Saving Your Relationship Before It Begins

Love desires everything pleasurable. It desires for acceptance and relationship, acceptance for the relationship of a family, friendship, and husband and wife. In The 5 love Languages: The secrets to love that lasts, author Gary Chapman wrote that “At the heart of mankind’s existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another.” We are interwoven to love, desire and to be loved. Because of this materialized desire in humanity, falling in love becomes the easiest thing that naturally dawns on us even at the least moment we thought of it. One’s whole life—thoughts and actions, cannot be independent without the thoughts of this special person. Karen Carpenter said it well in her lyrics, Top of the World:

Such a feeling’s coming over me
There is wonder in most everything I see
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes
And I won’t be surprised if it’s a dream

Everything I want the world to be
Is now coming true especially for me
And the reason is clear, it’s because you are here
You’re the nearest thing to heaven that I’ve seen

[Chorus]
I’m on the top of the world looking down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I’ve found ever since you’ve been around
Your love’s put me at the top of the world

Something in the wind has learned my name
And it’s telling me that things are not the same
In the leaves on the trees and the touch of the breeze
There’s a pleasing sense of happiness for me

There is only one wish on my mind
When this day is through I hope that I will find
That tomorrow will be just the same for you and me
All I need will be mine if you are here

When things get to this point, it means one is fallen into a world where the people speak one language called love. The person is now ready to share something extraordinary with someone else in a different world, and for the rest of one’s life. How is this going to be?

An ideal person or for an ideal relationship?

People would like to be with persons to share an ideal relationship. Unfortunately what we consider to be an ideal relationship turns to be the idealization of persons. Nancy Van Pelt, the acclaimed marriage and relationship counselor, spells it out rightly when she said “During the early stages of falling in love, you will likely experience a wide range of feelings and responses, including intense passion and idealization of your partner–thinking he or she is absolutely “perfect”” (Van Pelt, p. 9). This happens when your heart jumps and dances filling your day dreams with fantasies of this one particular person. But it’s strange to know that there’s not a package called an ideal relationship—never and not on earth. An ideal relationship is a process that the two must decide to work towards it. Below are five important things that can help you to begin a relationship and to finish well.

To love is a choice

Love is a gift that we receive from God and once given, one has received something sacred and greater than self. People who love do love everything that they do. However, to love is a choice that you make each passing day. Allana Pratt, intimate expert and author of many love books wrote in one of her seminar reports Relationships: Empowering men and women for life, says, “… every choice had to end in SAFE” (p. 3). Of course, no one will like to make deliberate choices to hurt self. Choice is the freedom that springs from self-love. It’s within one’s freedom that the person comes to experience love for oneself first. Loving yourself will make you happy, powerful, peaceful, strong, free and optimistic. Jürgen Moltmann, the German theologian wrote in his The Spirit of Life that “Self-love is the foundation for a free life” (p. 187). It’s only when you’re free that you can make others feel so happy. A life that is bent down in the shadows of grief, worry, hopelessness and self-hatred is a life without the subject of love. Such persons may need more love for themselves instead of them loving others.

Love without fear

John says “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (1 John 4, 18). The one simple word that changes everything in this text is the nominative “teleia” translated perfect or mature which often means something that is fully developed into moral intelligence. To fall in love means to make a moral choice. One needs to be guided by moral principles other than emotions or feelings. Ellen White wrote in the Adventist Home “Pure and holy affection is not a feeling, but a principle.” She added, “Those who are actuated by true love are neither unreasonable nor blind” (p. 50). The fear to fall in love will mean that a person is misguided or not well informed about their choices. You don’t have to enter into love when you’re not sure. As the African Akan proverb goes “Love is not palm wine to be tasted.” You must fall in love to stand and not to be broken. Many people enter into relationship just only to put it to test. Such a movement can lead to prejudgments and prejudices of finding faults in the relationship. The real essence of loving relationship is to step into it to work to the end.

Humans are not perfect and won’t be

Are you dreaming of a perfect person? Well Steve Harvey in his book Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, says, “I’m here to tell you that expecting that kind of love—that perfection—from a man is unrealistic. That’s right, I said it—it’s not gonna happen, no way, no how” (pp.20, 21). Why? Sam Keen, the American author and philosopher, response in his book To Love and to be Loved, “We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” Is there anyone so perfect to cast the first stone? Absolutely none! Honestly, each person has something to fix in his or her life. When you enter into someone’s life, know that you have entered a dirty workshop. All the baggage and the dirt you never knew now begin to fall at your feet. You’re the one to help to clean the mess. If you love the person, you’ll want to make that person the kind you ideally desire. Both of you should be opened enough to discuss each other’s weakness other than complaining about what went wrong. Dirty silvers don’t shine unless you have shined them.

Love is not the savior of your relationship

Love is very strange and can be stressing if not well handled. Van Pelt said “Many relationships fail even before they really begin because couples come with the theory that true love conquers all…Anyone who buys into this theory is not facing reality.” She further explained that “If couples having one or more of the following issues insist that they don’t matter, such couples live in the risky “love-conquers all” zone: wide age differences, racial or cultural differences, religious differences, lack of education, lack of financial resources, a current or previous marriage, parental disapproval, disagreement over not wanting children, a drinking, drug, gambling, or other compulsive habit” (p. 9).

Love is the central magnet that pulls the opposite sides together but it’s not the savior of the relationship. This does not contradict the fact that love is everything needed in a relationship. To save your relationship, you must play the game from God’s will. Persons beginning a relationship should be well informed that loving relationship, unlike any other relationships, demands determination, hard work, prayer, and continual trust in God. Love is a principle that needs to be practiced everyday. These principles are not your principle. They’re the principles of the One who gives and maintains the sanity, holiness and beauty of love. And without these principles that come from God, love will tend to be a showbiz and it will not stand a test of time. Jesus says, “Without me, you can do nothing” (John 15, 3). Nothing goes in the Lord’s hand without coming back transformed, and renewed. Jesus is the source of love and there is joy in a relationship when Jesus is invited.

Prayer, the self-awareness key

It happened that one day Jeff had a serious upset with her fiancée. It was one thing they talk about but she keeps repeating. So Jeff said an end to the relationship. He decided not to call her or pick her phone calls. He was so angry and upset. Then Jeff disclosed his uneasiness and decision with a close friend. His friend smiled and said to him, “You cannot change the heart of a person with many words, you need to pray for her.” His friend continued to add “It is God alone who can fix brokenness in love.” Wow! Jeff grabbed his jaws! That moment, he found a quiet place and prayed for forgiveness for his unnecessary anger. He got so relieved and that evening, Jeff called her fiancée and guess what? Their conversation that night revealed that both of them were not doing the right thing. Things began to take shape gradually for them. Whence, Jeff made it a commitment to pray for her mind and heart.

A handout prepared by the Faith Moving Ministries in McDonough, Georgia with the caption 31 Days of Praying for your Wife says from the beginning “Earnest prayer for your wife is good for her, for you and the spiritual health of your home (Prov. 31:11-12). Satan desires to destroy your wife, especially her character.” Prayer does make difference. Prayer will give you self-awareness of what is necessary to do or to stop doing.

Conclusion

I shall conclude by saying that to love is to dare. If you dare want to know who you really are, you must dare to fall in love with somebody. Falling in love is like putting yourself before the mirror. You put your image at assessment. There is someone standing close by with a cop’s cap watching and pointing out what is right with you and what is wrong with you. The person tells it to your face to change that and to do that! These things are often mistaken as strictness and control. That is far away the contrary. In fact bad habit cannot cohabitate with love and when persons fall in love they want to feel comfortable with you for life. In truth, this is how love’s own correction rod is manifested, to shape and to maintain a person for an ideal relationship. But every correction must be reflected by holy principles. If you find your relationship leading you away from God, then you must reconsider how it will end.

Beginning a relationship can be exciting. In some persons’ life, it can be rough. Neither of them guarantees the success of the relationship. It’s how a relationship is maintained, nurtured, and cherished that can guarantee its idealism. If you consider these few advices in the article and many others from relationship and marriage experts, you can achieve the best out of your relationship. And of course, God is for each one of us, a helper (Psalm 46: 1).

References
1. Van Pelt, Nancy. What’s This Thing Called Love? Dialogue, 18·1 2006.
2. Harvey, Steve, and Denene Millner. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love, Relationships, Intimacy, and Commitment. New York: Amistad, 2009.
3. Moltmann, Jürgen. The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
4. Chapman, Gary D. The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Chicago: Northfield Pub, 1992.
5. White, Ellen G. H. The Adventist Home: Counsels to Seventh-Day Adventist Families As Set Forth in the Writings of Ellen G. White. Nashville: Southern Pub. Association, 1952.