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[Relationships] Three things that aren’t the end of the world.

Relationships. are. a. mess.

They’re a mess because they can be fun and hard and fulfilling and devastating and a privilege and torture, depending. They’re a mess because they can turn us into the best or worst versions of ourselves. (Maybe we are a mess?) They can make a day, a month, a year — or break it. They can inspire us to shout “I LOVE MY LIFE!” or to pout like whatever has happened in them is the end of the world.

But is it really?

Probably not, and particularly not when what has happened is as follows:

1. You were moody, boring, tired, or having a bad hair day the last time you talked to or saw him or her. If he or she is really marriage material and thinks you are, too, he or she will get over it. #justsayin.

2. He or she doesn’t intuitively meet your expectations. I’ve blogged before about the time a guy I dated ended a phone call with me by saying “I’ll call ya later.” He never did. And it irked me. He handed me an expectation that he didn’t fulfill. I was hesitant at first the next day to bring up how bothered by it I was because I worried I would come across as needy. But there’s a difference between being needy and communicating a need. It is not the end of the world if the guy or girl you date (or marry!) doesn’t intuitively meet your expectations because the guys and girls you date (or marry!) aren’t mind readers. If you expect somebody to meet all your expectations but you are unwilling to express your expectations, your relationship is, how shall we say… doomed. Dealing with unmet expectations is part of discerning a marriage with someone. It’s part of deciding whether there are some expectations somebody ought to meet intuitively. An unmet expectation is an opportunity to communicate with the person you date (and to learn how good he or she is at listening).

3. He or she’s just not that into you. Unrequited interest is a bummer, but it isn’t the end of the world. It isn’t the end of the world because “if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us?” — if you’re supposed to end up with somebody, you will, regardless of whether the interest is initially mutual. If you don’t end up with somebody you like, it isn’t the end of the world, either. A wise friend of mine reminded me once: if you think he or she is awesome (and he or she turns out to be some guy or girl you’re not even gonna marry), your actual future spouse will be even more awesome. #Legit.

What else isn’t the end of the world?

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[Guest Post] What are we so afraid of?

photo-14-Look at the world around us – you don’t have to go very far to see that dinners are being spent looking at phones instead of each other, young women are being asked on dates via text message instead of a real-life conversation, and people everywhere struggle with knowing their worth in relationships. All of these cultural standards come down to one simple truth: authentic relationships are not being formed.

Whether young or old, male or female, platonic or romantic, there is a fear of forming authentic relationships, which stems from a fear of commitment, and a fear of being disappointed. With all of this being said, I’d like to pose a few questions. If the three Divine Persons of the Holy Trinity are in relation, if Christ founded His Church on a relationship between Him and Peter, and if the way He intended for His Church to be spread until the end of time was through relationships, what are we so afraid of?

This message of authentic relationships is something that was not popular or easily understood in the time of the apostles, and is certainly not popular or easily understood in our world today. As Christians it is our call, and our great joy, to proclaim that we know differently. To boldly proclaim that the truth of the Gospel is meant to change our lives, and certainly change how we form our relationships. And it is our great joy to prove by our life and our relationships that authenticity is worth striving for. Simply put, we are a relational Church.

The relationships that we are apart of affect every part of our being, and it is because of this that it is necessary to cultivate authentic relationships. Think about our friends – the people who understand us most in the world, and the people who we can be completely ourselves around. We feel so completely free around them because we are not afraid to ask for help when we need it, to love, and to be loved. Although we cannot be best friends with everyone, what we can do is enter into every relationship, big or small, with the Gospel mindset of authenticity and love.

Just as the earliest apostles spread the Church by proclaiming the love of the Father, we will fulfill our mission of proclaiming the love of the Father by forming authentic relationships with one another. Simply put, we cannot do it on our own. Each and every relationship we form needs the solid foundation of love, authenticity, and Christ Himself. Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans says, “For from Him, and through Him, and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever” (Romans 11:36). If everything we do is from, through, and for Him – then the relationships we form should be authentic and fearless. At its core, the Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. We need each other to confront the culture, to spread the incomprehensible love of Jesus Christ, and to grow in relationship with God our loving Father. It is a truth of Scripture that we need each other to grow in authentic relationships, and ultimately to grow in holiness.

We are called to fearlessly form these relationships – to reach out to others, and to build the relational Church by our words and actions. So let us pray for the grace to live this with our lives – to make eye contact with each other and not our cell phones, to have the cultural standard be a real conversation instead of a fleeting text, and to affirm each other of our God-given worth by authentic relationships. After all, there is nothing to be afraid of.

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About the blogger: Hailing from Minnesota, Lauren Scharmer is a senior at the Catholic University of America studying Social Work and Theology. Her current apostolate is bringing Midwestern hospitality to everyone she meets through her work with retreats and youth ministry on the east coast. She has a love for goldfish crackers, making loud noises in quiet chapels, short naps, and a good twitter hashtag (follow her @LaurenScharmer).

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Not all men are bullets.

A phone call is jarring when in it, your friend divulges the discovery she made of her husband’s infidelity. Of her boyfriend’s big lie. Of her crush’s double life. Or of his wife.
Whatever the breach of trust, the result — at first, at least — is devastating. One person’s choice pulls the path out from under somebody else, somebody who didn’t sign up for this. Somebody who promised to be true to him even in bad times after he promised infidelity would never be the source of them.Until it was.

“Until death,” as it turns out, is often code for “until I change my mind” — fidelity often only upheld when not inconvenient. She picks him as husband and intertwines her world with his, but has to peg him, when he leaves her, as a bullet.

You really dodged a bullet.

Fidelity is too often breached, too treated as impossible. I’ve received too many jarring phone calls.This isn’t a blame game. Relationships are systemic, and most marriages that end probably shouldn’t have started. But I’ve met enough women who are so disheartened by the men who used to walk life beside them to share this with all men on women’s behalf:

 
Some of us are giving up on you.Which doesn’t mean good single men will be single forever. It means women need good single men now more than ever.

We need you to step up and stand out.

To teach your brothers (biological or otherwise) how to make good choices.

To teach them to treat women first as sisters.

We need our male friends and our brothers and our dads to do what they say they are going to do. We need to meet men who use forethought before they pursue us, who pursue God before they pursue us. We need men whose choices inspire us to say “they do exist” (and not “is this some kind of a joke?”).

We need to know that men exist who want to love a woman like Christ loves the church. Who know love is a choice.

We need to know that not all men are bullets.

Because I know you aren’t, but I know a lot of ladies who need good men to prove it.

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Why I write what I write.

I sit tonight at a probably 10′ long table alone, along a wall in Starbucks, because when I got here, it was the only available table close to an outlet. I haven’t plugged my computer in yet, distracted so far by the patrons to my right — a stepmother and adult stepdaughters, who sip seasonal beverages and discuss the family’s patriarch.

Who they suspect is involved in infidelity.

Who has been unfaithful before.

Who isn’t happy.

“I can’t say I’m in it for the long haul,” stepmother warned. Stepdaughters understood. I understand, too.

This — a real life representation of relationships at nearly their worst (It could be worse.) — hurts my heart. And my soul. And my head.

This is why I write what I write: Not solely because marriages disintegrate, but because marriages still start that are going to disintegrate. Because marriages that are going to disintegrate don’t actually have to start. I write what I write because “marriage is the new ‘going steady'” and isn’t designed to be. I write what I write because love is far greater than our culture says it is, and somebody has to say it.

When I write it is with the hope and prayer that readers who are married receive whatever they need to start to rebuild or reinforce a marriage’s foundation; with the hope and prayer that readers who are single and mingling receive what they need to discern when to stop or start a relationship; with the hope and prayer that readers who discern marriage don’t do it if disintegration is likely, or an option; with the hope and prayer that readers who are single for good will know it doesn’t mean life for them is loveless.

And your prayers while I write are appreciated.

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Thoughts on dating (a surprise post!).

I announced recently that I will return to blogging on Dec. 30. Surprise! I miss blogging, so I’m taking advantage of a lunch break to jot some thoughts I want to share while they are fresh (incomplete though they may be):

While I work lately on a chapter that covers what life is like when you’re single, I have observed in myself and others, past and present, how content we are to start or end relationships based on sensual experiences. I have always written about this, but there is more to it than I thought. When we understand that relationships aren’t supposed to start (or end!) based solely on a sensual reactions to interactions with a person, we need not solely say “there has to be more” but we need to know what more there could be. First we have to like a person for more reasons than “I enjoy how I feel when I have his or her attention.” Then we have to have bad days with people we like and we have to be able to decide on bad days that this pursuit is good.

The magnitude of this is kind of intense. In the guest post on the blog today, John Janaro wrote we ought to marry people who are willing to suffer with us and with whom we’d be willing to suffer. This is brilliant and horrifying because I’m pretty sure people in our culture are far more likely to marry somebody because getting to know him or her involved less suffering than getting to know other people did.

I think most of us have half of this down: we are willing to suffer in long-term relationships with people whose red flags we continue to deny, or we start relationships for good reasons but quit when days are bad or boring.

Having a handle on both starting and staying because we should is probably the hardest part of dating in our culture.