There is a huge difference between casual dating that
result in intimate relationship and a serious commitment to each other for
life. The former is engaged in by people
with fleeting or no purpose for life in a holistic way while the latter is
entered into by people who have an idea of what they want out of life and what
donation they are here on earth to make.
For the second group of people, even though they are few, they are the
ones who turn out to be real world changers.
When two people are drawn to each other only on the basis
of how they feel in their genitals, they will eventually fall apart and lose
the feelings the way the sex act itself plays out from foreplay to climax and
eventual limpness! There has to be a
more serious reason to be romantically linked to someone beyond the “oohs” and
“aahs” of romance and sex. If you are
presently in a relationship that you hope may end up in marriage and the
binding force is the power of sex between you and your partner, then you must
begin to scratch your head and seek the exit door. It is better to quit now that you still have
your sense intact.
The life of an average individual is made up of four
major areas. There is the spiritual,
material, intellectual and emotional set-up.
If you must be in a relationship with someone, wouldn’t it be reasonable
to first of all seat down and count the cost?
Find out if you are on the same spiritual wavelength with the
person. What is your understanding of
material well-being and how does the other person view it? Can the two of you carry on an intellectual
discussion without misunderstanding each other?
Can you balance your emotional life with that person? This is the most primary level of test. If at this level, there is a disconnect in
any of these area, you must raise the red flag and put a break to your feelings
no matter how strong they are. You
cannot trust your feelings alone! You
have to balance your feelings for each other with the other three major areas
which are critical aspects of your lives.
Like I have always said, there are 24 hours in a day. The highest amount of time any couple can
devote to the passion of sex is only about 1 hour! If you have not figured out what the two of
you will be doing with the remaining 23 hours, then you will be creating a
monumental frustration lifestyle ahead of you.
Having
dealt with the foundation issues, I want to critically address some of the
challenges people in purpose-driven relationships face from time to time. There is the danger of feeling that they are
coasting home since their partners have some high level of understanding about
relationship at a generic level as they possess and therefore do not expect any
bumps along the way; this is a breeding ground for taking each other for
granted.
For
the relationship to continue to flourish there has to be constant watering and tending. The inability to continue to work on
themselves and the relationship itself is the bane of many unions. Let us nail the head on this subject by
looking at three critical issues of watering and tending.
1. Understand Your Roles
Any time people abandon
God’s ways, pain will become their portion.
God ordained that the man to be the leader and the head. The woman was created to support the man as a
helper. This has nothing to do with who
is better of the two. The confusion
people have is the fact that they believe because the woman is a helper, she is
automatically inferior. No! The man on the other hand is not better than
the woman; he just got a role to be a leader.
Look at it critically; a true leader is also a very serious
servant! God made them equal but with
different roles. Play your part. Play your role.
2. Be truly sincere
Don’t tolerate anything in
courtship that you will not allow in marriage.
If you can’t take it now, deal with it now. If you find anything antithetical to your
belief system or values, discuss it now!
If you can’t agree at the courtship period, don’t be deceived that being
married will make things sort themselves out.
Things don’t always sort themselves out – people have to do it!
If you don’t like the guy
or the lady now; watch your steps.
Understanding about each other develops with time. That is the reason why I advocate for a
fairly reasonably long relationship to allow for time to test the attitudes and
orientation of each partner. The
relationship shouldn’t be too long beyond necessary – that too can make the two
of you weary yourselves out. If the two
of you use to enjoy discussions just for the sake of mutual fellowship and one
of you starts getting irritated unnecessarily about it, then you must watch
it. Two things could be possible –
someone else might be tickling his or her fancy or the feelings for you are
waning and there is nothing else that looks interesting to sustain your
friendship.
3. Make sacrifices
Relationships or marriages
that work are the results of sacrifices.
But I am not asking that people should commit suicide! There is a world of difference between
tolerating someone for a weakness the person is owning up to and is willing to
change than someone who justifies every wrong action and says “that’s me – deal
with it!” There is no character trait
that cannot be changed especially if it runs contrary to Biblical
standards. It must be noted that I am
discussing from a faith-based point of view.
That is the center of my life and if you have no faith in Christ, you
are reading the wrong piece.
We must learn to trade-off
some of our requirements for a lady or a guy who should be our relationship
partner or spouse. You cannot have a
perfect partner – you are not perfect.
So if you have a partner that meets the generality of your requirement
based on some of the criteria we have enunciated above, then other things can
be worked on with time. But, you must
make sure they are things that are not central to your values and belief
system. Those are the things you cannot
afford to trade-off!
A discussion on building
value-adding relationship cannot be exhaustive.
At best, I have just scratched the surface, but I believe that in this
piece, there is enough stuff here to lay a solid foundation upon which purpose
driven people can build their relationship on.
Enjoy a sweet day wherever you are.
