Someone recently said that Nikki and I were her role model couple. She's not the first one to say something so flattering to Nikki and I. We are blessed beyond measure to have found each other at the time we did, which was no accident, but divine intervention. The fact that I have any resemblance of a normal relationship is in and of itself a miracle. I've been doing lots of observing lately, both of myself and those around me. I apologize in advance to my friends who may or may not be Guinea pigs :)
I have three things that I feel compelled to talk about. 1. You have to be healthy to attract healthy- it's a ticket to entry. 2. Relationships require discipline, not a feeling. 3. We have become desensitized to how much we sabotage ourselves.
When I was in my twenties, which I cringe to look back on now, I went through relationships like I went through Zima's with grenadine.
People were disposable.
I couldn't stand myself. I had no respect for myself. How does someone with that mentality ever really fully care about another human being and make a relationship work? THEY DON'T! So the first lesson is that you have to love yourself and respect yourself before you'll ever be truly ready to invite TRUE love into your life. Until then, you will attract pieces and parts at best. I mean the truth of the matter is, if you are F'ed up in the head, why would someone genuinely well balanced and a good partner ever latch on to you? THEY WON'T! This is a ticket to entry.
This also makes me think of relationships where someone cheats and then tries to come crawling back. Unhealthy says, I can fix it. I still love her. It looks back on the "good times" and mourns for something that will never ever exist again. Healthy says, "you can't even respect yourself. You will never be able to give me the respect I deserve. Get out!" Not learned easily for the self loathing. I still struggle to stay healthy and thank God every day for His wisdom. There are some relationships I thanks the baby Jesus for helping me to walk away from. If not, I'd still be stuck in toxic with no room for healthy.
This brings me to point two. If you are able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and you are able to find someone who has done the same, you still have to apply discipline. What do I mean? First off, I really believe relationships are hard because you have way more remorse than buying a $200 pair of jeans that really don't make your ass look good. AND you can't always tell if they fit well the first go round. Everyone is on their best behavior in month one, two, three, four, five and sometimes beyond. You've got to keep the jeans around a while; wear them in. You wake up one day and your like, I REALLY DON'T LIKE THESE JEANS AT ALL! But then the bargaining starts. "I spent $200 on these jeans! I am not buying new jeans! Maybe if I wear them with a long sweater..." It's hard to trade in a relationship 6 months, a year or two in. We don't want to admit defeat. We don't want to start over. And God help us, by the time we realize we are not with our soul mate, often moving boxes are involved. But, if we stay with the wrong person we are not making room for the right person! Finding a soul mate is no time for a compromise. We are talking about THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! Part of the trick is REALLY doing your homework up front. To me, it is critical that you find a partner who makes you laugh and shares the core values you share around money, long term goals, children, marriage, career, and religion. They don't have to be identical, but they should be pretty close. Negotiating bowling night is a far cry from negotiating the religion you want to raise your children.
If you are vigilant enough and you hold out for someone who is equally yolked, the biggest key is discipline to keep it together. Eventually no matter how in love with someone you are, eventually YOU WILL PLATEAU. That's life. It's so important to keep certain disciplines in your relationship. Share your faith. Laugh. Change up your routine. Treat each other with respect. Don't belittle each other in front of friends. Now some of you might be like "DUH"!!!!!! But it's easy when your 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years into a relationship to take each other for granted.. you can forget to pray or go to church. Life gets stressful and you forget to laugh with one another. Decide in advance what is really important to both of you. Make a commitment. Revisit that commitment often. Check in on how you're doing to the goals you've set about your relationship.
Lastly, stop self sabotaging! We all struggle with this. I keep trying to do God's job for Him and I keep trying to make my world smaller than it has to be. God has much MUCH MUCH BIGGER plans for us than we can ever have for ourselves. Sometimes I might say something like, "I'll never have that." SAYS WHO????? Ask God to take over. Ask Him to pave the way. And ask Him to help get you out of the way!
I hope my ranting has been helpful and caused you to stop and re-evaluate a couple things in the new year :)
This is the article I found earlier by Grant Cardone also speaks nicely to some of the thoughts I hit on.
"Love is not a feeling, love is a decision you make and continue to make in order to create an experience that is described as love. Love is an action that if you don't use it you lose it. Love is like any communication, if you never send it out, you won’t get a return. Love is something you give to others not something you feel because something happens to you. Most of my life I was under the delusion that love was a feeling, something that was going to happen to me. Love is not something that happens to you but something that you make happen to you and happen to others. Love is something that grows from your actions and decisions and if you don’t have it and or not experiencing it then there is something you don’t know about love! I spent most of my adult life waiting for love to happen to me and after one failed marriage and endless searching for “the right person” I finally realized the truth about love, how to have it, how to create it and how to sustain it. Wikipedia also states love as an experience related to a strong sense of affection. Affection is a "disposition or state of mind or body"[1] that is often associated with a feeling or type of love. This definition suggests that you do something rather than have something done to you. How do you feel affection for anything? You would actually decide to show it love, admire it, pay attention to it, treat it right, honor it, praise it, and find the good in it. At which point you will then have affection for it. Mistreat it, lie to it, and ignore it and I assure you that you will not feel affection for it nor will you ever say you love it. Love is probably the single most universally desired human quality that exist on this planet. Love is not something you can buy or barter, it is not taught at school, it doesn’t matter how rich you are, your IQ, race, creed, religion, social economic status or who you know. So on this Valentine's Day practice making a decision to love and then following that decision up with actions that communicate love. Remember love is not a feeling; love is a decision!"
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