Physical: 18% body fat, 5'9", 174 pounds, estimated 1 rep max: 180 bench, 285 squat, 350 deadlift

Reading: read all of the sidebar, read through most of Deep Strength's blog

Finances: 160k/year, no debt

Spiritual: daily quiet time, prayer 2-3 times a week, currently teaching/doing Bible study with my family and some non Christian guys I'm evangelizing to, actively involved in a mission-oriented church to advance the mission (currently helping create new content for creative evangelism in Asia), tithe ~12-15%

Age: Me: 27, her: 23

What's the difference between a red flag, and a red flag that can be resolved?

In the course of my dating my girlfriend, she's told me that because of past hurts, she has problems with intimacy, both emotionally and physically. Growing up in a wealthy family, she was emotionally neglected by her parents since they were always too busy working to take care of her, so she was raised mostly by nannies and other servants. She didn't receive much love or attention from her family or caretakers. In addition, she was also sexually abused as a child, so she has a fear of sex and a lack of desire for sex as a consequence. The emotional neglect has made it hard for her to trust people and get close to them emotionally, as she's afraid of relationships for fear of getting hurt by them.

That's a pretty obvious red flag, but she's very godly and working hard on herself to fix them. She's getting weekly therapy to try to overcome her issues, even though she admits it's difficult. She's taking a break from active ministry and evangelism to do more reflection and reading. She's reading through a bunch of books on emotional health, spiritual growth, and biblical relationships, as well as writing regular reflections to send to her spiritual leader for feedback.

She's never had a boyfriend before, and I've never had a girlfriend. But based on all the reading I've done from the sidebar and Deep Strength's blog, I've been reorienting her view on relationships and encouraging her to strive for greater emotional intimacy. She acknowledged it's hard and scary for her, but she's trying and making some progress, as well as working very hard on her own as well. When I say something, she's very submissive and listens and agrees. According to the sidebar as well as some of Red-Curious' comments. I think she's a very good example of FAST, faithful, available, saved, and teachable. And according to the sidebar, that should be enough, as the rest I can teach.

All of this is very attractive to me, and I told her that because of her humility, courage to face her past trauma and hurts, and willingness to work hard to improve her emotional health, I was willing to stay with her and encourage her. I've prayed about it, talked with my spiritual leaders and other solid Christians, asked God for wisdom during my daily quiet time, and so I think I'm making the right decision.

On the other hand, it's true I could find someone more emotionally stable who doesn't have this kind of baggage, but in pretty much every other respect she's very ideal. She's very attractive, godly, submissive, agrees with male headship, respects me, seems to be attracted to me, intelligent, hardworking, humble, mission-minded, frugal, and not entitled.

What do you guys think? Is this the kind of red flag that could be resolved because of her obedience to the Bible, or is it still too much of a risk?

Some possible objections:

She's just using you for your money/wealth, and is just using her intimacy issues as an excuse.

Possible, but unlikely. She comes from a rich family and grew up with servants, so she's never wanted for material goods. Instead, she was starved of affection and love, not material goods or money, and from what I can tell based on how she lives her life, she's not a big spender. She's never asked how much I make, nor would she know from my living circumstances. Both of us live with multiple roommates from church to save money, promote fellowship, and grow in love for members of the Body, so we both have the exact same lifestyle and standard of living, even though she probably makes 1/3 of what I make. I also don't make particularly much for my location. Our church is very rich, so while I would be considered above average, I wouldn't stand out in any way. She could easily find someone who makes more than me in our church.

She's saying this because she's not attracted to you.

Possible, but unlikely. She's been giving regular and frequent IOIs from our first date onward, and is very willing to accommodate me if I ask for something. When I told her I might be too busy for a previously scheduled date, she said she was willing to meet later just to talk, and that she would be willing to come to where I was to save time. In fact, she actually had to ask to not text on Sunday, because she found herself thinking about me too much and getting distracted from focusing on the message.

Why waste your time? Abundance mentality and OI, bro.

I get this, and that's why I'm even asking here. But one thing to keep in mind is that both of us are minorities, and a big reason why I asked her out is because we're the same minority. We're not from America, and we weren't born here, although we now live here. For cultural reasons, I wanted to date someone of the same race as me, which doesn't leave a whole lot of options. Godly, serious, committed Christians like her are even rarer, and highly attractive ones are rarer still. To be fair, we go to a minority church that's very mission minded, so it's not as if there are no other options for me. There are, and my spiritual leader's wife said she could help recommend someone suitable to me. But I know who she recommended, and I would definitely be losing out in other areas such as attractiveness, godliness, and common vision (we both have the same vision for our lives in terms of how to serve God) in exchange for better emotional and mental health. And it's not like I'm some kind of 10/10 man either. I have my own issues, which she has said she is willing to accept.

What if you get married and things don't improve much, leading to very infrequent sex?

This is definitely a concern, and something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. I don't think I have a high libido, probably about medium, so I wouldn't mind having sex once a week or once every other week, if it came down to that. It's not ideal, but I think I'd be okay with that situation, and we both have a lot of optimism that things will get better as she continues to work on herself. We trust God, and we trust in the power of the gospel to transform lives and renew our minds, completely and fully (Rom 12:1-2). I told her I was willing to be patient with her, knowing her situation. She recognizes herself that emotional and physical intimacy are very important in a marriage, and she wants to and has been working to improve herself in this area as well. But just to be sure, I'm planning on doing a Bible Study with her through Ephesians 5 and 1 Cor 7 to get her perspective on spousal rights to each other's body, as well as male headship.

EDIT:

I've realized that some more context might help with people's suggestions.

I go to a church that's extremely mission-oriented. Our motto is that everybody is a soul winner, meaning that everybody who attends is expected to be engaged in active evangelism. It's not unusual for people to spend 20-30 hours a week on activity directly related to the mission, to the point where every once in a while, our senior pastor has to force people to scale back a bit to avoid getting burnt out and spend more time on relationships. We get accused by other people (often lukewarm Christians) of being a cult, of neglecting our kids, of being too zealous for the mission or for God. I've focused on the mission for the past 8 years or so, always making it the number one priority in my life, so dating is actually a very welcome change of pace as I enter a different season of life.

The dating and marriage culture is also very mission-oriented. Typically, people will date for only 6 months from first encounter to engagement. I'm not sure what's typical in other church circles, but we usually have one date a week where we see each other for 2-3 hours. Sometimes a date will just be two people meeting up in a cafe to work on the mission together; one person might be preparing a message, while another person is researching new outreach ideas. That means total in person contact is probably on the order of 50-100 hours total, which is probably less than even some arranged marriages.

Dating is also extremely secret, such that nobody knows who's single or dating, or who's dating whom. There's a lot of gender segregation, not unlike orthodox Jewish synagogues, and if you're interested in somebody, you're expected to ask your leader for his or her availability and their contact info because often times you know nothing about the other person beyond their name, appearance, and in what capacity they're serving. As you can imagine, this adds unique challenges to dating, making the possibility of exploring other options probably more difficult than in other contexts.

Despite that, divorce rates are extremely low in our church, literally <1%. Out of hundreds of married couples, there have only been 2 divorces because everybody is so focused on the mission and obeys the Bible, and so couples will bond over doing the mission together, which often helps resolve fights and prevents putting either spouse on a pedestal. That's not to say things are perfect; fights definitely still happen, people become resentful, and sometimes leaders have to intervene to resolve a marital conflict.

With such a high emphasis on the mission, spouses become your most reliable source of support and everybody is expected to work together. For example, the wife cooks a huge meal for an outreach dinner, and the husband prepares the content, or the husband watches the kids so the wife can go meet and disciple the women under her. Of course, sex is still very important because sexual union is very important in marriage, but I recall our senior pastor's wife saying a typical frequency is perhaps once a week (I think she's speaking from experience based on counseling couples in our church), so I was surprised to find out everybody on this sub considers twice a week the minimum for a healthy marriage.

As a consequence, I would suspect chemistry, compatibility, ability to work well together, and shared vision for our lives become relatively more important for a potential spouse than in other social circles. My girlfriend and I have plenty of all of the above, and we both share the same vision, which is to do college campus outreach to international students, with a 10 year vision of moving to become long term missionaries in China or Japan.

Our senior pastor has mentioned several times that our church is very atypical, that most American churches are not like that. Since this is the only church I've ever been to and the church in which I became saved (I grew up an atheist and became Christian in college), I have no idea what it's like in other churches, even other very biblical churches.