What I Want My Children to Know About Love

What I want my children to know about loving in vivid color and not in 50 shades of grey:

When I think of greys, I think of people who are trying to avoid the distinctions of black and white and that some things really are not acceptable. I think of relativity and moral quandaries. That is not where I want my children’s relationships to be. That is not love to me. Love is a husband staying up late with the toddler, where his sweetheart can sleep. Love is taking care of your honey when they are sick. Love is disagreeing with someone and trying to understand them instead of trying to make them see it your way. Love is bright and colorful. Love is a great kiss, just as much as it is doing the dishes. Yes, it is hard work and sometimes messy, but it is not a life spent in moral relativism; it is a life spent wanting the best for another person.

It’s critical that your partner love you more than they want you.

Attraction is fickle. It cycles based on your health, how much sleep you’ve gotten, music and smells, and hairstyles. Attraction is strong, but you can never get enough of attraction, because it will never satisfy you. You will always want more. Attraction can keep you with a person you shouldn’t be with…it’s illogical and stupid. When people say they “fall out of love”…that’s attraction. Attraction doesn’t last on its own. Attraction, in the end, is selfish if it is not lead by love. It will hurt you. It will stalk you. It will not care how you feel at all. It will do what it wants. It will not see all of you, just the part that attracts it. It will try to diminish any parts of you that aren’t attractive to it. Attraction separates you from your family.

Pornography is all about attraction and is one dimensional. It is attempting to take the pleasure of a relationship away from the work and depth and joy of a relationship. Pornography makes it easier for a person to see people as things to be used and dominated, instead of people to be understood and loved. If a person confuses porn and love, they will, over time, lose the ability to love a whole person with dreams, opinions, ideas, beliefs, weaknesses and hopes.

Attraction is important in marriage, but love is critical. Every day you are going to need patience, kindness, and understanding. Every day. Love will wait for you. Love will take care of you when you are sick and vulnerable. Love does not ask anything in return. Love will not force itself on you for its own benefits. Love will not hurt you. Love apologizes. Love respects your privacy and wants you happy. Love connects you to your family.

There are many signs while dating that indicate whether they love you or want you more. Will they stop kissing if you want? Will they pressure you? How do they respond if you are sick and hurt? What if they are in the mood and you aren’t? Do they give you space if you need it? At some point you may find yourself pregnant and delicate and you may need to ask your husband to stop on a dime…does he love you more than he wants you?

Excitement, when based on attraction, does not last because you are waiting for it to happen to you.

Excitement based on love can last forever, because you can choose every day to love each other and make it exciting.

There is No Such Thing as Safe Sex

You can prevent pregnancy (mostly), but it is far more difficult to protect your heart, mind and soul. If you do chose to have sex before marriage, please do use birth control. Keep the consequences, both good and bad, to yourself as a couple. If you are mature enough to have sex, know you need to be mature enough to consider consequences. It does not make it more passionate to not plan ahead. It does not make it more special. Babies need stability. They need parents. They need maturity. They need someone who is ready to give up everything and stay up all night for them, or stay home and take care of them when they are sick. Babies deserve a mom and dad who are ready to support them and care for them. They will not fix anything that is broken, they are too tiny for that. They will add stress…darling stress.

Sex is meant to create life and bond a couple. That is POWERFUL. Such amazing power must be respected. To bond a couple, sex is amazing! Bad experiences aren’t great at bonding people; they sometimes divide them horribly. Sex really can be great.

That is part of its enticing power. Once you focus on the physical side of a relationship, if you are not committed the other 22 hours a day, the physical side can dominate.

Sex is not a right. It does not make you more mature. It is not a rite of passage. It is not freedom. Freedom does not mean the ability to do whatever you want AND choose the consequences. Freedom is not the ability to drive on whatever side of the road you want AND never get hit. Sex bonds AND it feels good. You do not get to choose to enjoy the great feeling and pretending its bonding power doesn’t apply to you. Anything you do to feel the great side of sex and avoid the bonding power will affect you.

What is a sign of maturity? Being able to pay your own rent, buy your own food, clean up after yourself and do the hard thing when it is the right one. Literally anyone can have sex; you can buy it.

Sex is most powerful when it is intimate. That involves love and commitment. That involves give and take. That involves respect and understanding. Sex is best when it is vulnerable and involves trust.
If you do have sex outside of marriage, there can be a certain enticing risk, as well as an almost guaranteed break of trust. Trust broken over time hurts emotionally. Sex will still have the power to unite, but you may have a hard time bonding if you have lost the ability to trust people.

We do have birth control to protect babies and prevent pregnancy. We do not have anything to protect us emotionally, physically or mentally from the bonding power of sex. The only protection is commitment and trust.

Choose a partner whose weaknesses you can accept in your children

Never assume another person can change. We all have weaknesses we can stand and weaknesses we can’t. Some of us are sensitive to yelling. Some of us are sensitive to messes. Know yourself and your partner enough to know both of your weaknesses. Know what weaknesses you can tolerate and what drives you crazy. Assume the person will never ever change. Know how they react under stress. Know how they act when they are sick. Know what they do when the chips are down.

If you want to rescue, keep that at a distance. Home must be safe. Help people, save people, try to inspire people to change, but make a home with someone who is already what you need. Relationships are for giving and receiving love. If the person is not ready to give and receive love, that is not a relationship; that is a dependent. At some point, if you want to bring children into your home, home MUST be safe. Both of you must be ready to give love to those children. Children deserve that. Honestly, you deserve that. You cannot maintain your ability to save and help others if your home and core relationships are rocky and unsafe.

The best way to keep things at a level in which you can rationally evaluate a relationship is to keep the physical side under control.

The role of forgiveness in relationships

There are two kinds of forgiveness-forgiveness in which there is still trust and forgiveness in which trust has been broken.

In the former, forgive and let it go. In the latter, forgive and do not give them the opportunity to hurt you again. It is not love to drive a drunk to a bar. It’s not. We all recognize that. It’s not love to stay with someone who is not healed enough to love. You are in the way of them healing every time you let them hurt you. You are helping them develop their weakness and get better at it. During that time you are also learning false ideas about love: that it is letting someone hurt you and hurt themselves.
There are frequently warning signs when dating of what kinds of forgiveness will be required in a relationship. Do they cheat on you while dating? Are they more attracted than loving? Do they hurt you? If your family is whole and healthy, what do they say about him and the relationship? What are his weaknesses? How do they feel about pornography?

In rare instances, if trust has been broken it can be rebuilt…but ONLY on your terms. That may mean turning over the cellphone, checking in whenever you want, keeping whatever rules you make…with no caveats. Take resistance as a sign that they are not healed enough to really change. Overwhelming apologies and gifts are not a sign of change, they are more likely a sign of buying off any actual effort to change.

None of us are perfect. Forgiveness will always be a part of marriage. Nothing is unforgivable, but some mistakes are not viable in a relationship. Forgiveness does not mean letting someone hurt you; it just means letting them heal and letting God work it out with them and hold and letting God heal your pain. Sometimes that can only be done separately.

When you need to change, do it!

Work through it with Christ when your partner need to change. Pray and love them. Christ can change your spouse. Your spouse can chose to change. By praying you are accessing someone who does have the power to change your spouse. By loving them, you are putting them in the best situation to change. We all change best when we feel safe and loved. Desperation does not lead to great decisions. Fear does not lead to great decisions.

*Be whole and willing to be on your own.

Love yourself enough to be with yourself. Dream. Live. Serve. Work. Choose to not be lonely when you are alone. Do hard things. You are whole with Christ. If you do marry, your husband will not make you whole. He will not change you. Marriage is not 50-50. Both of you have to be able to give 100%.

Whole, loving people are not grey, they are colorful. They are vibrant. They are inspiring and bright. They are fascinating! In a relationship with a whole person, you are free to be yourself and dream and be vibrant because you have trust in your relationship. You don’t need to spend your time wondering what is right but rather how you can serve your partner, knowing that they are wondering what they can do for you.