him as just a baby, age-wise, he’s definitely entering into purity culture’s marriage-market territory.
I had actually reached the ripe old age of 27 before I walked down the aisle, but I would still consider my first marriage a “purity culture marriage.”
At the time, I was really proud of myself because I had wanted to wait “until I was older” before getting married.
However, despite being older than most of my peers were when they got married, everything about the way I approached my romantic relationships and eventual marriage was heavily steeped in purity culture conditioning.
I was still operating within an entire infrastructure that conditions people to evaluate relational dynamics, especially with members of the “opposite sex,” through a very narrow and distorted lens that’s actually much more transactional than loving.
It’s transactional in the sense that high-control religions systematize the marriage process, funneling people as quickly as possible into life-long commitments with little more on their checklist of requirements than that the other person adheres to their same belief structure.
Essentially, purity culture flattens people into caricatures of a “godly man” or “godly woman.” And if someone checks that box, nothing else really matters.
I think it’s fairly common in religious deconstruction spaces to hear about sexual difficulties following purity culture marriages—maybe due to sexual incompatibility, difficulties with sexual performance or pleasure, or even the discovery that your gender or sexual orientation is not a match for the partner you married.
However, I’m not sure enough attention is given to the ways many of us entered into these life-long unions with such a flattened perspective of one another.
When the other person’s religious belief and “relationship with god” are pretty much the only criteria on the list, we totally bypassed the process of really getting to know them as a person.
I think this is one of the reasons a lot of people end up struggling with their purity culture marriages after deconstructing. Without the framework of the belief structure, you’re left to figure out not only who you are but who the other person is as well.
While there are many beautiful things about reconnecting with your authentic self on the other side of high-control religion, you also get to experience what it’s like to discover and possibly love the full complexity of another person.
Though that part can still be tricky at times, it’s a far more vibrant and rewarding way to experience relationships with others—romantic or otherwise.
We are all more than the flattened caricature that high-control religion made us out to be.
And as you lean into discovering and reconnecting with your authentic self, I hope you also lean into discovering and embracing the full complexity of others because that‘s the space where authentic connection really begins.