1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
Stay as self-centered and selfish as you are right now. Do not remove yourself from the throne of your life and put Jesus at the center. Make sure everything is all about you—your comfort, your demands, your rules. Grab all the attention and power that you can get. Be that Queen Bee or Big Dog. This will ensure that your marriage ends sooner than later as you refuse to obey God in this most basic of commandments and you continue to love yourself more than you love God or your intended spouse.
2. You shall make no graven images to worship.
Have at least one graven image in your life that you bow down to, that you worship and adore and are emotionally connected to, more than you are to any person. To maximize the chance that you will ruin your future marriage, be sure to love some object more than you love your romantic interest, especially if you’re already dating and you feel snug and smug in their commitment toward you. It doesn’t matter if it’s your electronic devices, your movies, your car, your job, your education, your career, your sin, your collection of whatevers. You need all those idols to take away your attention, time, energy, and money to mask the vacuum pain that a lack of spiritual and emotional intimacy creates. The more idols you have in your life, the better. Most likely you developed these interests awhile before you met your love interests; they will give you something to return to after you ruin the relationship.
3. You shall not take My name in vain.
Have no control over your mouth, even in the presence of your fiancé/fiancée. Swear like you always do when you get angry or to make a point or to belittle them. Publicly use God’s name in vain lots and lots. You want to make sure that your future spouse, children, and grandchildren understand that though you say you are a Christian, you don’t really mean it, so nothing is really sacred around you. You need to hide the possibility that you might not be smart or spiritual enough to increase your vocabulary and use better words, manage your anger, and demonstrate a higher emotional I.Q., after all.
It’s also been said that taking God’s name in vain means to pray repetitiously, ritualistically, emptily, without faith or love for the Lord. So, yeah, do not pray like you mean it. Neglect prayer, both individually and with your love interest. If you want to help destroy your marriage, don’t pray for it. Let the devil get into the middle of your relationships and stir the pot up. Between your spiritual apathy and neglect and spiritual warfare, you will help tear your future marriage apart for certain.
4. You shall keep the Sabbath Day holy.
Don’t set aside any extra time for the Lord you claim to worship. If you really want to screw up your marriage, at all costs, do not go to church together. Or go until you start dating seriously or get married and then drop that whole church thing. All you really wanted to do was get married to a nice church girl or guy. If you do decide you want to keep going to church, do not take any of their biblical teachings seriously, like don’t discuss it, look up parallel passages, pray about it, or share it. Don’t participate in any home Bible studies or small groups or ministries or missions or service projects together. The less time you spend in an atmosphere that reminds you of God and His holiness and love, the better your chances of totally messing up your relationships.
5. You shall honor your parents.
This is a big one! Please honor your parents. Honor them more than you honor your romantic interest. That means be sure to remain a mama’s boy or a daddy’s girl if you are one. Those parents have a vested interest in keeping you, their baby girl or boy, in their family. They might need to extend that control over everything you do to drive off all potential competition and make sure you never grow up. It could be that their sole identity is as a parent and they didn’t know how to train their children to grow up and become independent, rational, productive citizens and adults. Maybe those parents don’t have a life beyond the vicarious power they experience through you or they need you to take over the family business or the family sin. If you value your family’s attention, power, advice, approval, and sometimes money, over everyone else, even God, you’re well on your way to ruining your marriage. This is especially true if previous boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses have brought this up and fled in the face of your stubborn, fearful, passive acceptance of your parent’s dominance in your life.
6. You shall not murder.
Of course you shouldn’t murder anyone physically, that’s so wrong… Unless you’ve been having sex and get pregnant. Then you can murder your unborn child through abortion. That’s the only time it’s socially acceptable. But there’s nothing wrong with emotional murder. Or verbal murder. Or intellectual suicide. Don’t be kind, compassionate, positive, or encouraging. Be mean, critical, blaming, and negative. That is definitely the way to kill your future spouse’s love and admiration for you. You might even succeed in driving them off before you even get to the altar.
7. You shall not commit adultery.
Have roving eyes and a restless heart. Compare your date to others all the time. Always be looking for a better boyfriend/girlfriend than the one you have right now. Ladies, dress for success in all the wrong pursuits. Always look like you’re for sale and make men stare at something else on you instead of your face. Men, pornography is fine as long as you can keep it a secret. Forget the statistics on how deadly porn is for marriage, indulge in it. After all, you’re not hurting anyone else, right?
Marriage really is not a sacred covenant between a godly man and a godly woman, brought together in God’s timing and held together with God’s love. It’s just an inconvenient, expensive legal contract. It’s fashionable to have a cavalier attitude toward traditional marriage in today’s culture, so you’re hipster if you don’t think traditional marriage is really a big deal.
A sneaky way of getting around the technicalities of committing adultery is to dump the boundaries on people of the opposite sex. Confuse or irritate your current love interest by staying in touch with former lovers and run around with lots of other people of the opposite sex.
Also, to destroy your future marriage, live together before you get married. That old-fashioned word, “fornication,” isn’t really in the same category as adultery. You do have the right to try them out, you know, like you try on a pair of shoes. You might not be compatible, after all. Ignore all the research that talks about how much more likely you will be to divorce once you start living together before you marry.
8. You shall not steal.
Naw, God doesn’t really mean don’t steal. It’s okay to take things from people who deserve it, like if you don’t like them or you don’t think they deserve what they have. Steal your boyfriend/girlfriend’s dignity, self-worth, joy, independence, time, and desire to strengthen their relationship with God through whatever means possible. You need them more than God does! That way, you can make sure that they stay with you in this relationship no matter how controlling they think it’s becoming.
9. You shall not bear false witness.
Spend lots of time gossiping, talking trash about, spreading rumors about, lying about, other people you both know. That way, your romantic interest won’t be surprised when they find out you’ve been talking trash about them and spilling out their secrets, insecurities, sin issues, and problems behind their backs. It’s a great way to build a cracked foundation for a future marriage to get it to fall apart—destroy their trust in you. It’s okay to distort reality using words if it makes you feel better about yourself because you are the most important person in this upcoming marriage. Words are not that powerful. You can always apologize later. They’re just too sensitive and they need to get over it!
10. You shall not covet.
Always spend way more extra time than you need to, working at your job, education, or business. That way you can neglect your most important human relationships but have all the stuff you’ve always wanted. Compare yourself to the richest people you know so that you can always know the latest and greatest stuff they acquire and remain obsessed over material things. Envy and covet others’ possessions enough to promise yourself that you’re going to have all that someday.
11. Prepare for a lifetime of misery as you bounce from one romantic relationship to another. Without an intervention from the Holy Spirit that you cooperate with, you’re likely never to learn from your mistakes and you will continue to crave that intimacy which you need with God but demand from people and things.
Based on Exodus 20:1-17
