Posted on

[Q&A: Relationships] If our feelings fade, is it real love?

The Q: From a guy, regarding a girl in his life: “I like her. Well, more than that. But I know I’m not ready to date. So, we decided to be friends. … I’m scared if we don’t talk about our feelings and just be friends, our feelings will go away. But, love is stronger than that, right? Like, if this is love, then it will continue to grow naturally, without having to always say, ‘I love ya,’ right?” -James*

The A: What James is really afraid of – or so says my hunch – is not that the feelings will fade. He’s afraid of what it means if they do. And that requires a long answer.

According to the brilliant Pope John Paul II – and as fabulously paraphrased in a book by Edward Sri – there are a couple sets of a couple kinds of love (not a typo). There’s subjective love and objective love and there’s immature love and mature love.

Subjective love is emotional (sentimentality!) and physical (sensuality!). It is the part of love widely described as warm and fuzzy. It’s based on what happens to you, both spontaneously and suddenly. And “no matter how intensely we experience these sensations, it is not necessarily love, but simply ‘a psychological situation.’ In other words, on its own, the subjective aspect of love is no more than a pleasurable experience happening inside of me.” (Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, page 56)

Objective love is what exists between you and somebody else in reality (not as filtered by the lenses that are clouded by those sudden, spontaneous sensations). It’s a fact, not a feeling. It’s based on a virtuous friendship, the pursuit of a common good, seeking what’s best for your beloved, self-giving, commitment to and a sense of responsibility for the other person (as paraphrased from Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, page 59).

Immature love looks inward. The immature lover is “absorbed in his own feelings. Here, the subjective aspect of love reigns supreme. He measures his love by the sensual and emotional reactions he experiences in the relationship.” –Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, page 79

Mature love looks outward, in two ways. First, it isn’t based on feelings, but on the truth about the other person, on commitment to that person (as a result of the truth) and on selflessness. Second, the mature lover “actively seeks what is best for the beloved. The person with a mature love is not focused primarily on what feelings and desires may be stirring inside him. Rather, he is focused on his responsibility to care for his beloved’s good. He actively seeks what is good for her, not just his own pleasure, enjoyment and selfish pursuits.” And the “emotions still play an important part, but they are grounded in the truth of the other person as he or she really is (not my idealization of that person).” –Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love, pages 79-80

And as I gather (from Sri and from JP2), subjective, immature love propels a person into a relationship because of feelings, and it isn’t real love. Objective, mature love compels a person to remain in a relationship when there are feelings and when there aren’t, and it is real love.

Which brings us back to James.

He said he’s afraid his feelings will fade, and asked whether love’s stronger than that, and whether – if it’s love – it’ll grow on its own.

Which I sum up like this: If our feelings fade, is it (objective, mature) love?

You’ll know the answer if and when they do.

– – – –

Q&A is an occasional feature. If you have a Q, I can come up with an A (and if I don’t have an A, I’ll find somebody who does). To submit a question, email me at arleenwrites@gmail.com or leave it in the comments. No topic is taboo (although I can’t promise I will answer every question).

Click here to read more about Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love by Edward Sri.

*Real person, fake name.

Posted on

[Guest Post Series] Relationship Tips: #1 – Define your relationship (with Christ).

Mr. and Mrs. Fisher!

Define The Relationship.

A DTR is the conversation in which you and your date ask the tough questions. Do we want to make this official? Where is this relationship heading? It’s a time to communicate.

It’s the same with God. Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He said that God would “give [us] another Advocate who will never leave [us]. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth” (John 14:16-17). We can communicate with the Spirit, telling God our hopes, dreams, fears, expectations, concerns, confusion, and doubts. We can speak in absolute honesty, trusting that nothing we say could ever separate us from Him or make Him love us any less.

Read John 14:15-17. Do you feel like you can speak openly with God? Do you feel anything in your past could separate you from His love?

{Excerpt taken from Not Another Dating Book}

About the blogger: Renee Johnson Fisher is a spirited speaker to the 20-somethings and author of Faithbook of Jesus and Not Another Dating Book. She loves her engineering husband and together they rescued a pit bull. She blogs at devotionaldiva.com.

– – – –

Relationship Tips is a series of guest posts. Click here to read all the posts in the series.

Posted on

Breaking up and making up.

In a substance abuse counseling class I took in the spring semester, I learned a lot about withdrawals.

“Withdrawal” is what happens to a person’s body and/or mind after he or she stops using certain drugs. Withdrawals could include the sweats and the shakes, nausea and diarrhea, insomnia and anxiety, depression and restlessness, a rapid heart rate, hallucinations, delirium tremens (DTs).

It sucks, in other words.

But the return to homeostasis (equilibrium) requires allostasis (the process by which the body achieves it).

And allostasis isn’t always easy.

This is (one of several reasons) why some people who are mid-withdrawal relapse before it’s over.

The discomfort starts as soon as the person calls it quits. And if the sudden absence of the drug is what triggered the discomfort, it is understandable that some people will go back to the drug. Going back to the drug alleviates the discomfort (but doesn’t give the user time to stop craving it).

This is not unlike what I sometimes watch happen when certain relationships end. And that is not to say people are addicted to each other (although sometimes that’s debatable).

But upon breaking up, a guy or a girl – especially the rejected, but often also the reject-er – grieves the loss of the relationship. There’s crying, and coming up with all the things you wish you’d said (or hadn’t). There’s emotional eating, or emotional not-eating, and heartache.

It sucks, in other words.

And I think this is (one of several reasons) why people do a lot of breaking up and making up (and breaking up and making up again, and again, and again). If the sudden absence of [insert applicable person’s name here] is what triggered the discomfort, it is understandable that some people will go back to him or her.

But is your response to rejection necessarily a good gauge for whether the relationship should have ended?

I’d say that it’s as good a gauge as withdrawals are for whether a user should have stopped using a drug.* Because the truth is, withdrawal symptoms are not signs that walking away from the drug was a bad idea. Withdrawal symptoms are natural, and necessary.

Grief over the end of a relationship, then,  is not necessarily a sign that walking away from it was a bad idea.

Grief is natural and necessary.

Give yourself time (to stop craving).

– – – –

*This is not to say that no couple that breaks up should ever ‘make up’. Many couples who break up can and do get back together for good reasons. This, however, is to say that the existence of post-break-up grief is not as sufficient a reason to resume a relationship as some people interpret it to be.

Posted on

Books in 2012: Are You Waiting for ‘The One’?

I’d kind of like to invite Margaret and Dwight Peterson to dinner at my house. We’ll have chicken parm, play a little Jenga and when the opp arises, I’ll thank them sincerely for their book.

Are You Waiting for “The One”? Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage is the ninth book I’ve read in full in 2012. It is a refreshingly realistic exploration of friendship, love, sex, marriage and family that challenges the status quo set by the world (which, as the Petersons point out, is often unwittingly perpetuated by Christians).

In many Christian books as in many Christian churches, important stuff like sex and gender and dating is broached only superficially. What those Christian books and those Christian churches don’t get is that it does serious damage to consider topics taboo that ought to — nay, must — be discussed deeply. The Petersons get it. And that is rare, and therefore, delightful.

Some of my favorite excerpts:

On hooking up:

“It is difficult to believe, however, that the hookup culture is anything but bad for anyone, male or female. The more casual sexual behavior becomes, the less it serves to deepen existing intimacy and the more it becomes a substitute for and even an impediment to intimacy.” -page 14

On real love: 

“Real love grows through use. You do not have to worry that if you spread it around, you will run out. Nor do you have to worry that if you enter into an intimate friendship with someone whom you do not end up marrying, that person will abscond with part of your heart and there will be less of you than there was before. If you hope to marry someone and do not, of course you will be disappointed. But a great deal of the pain of heartbreak comes not from disappointment in love, but because partners have not, in fact, treated one another lovingly. If you and your friend really do love each other, and really do treat each other well, you will grow in and through the relationship, whether or not it moves toward marriage.” -page 27-28

“Real love develops into deep, meaningful intensity. It does not start with it. The time to look for sparks to fly is after you know one another well enough actually to mean something to one another.” -page 27

On conflict, mutual submission and gender:

“Conflict avoidance is not conflict resolution, however much we might like it to be.” -page 81

“Mutuality takes time. It takes effort. It takes a willingness to talk with one another and listen to one another, for long enough that it can become clear what the issues are, what the feelings and desires of both spouses are, and what some possible plans of action might be. Headship as decision making, by contrast, can seem quick and easy and far less personally demanding. Husband and wife don’t really even have to work together: he just does his job and decides, she does her job and goes along, and they’re done. And that is exactly the problem. They haven’t actually dealt with their differences; they’ve just done an end run around them. They are no more united when they are done than they were when they began. There has got to be a better way.” -pages 94-95

“But before we talk about what a better way might be, we have to tell one more unpleasant truth about the control-and-acquiescence model of male-female relationships. Defining male headship as control and female submission as acquiescence is not just misguided; it is dangerous. By idealizing rigidly defined gender roles, assigning power in relationships disproportionately to men, and encouraging both men and women to see this as spiritually appropriate and desirable, a theological ideology for abuse in intimate relationships is set in place.” -page 95

On communicating via social media:

“Self-revelatory statements are made in isolation, and often to the world in general rather than to anyone in particular. They in turn are read by recipients who are busy with many other things or who may simply happen to be trolling the web for status updates. The result is less an electronic equivalent of conversation, and more a combination of exhibitionism and voyeurism.” -page 114

On sex:

“One of the first things to be said about sex is that it is okay not to know everything. Our culture glorifies sexual prowess—many people simply assume that sexual experience and personal maturity go together, and that anyone who is virginal or otherwise inexperienced is for that reason a mere child. … In reality, experience and maturity are not the same thing. It is possible to have a great deal of sexual experience and to be a thoroughly immature person, and possible likewise to have little or no experience of sexual relationship and yet to be secure and well grounded in one’s own masculinity or femininity.” -page 137

“The foundations for a positive marital sexual relationship begin to be built long before the wedding night. If you and your partner are cultivating an intimate friendship in which you can enjoy one another playfully, talk with one another openly, work on shared projects cooperatively, problem-solve constructively, and relax together trustingly, you are well on your way to building a relationship in which sex can play a positive and intimate part.” -page 144

On contraception:

“On its invention fifty years ago, the birth-control pill was hailed as a great advance over barrier methods, precisely because a woman did not have to negotiate its use with a sexual partner. Now the sense is that a once-a-day pill is too much trouble; people need ‘fool-proof contraceptives that require almost no thought or action.’ The obvious problem with this is that where contraception is foolproof and thoughtless, sex will be too. Is that really what any of us wants? Is that really compatible with Christian notions of what sex and marriage and human life itself are really all about?” -page 164

 

[callout]Click here for more information about (or to order) Are You Waiting For “The One?”. [/callout]

Posted on

The 5 Love Languages

There are a lot of impassioned speeches I’d shout to the general public, given an opportunity and a megaphone.

One of them is about relationships.
“Love,” I’d say, “if we love like Jesus loves, is unconditional. It is patient,” I’d say, “and kind.” And I’d quote the rest of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. “And in our culture,” I’d add, “we suck at it.“
Because we are egocentric.
We are egotistical.
We don’t think (or pray) before we act or speak.
Our attitudes imply “I’ll love you if…” and we are unaware (or unwilling to admit) that our love is conditional (and therefore, that it isn’t love).
In an ideal world, if a man or a woman saw some of this in him or herself, the awareness of it would compel him or her to change his or her thoughts and modify his or her behaviors until he or she becomes a better love-er. Only we aren’t in an ideal world, so rarely does a guy or girl see it. And if one sees it, rare is it that he or she sees that something is wrong with it. And the result is dysfunction. 
Dysfunction, however, is not an experience saved solely for the people who have tied the knot for the wrong reasons. Dysfunction is also a result of human nature (and it is multiplied when humans interact). It is a reality that can (and will) encroach on any relationship — even the ones rooted in real love — because even when we really do love, we are still human.
Still egocentric.
Still egotistical.
You catch my drift.
But in his book The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman — a pastor, therapist and author — says that despite our human nature, we can love for real, and if we already do love, we can love better. You know what I love?
His book! I read it last weekend.
Chapman’s theory goes a little like this: There are five love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. A love language is what a person uses to express love. A person also feels loved when somebody else uses his or her love language. So let’s say Joe’s primary love language is receiving gifts (and let’s also say he has never read any of Chapman’s books). Whenever his wife gives Joe a gift, he feels loved by her. And Joe most often expresses his love for his wife by giving her gifts.
Which is awesome — except, because Joe (like all humans) is egocentric, what may not dawn on him is that his wife’s love language might not also be receiving gifts. And so while he implies “I love you!” with a gift, she does not infer “He loves me!” when she gets a gift. She certainly will appreciate receiving gifts from her husband, but her need to feel love coming from him probably won’t be fulfilled. In order for that need to be fulfilled, she needs for Joe to speak her love language.
“The important thing,” Chapman wrote on page 15 of the book, “is to speak the love language of your spouse.” And “Seldom,” he says, “do a husband and wife have the same love language.” 
I think at the core of Chapman’s theory (these will be my words, not his) is the idea that love requires communication. It’s typical, for instance, for someone to expect his or her significant other to do XYZ without ever telling him or her that XYZ is what he or she needs (and it is typical, therefore, for him or her to take it personally when his or her significant other doesn’t deliver it). My hunch is that the desire to get what we need (or want) from a spouse, if and only if we can get it without asking, is directly related to how valued instant gratification is in our culture. 
In a culture that values instant gratification, we don’t want to work. We believe a relationship should flourish independent of work. We believe a relationship is most worth our time when it is with someone for whom doing what we would like to see them doing is always… instinctual (which never actually happens). 
But back to the book.
On page 32, Chapman points out that when a couple “falls out of love” (that is, the warm and fuzzies aren’t so constant), either “they withdraw, separate, divorce and set off in search of a new in-love experience, or they begin the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria of the in-love obsession.” 
He goes on to prove that learning to love without the euphoria is not only possible, but worth it. Click here to learn more about the book and click here to learn your love language. Read on for some of my favorite quotes:
“Some couples believe that the end of the in-love experience means they have only two options: resign themselves to a life of misery with their spouse, or jump ship and try again. Our generation has opted for the latter, whereas an earlier generation often chose the former. Before we automatically conclude that we have made the better choice, perhaps we should examine the data. … Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was — a temporary emotional high — and now pursue ‘real love’ with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. … Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct.” -pages 32 and 33
“The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.” -page 39
“A key ingredient in giving your spouse quality time is giving them focused attention, especially in this era of many distractions … A wife who is texting while her husband tries to talk to her is not giving him quality time, because he does not have her full attention.” -page 59
“Sometimes body language speaks one message while words speak another. Ask for clarification to make sure you know what she is really thinking and feeling.” -page 63
“Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally.” -page 100
“You see, when an action doesn’t come naturally to you, it is a greater expression of love.” -page 139
“Love … creates a climate of security in which we can seek answers to those things that bother us… (A) couple can discuss differences without condemnation. Conflicts can be resolved. Two people who are different can learn to live together in harmony.” -page 144