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This might be one of the most surprising and overlooked pieces of
advice I share on the subject of building healthy relationships, but
it’s so important. Nothing tests the genuineness of our discipleship
commitment to Jesus than our willingness to refuse to blame, badmouth,
or hurt the other person during a break-up.
A break-up usually results in a lot of hurt for everyone involved.
Two people who once thought of each other as “true loves” now become
enemies looking to strike back at each other. However, it’s exactly in
this new and awkward context that Jesus’ challenge to love our enemies
(Matthew 5:44) comes into play.
If we’re the ones doing the breaking up, we need to do so in a way
that minimizes the emotional damage for the other person. We’re going to
cause hurt, so we need to be as gentle, reasonable, and kind as humanly
possible. Being rejected is a horrible feeling, and we don’t need to
escalate those feelings (even if we think the other person deserves it).
We should strive to be gracious and kind, and after the break-up never
speak badly about the other person.
If we’re on the receiving end of the break-up, the emotions that
flood into our hearts are going to make it very easy for us to justify
hatred and retaliation. We need to fight those impulses with everything
in us. That doesn’t mean minimizing how much it hurts to have someone
dump us, though; it just means refusing to let the hurt we’re feeling
morph into a cancer of anger and bitterness. Getting dumped sucks, but
striking back through hatred and retaliation won’t provide the healing
we’re looking for. That can only be found when we pour our energy into
our relationship with the One who is “close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalms 34:18).
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It’s really important to establish boundaries before we enter into a
dating relationship. If we don’t, we’ll find ourselves in a literal
free-for-all in terms of what is done, said, and experienced together,
and this is always destructive to everyone involved.
Healthy
relationships need boundaries, and they need to identify and decide what
boundaries are going to be in place as it relates to four dimensions of
the relationship:
a. Physical. What physical boundaries need to be in place in order to protect each person’s dignity, reputation, and purity?
b. Emotional. What emotional boundaries need to be in place in order to ensure the Romeo and Juliet syndrome doesn’t take hold?
c. Social. What social boundaries need to be in place in order to ensure
that each person is investing in healthy relationships outside of the
dating relationship?
d. Spiritual. What spiritual boundaries need to be in place in order to
ensure that each person is growing spiritually as individuals and not
just focusing their spiritual growth on the context of their
relationship?
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Ideally, the couple should meet with a few older and more experienced
couples to help them define what boundaries will be in place for them.
These older couples can also play an important ongoing mentoring role in
the new couples’ lives.
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The temptation to rebound with an immediate dating relationship after
one has ended is enormous. Why? Because we’ve been in a relationship
long enough that we’ve become accustomed to having someone to call,
touch, and hang out with.
To go from that to nothing feels like the rug
has been pulled out from under us, and our first instincts are to get
ourselves back into a relationship as soon as possible in order to avoid
the awkwardness of readjusting to being single. But when we start
relationships in order to avoid being single, we’re actually just using
the new guy or girl for our own selfish ends.
That foundation isn’t
going to take us very far, and we should expect more heartache to come
if we just rush into new relationships after ending old ones.
If a relationship doesn’t work (for whatever reason), it’s always
important to take some time away from dating relationships and
recalibrate our hearts and minds. We need to carve out time to reflect
on what went wrong, and why. We should explore how we need to grow from
our experiences in the previous relationship so that future
relationships are healthier and more Christ centred.
Relationships teach
us a lot if we’re willing to listen to the lessons. Be sure to carve
out at least three months between dating relationships so that you can
focus on learning whatever lessons God wants to teach you during your
time of transition.
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All of us go
through a stage where we assume we’re a boyfriend or girlfriend away
from having it all. We believe that if we could find our “true love,”
all the issues that bring us down will fade into the background. We
believe that love, peace, and joy will flood into our lives and give us
our “happily ever after.”
Falling in love and being in love is awesome, but if we think a
relationship is what will save us from loneliness, low self-esteem, and
purposelessness, we’re just wrong. No matter how good, godly, and
healthy a relationship may be, it cannot fully satisfy the deeper
spiritual hungers within you. To enter into any relationship with the
expectation that it will be the key to a happy life is to place an
idolatrous, unhealthy, and unrealistic expectation on it.
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This
expectation will only suffocate any potential for the relationship to
grow in a healthy way. We must never ask or assume another person can
provide what only God can. When we stop looking to a relationship to be
the key that will unlock the potential of our lives, we open up space
for healthy relationships to emerge into what they are meant to be.
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It’s common for many people (especially women) to find themselves in
an abusive relationship at some point in their lives. Maybe it’s a
boyfriend who is physically abusive, or a girlfriend who is controlling
and emotionally manipulative. Regardless, people will often rationalize a major dysfunction. Many of us would rather put up with abuse and
dysfunction in our relationships than be alone, so we go to great
lengths to minimize or deny any abusive behaviour.
“Well, she’s not like that all the time.”
“It isn’t really that bad.”
“It’s no big deal. That’s just the way our relationship is.”
No relationship is perfect. Each one has its fault lines and issues,
but there comes a point when a challenging relationship becomes a
destructive one, and when abusive patterns have emerged that line has
been crossed.
Sometimes denial can run deep. If we don’t identify and end the
abusive relationship until it has run its course, we will be heartbroken
and devastated. Or maybe we believe we’re the one sent into this
person’s life to do the saving, to make them a better person, and so we
wear the abuse as a kind of badge of honour. Maybe it brings us some
kind of self-righteous satisfaction that we’re suffering for a greater
purpose and are willing to love someone so “complicated.”
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Regardless of your particular situation, if you are involved in an
abusive relationship—whether the abuse is physical, emotional, or
sexual—you need to end it. You know it’s unhealthy, and chances are it’s
negatively impacting every area of your life, including your
relationship with God. You should talk to a friend, parent, or pastor
you trust who can help you transition out of your relationship.
