This is for those who strongly feel that a romantic relationship is right for them. Paul said that singleness is a good thing spiritually, but not a requirement. I highly recommend you be open to however God directs your life and don’t feel you have to have a mate. At any rate, you may be a better potential mate if you don’t feel that it is a necessity for your happiness. I can testify that being close to God is worth way more than having a mate. Still, I think he knows what each of us need. Regardless of where you are at, if you are open to a developing romantic relationship, I think this will have some things that will be of help. Romantic relationships can break your heart. They can start great, but become increasingly problematic. They can interfere with your spiritual life and/or with your relationships with your family or friends. They can lead to a marriage that starts happy, but ends up a very unhappy or with divorce. They can become costly in various ways. I know. I’ve had plenty of bad relationship mistakes and as a leader of Divorce Care, I heard well over 100 heartbreaking stories from those going through divorce, and studied what experts say.Americans have done very poorly in this area in the modern age. Fewer marry at all. Many divorce and a significant number of those who stay together are unhappy. Our dating system no longer works as well as it did, when we used to have more in common with the people in our dating pool.
Some pretty basic things are helpful to know:
1. Everyone has flaws that would be considered serious flaws to most people. In addition, we are all sinful. The point is not to reject everyone who has flaws. The key thing is to find the major flaws of the other person and determine if you can live with them.
2. Almost everyone goes into a romantic relationship “putting their best foot forward” and they stay in the best or better version of themselves for a long time. I know people who maintained a largely great image for years (even through the in-love phase of marriage) before they started being a very different ‘normal self.’
3. Unfortunately, a lot of people have a tendency when there is someone who is seemingly a good prospect and has some real positive features, to spend more and more time with them, and naturally start getting emotionally attached. This works against getting to know each other and the flaws more deeply.
4. Given the above, it is wise to maintain self-control over your emotions and to start promoting growing transparency and honesty with each other, ideally by the 3rd date. You can start by sharing an honest relatively minor negative thing about yourself and gently share with them that you want to have a relationship that is based on who you each really are. It doesn’t need to be rushed and happen overnight, but they should be willing to start being honest about their negative things and flaws as well. This should significantly increase over time. To be sure, this approach may turn off the other and end the relationship. And even if you are on the path of honesty and transparency, either of you may realize that the other is not a good match. But isn’t that better that that happens before you get more deeply attached and which ends up with a huge heartbreak down the line?
RED FLAG: If the other person never reveals any serious flaw or even a serious mistake on their part (including in their past failed relationships), it could be a dangerous sign of a personality disorder like narcissistic personality disorder. People who have that can be highly functional great people on the surface but they have great difficulty in maintaining a healthy long-term relationship. This does not mean to rule out someone with a healthy self-image or normal level of selfishness, which almost everyone has.
5. Make sure they are spiritually and character-wise on the same page with you - not just by what they say but also by their actions. You might be able to get them to change while they are pursuing you, but eventually, the real person will come out. Don’t think you can fundamentally change them. Also, be cognizant of gender differences. The vast majority of men have some degree or another of male characteristics that are going to be frustrating to women. In the long run, they (with some exceptions) just aren’t going to be like a woman with sensitivity, etc. Also, make sure to find out if he has an addiction or pornography issue. You gals need to have a guy who has very strong, genuine faith and character, that you can trust, rely on no matter what, and seriously respect because of their deep faith. For guys, you want a woman you can unreservedly love, protect, and have a close friendship with who isn’t going to insist on you changing more than you want.
6. Make sure you are going into the relationship healthy, not expecting someone to “complete you.” I totally believe that true Christianity results in people that are healthy and have a healthy image (not too high or low) of themselves. This makes for healthier relationships. Nevertheless, just because the person is a seemingly strong Christian does not necessarily mean they are really healthy people. A healthy Christian is one who doesn’t expect someone else to fill the hole in your soul that only God can fill.
7. Before considering getting serious, ask yourself, can I see being with this person when they are old, look old, and have physical issues?
8. Match-making on-line sites and long-distance relationships: I have personally found two very strong matches through eHarmony, which does a lot more fine-tuned matching. It involves answering 80 compatibility questions (including 5 helpful religious questions) and, through a system that is designed to lead to the scientifically best match. It is designed to weed out fake profiles. When you have a match that you are interested in, who likewise is interested in you, you go through an in-house communication system where you can learn more about each other before you see each others email or text address. You, like I did, might have to expand your geographical area, which includes multiple states. My experience was that sometimes long-distance relationships for a period of time could actually have a benefit, if you are good with online communicating. You can really get to know a person more deeply when you are on an intellectual (but maybe flirting) level. I ended up traveling long-distance for relationships where we ended up engaged. To be sure, eHarmony is more costly than most sites – about $90 for 3 months or $300 for a year.
9. There is a book called ‘Safe People’ by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend (the guys who wrote the huge best-seller “Boundaries”) It talks about relationships in general but has a lot of application to romantic relationships.
- Mark
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