On dating and daring: Part 2
So there I was: 23 and single. Which isn’t too bad. I know stacks of girls much much older who are single. 23 is just starting out. But it felt like the world to me. I was stuck in a place waiting for the guys I wanted to ask me out, and ignoring the ones I didn’t (but not even realising I was doing it at the time). I went to see my pastor (not about that, but it came up). He asked me what was on my list and I honestly told him I didn’t have one. He said something along the lines of “That’s not true. Of course you have a list. If you didn’t you would be dating someone right now. You have a list and it says what kind of guy you are looking for and makes you say no to those who don’t tick the boxes.” WOW! I had a list. I had a freaking LONG list! And many amazing guys just weren’t ticking the boxes. Gosh girls, maybe it’s time we threw those imaginary check-lists out hey. Cos NO guy is going to measure up to them and by holding it over their heads to see if they do measure up we are setting hoops and asking them to jump through before we deign them with our presence on a date. Arrogance and pride much? Just as an aside.
So I told John my pastor about my list – the things I was really looking for and hoping for in a guy. And they were all good, non-shallow stuff. I wasn’t looking for a guy who looked a certain way, just one who acted a certain way. My wise pastor told me to get rid of my list. He said, “Val, you need someone who loves God and is strong enough to lead you. Stop looking for those other things and if you know the guy has that first one waxed then say yes when he asks you out and find out if he is the second one. Start going on dates.” Ah, best advice ever! That’s when I started going on dates. They were awkward, and fun, and wierd, and some guys I would have been happy to date again and some I wasn’t. But that was okay. Because I had started risking, putting myself out there, putting myself in positions where I was able to get to know guys and they were given the freedom to show who they were. It was scary, it sometimes hurt, it was often awkward, and sometimes confusing. But gosh, the freedom of going on dates was incredible!
I’m not saying be the serial dater. I’m saying give guys a chance. Even guys you wouldn’t normally go for. Hey, Brett wasn’t the guy I would “normally” go for. Flip, he was about 5 years too old according to my normal and my checklist. But I gave him a chance. I risked. I put myself out there as did he. And look, it didn’t end so badly. Does my success story mean I got it hundred percent right and am the expert on dating and relationships? Not at all! There were huge measures of learning and mistakes and grace and forgivenes involved all along the journey. If I had to be in that dating/single place again I hope I would get it a bit better, but I don’ think I would totally wax it. But there is truth in my journey. And maybe that can speak truth into other’s journeys.
On dating and daring: Part 1
I have been following Brett’s relationship blogs - and especially the comments on them – with interest and have been reminded of some of my pre-Brett dating vibes. Here are a couple of thoughts – disconnected, but hopefully useful.
I tell people I never dated anyone before Brett. Which is partially true. I never “went steady” (ha ha ha ha ha I just said that!) with a guy, dated for a prolonged period of time (i.e. more than two dates), “courted”, or kissed a guy. But I did go on dates with guys. Some of them were incredibly awkwark – the sit at X coffee shop and play with the sugar packet until it please-God ends kind of awkward. Some of them hurt so much that I wished I’d never gone or even met the guy – the “Hey, let’s go on a “date” kind where “date” was his fun word for let’s hang out alone together, “I’ll pick you up at 7″, and talk about another girl the whole night – the please-God let the floor open up kind of hurt. After some of them I couldn’t wait for the next one, the call, the sms – which never came. Nothing. One of them – an intimate movie and dinner where I felt the most special and wanted that I had ever felt up till that point – sent me into a 4 month crisis of faith and one of the darkest times of my spiritual life. I left church, pushed friends away, ranted and screamed at God for hours, cried, and rebelled. Because he wasn’t Christian. How could this most amazing guy – the first one to ever treat me like I was desirable, and special – be off-limits? The way I described it to friends at the time was that it was like I had seen this beautiful garden and been allowed to walk a few steps into it, and then beauty and happiness that awaited in it was suddenly ripped away and I had to turn on this hard, dark, path and trust a God I didn’t even really believe in any more that He had something better, something that exceeded this good thing I had tasted, down the road. He did. But wow that path was pretty hard at times.
I get it. I get the “being ignored by Christian guys” thing while non-Christian guys were taking the risk and treating me amazingly. I get the million guy friends, the sms’s that built emotional attachment but never amounted to anything, I get the mixed signals. I get the touching and flirting and hints and signals that are oh so exciting. And I’ve been there where the guy has turned around and said, “Oh that? No I was just kidding and playing with you. Oh, you thought I was into you? Nah, not so into you.” And I’ve seen it happen to girls I love – and it is NOT cool. Church-guys, listen up yo, I’m not saying the girls are innocent cos I’ve seen them play this one too, but it is NOT okay. Just as an aside. I also get the pain of seeing the “serial dater girl” – the really pretty one who is always in a relationship. I’ve seen her work her way through groups of my guy friends and I’ve struggled to understand why they would want her and be attracted to her and get into a relationship for 2 months only to have her going out with their best friend a few months later.
My “good” Christian guy friends told me I was cold and hard and my heart was frozen. I took those words and grabbed onto them and let them twist and turn within me and they made me cold and hard, they made me build up more walls, they froze my heart so that words like that couldn’t hurt me again.
Here’s the thing though. Not all the Christian guys in my sphere were ignoring me, playing the field, and playing with my heart. Just the ones I had my eyes set on. There were guys who asked me out, were genuinely interested, sent sms’s and tried to initiate friendship-relationship. But they weren’t the cool ones, the hot ones, the fun-loving dynamic personality ones. And I treated them like junk. I rejected them, I played hard to get, I gave mixed signals, I spoke about how wonderful other guys were around them, I ignored them, I trash-talked them, I built up “wonder-men heroes” in place of them, set the bar and told them inadvertently that they would never measure up to the spiritual guy (you know the one, cos there is one in your church – the upfront, leader, got it all together dude). When they asked me out I said no without giving them a chance. I effectively said, “I know enough about you to know that I will never like you enough to marry you”. Invariably I hadn’t even had a single conversation with them by the time I had weighed them, measured them, and found them severely lacking. Ah, this is all to my shame now! How dare I do to them the hundred things I was complaining, ranting at God about, that other guys were doing to me. I am sorry. To each and every one of those guys. Because I never gave you a chance to show me who you were. In doing so I not only ended up feeling lonely and unwanted, but I missed out on getting to know and become friends with some super quality guys just because they didn’t fit my mold.
Part 2 to follow:
How to love your man better – “Be Nice”
This is probably one of the simplest and most easily overlooked ways of loving anyone better: be NICE! Be polite; say “please”, “thank you”, and most importantly “I am sorry”.
Brett has made choices to serve me in two specific ways – by washing the dishes at night and by bringing me coffee in the morning. Everytime he does either of those I now make a point of showing him thanks (hugging him, squeezing his hand as I walk past him in the kitchen) AND saying my thanks. In doing so I not only show him that I appreciate him and am grateful for his service, but I also stop myself from taking it for granted. As soon as I start taking Brett’s choice of serving for granted it no longer becomes a gift to me but a duty which I expect him to perform! Never knowingly turn your spouse’s/partner’s gift of service into an act of duty! It undermines the choice to love, and sets the stage for resentment (i.e. when the “Duty” is not performed).
I generally wash the clothes. Everytime I do – even though in some ways this could be seen as my role/responsibility (as much as washing the dishes could be seen as Brett’s role/responsibility) – Brett thanks me. And if I’ve been tempted to wallow in self-pity because I am again washing the clothes, or if I have been getting upset because I would rather be sitting inside on the couch, Brett’s verbal “thanks” reminds me that I am valued and that my role/responsibility is not taken for granted. Several times I have come home from a long day out or work, and the clothes are already washed and on the line. I always thank Brett, even though I could so easily see it as my “right” that he did that because I was busy.
Here’s another example: I use the word “could” in a polite way. So often instead of saying “Please bring my book when you come down”, I say, “Could you bring my book when you come down”. The “Please” is implicit when I use “could” in this way. But Brett didn’t used to hear the silent please. So I told him. And now he gets it. BUT, I have also decided to try and remember to use Please in place of Could because even though he knows it’s there, when he hears me ask he has to work twice as hard to hear the politeness, the gratitude, the appreciation. And I don’t want it to ever be any struggle for him to feel appreciated and not taken for granted.
So say the polite words; and mean them. Don’t treat your partner’s service as duty.
Like this:
How to love your man better – “Respond to his character”
So here’s one I am really learning to do better – because when B says or does stuff that hurts me/makes me angry/annoys me, my first instinct is to respond directly to that stuff.
This post was inspired by something that was reported in the news recently: remember that comment by Bono about how it’s okay to sing the song “Shoot the Boer”? Well, here’s the thing; he never said that. Some journalist took what he had said out of context, put a provocative headline to it which further mislead the public and instigated a negative response in people before they had even read the full article. In fact, I’m pretty sure most people only read the headline. Some people got super upset about it, ranting against Bono, even going so far as to throw tickets to the U2 concert into a river. But here’s what most people didn’t do: they didn’t read that headline and say, “What do I know about Bono and his character? What do I know about what he stands for, his political views, his views on justice and peace? Does what I am reading about him in this article gel with all the other stuff I know about him?” I’m pretty sure if they had done that – as B and I did – their first thoughts wouldn’t have been anger and outrage. Rather, they would have gone and read the full article and perhaps even a couple of other articles on the incident and realised that what he was really saying was not what that journalist portrayed him to be saying.
Here’s the point then: so often in reacting to our boyfriends/girlfriends/friends/family/husbands/wives we respond to the thing they have said or the thing they have done instead of responding to their character and who we know them to be. Somehow we separate who they are, from what they do – and we only respond to the latter. We take instant offense to the words they have said instead of stepping back for a minute and asking: “Who is Brett? Who do I know him to be and what is his character? I know that he loves me; I know that he would never intentionally do or say anything that would knowingly hurt me.” Here’s two ways it can go:
Brett: [Says hurtful thing]
Me: [Get's hurt][Responds in anger][How can you say that? You always...You never][Says hurtful things back]
Brett and Me: [Fight]
OR
Brett: [Says hurtful thing]
Me: [I know Brett loves me. Would he purposefully say something to hurt me? No. So he didn't mean what he said or I am misinterpreting what he said, or I am taking offense when none was intended, or I haven't heard what he is really saying or how he is feeling]
My response then is, “Hey, B, that thing you just said really hurt me. This is what I heard when you said that. I know that you love me and wouldn’t intentionally say something to hurt me. What’s going on?”
This isn’t the clearest blog I’ve written; in fact it might be downright confusing. But I guess my final point is this: respond to the person’s character, not what they have said. Always always think the best of the other person. Assume that they would not intentionally hurt you or do stuff to frustrate you. Take as your starting point that they love you. And then measure your response and don’t react out of a place of offense.
How to love your man better – “Just love him…”
A couple of years ago Brett ran a blog series called “how to love your woman better” and recently resurrected it on his blog (because it’s that good). To check them out go to Irresistibly Fish and explore or you can see the first one here. I contributed to some of the posts – which are as much lessons in how to love your boyfriend, husband, friend, sister, mother – but someone suggested I write some stuff on how to specifically love your man better (which will also probably apply to any relationship in your life). So here goes…
When Brett and I started going out and even for many months into our marriage there was one thing that he used to do that made me pretty darn mad. If we were having a fight or an argument or I had raised something that he had done to upset me, he would respond with three simple words: “Just love me.” Now this is what I heard when he said that:
1. Val, you don’t love me.
2. If you loved me you wouldn’t argue or fight with me.
3. Can’t we just ignore this stuff and “be in love”.
4. What you are saying is not valid. Just stop and say that you love me.
When he said those words I would get even more angry and say something like, “This has got nothing to do with love. This is just an argument.” Meaning, me being angry/upset or hurt by him was something completely seperate to the issue of my loving him. For me, the loving of him never changed. It was just held off to the side while I dealt with the issue at hand. It wasn’t till many months after we had got married and this “Just love me” thing was really messing with the way we did conflict, that I eventually understood what Brett was saying:
1. Val, I love you.
2. Val, this stuff is important and we will address it.
3. Val, in this moment of fighting I do not feel secure and safe in your love. I feel like your love has lessened or is conditional or is secondary to this issue.
And that really hit me hard – I suddenly realised that the way I was doing conflict made Brett unsure (even if for only a second) of my love for him! In that moment he sat wondering if we would get through this, if I loved him, if I wanted to be with him, if this issue was too big for my love. And the crunch was when he said, “I don’t feel secure in your love.” When I realised this I knew that in any argument or fight or disagreement or issue, my first call is to make sure that Brett is resting secure in the fact that I love him. I need to do this with words – sometimes even saying it directly, “I love you and this thing you have done does not change my love for you”. I also need to do this with action – Brett is a pretty physical person and so just the act of reaching over and holding his hand, or sitting next to him, or making sure our legs or arms are touching while we talk it out maintains the physical connection and assures him that I am not going anywhere and haven’t rescinded my love.
If for even a moment your man (or woman) doesn’t feel secure in your love during an argument or disagreement then you have to look at the way you do conflict and change some stuff. Believe me, we have definitely not got this right yet. This blog was sparked by an issue we had just last night and I began to think again as we were lying in bed, “Is Brett secure in my love right now?” I thought of that verse from 1 John 4: 18 “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” And that song based on Psalm 36 “The steadfast love of the lord never changes.” Am I showing steadfast love? Is my love unchanging and does Brett know it to be so? Can he rest without fear, in such love? Then I thought about “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4: 15) – yes, things must be addressed, and frustration and anger and hurt needs to be talked through. But first it must be the truth being spoken. Secondly, it must be spoken “in love” – with words and actions and attitude that affirm love.
Like this:
on the honeymoon phase
I hate the idea of the “honeymoon phase” in any relationship. It is one of the things that grates me most when people talk about marriage – especially people who have been married for many years. I especially hate it when people look at Brett and I – how much we like each other, love each other, laugh, touch, talk – and say, “ah, that’s cute, you’re still in the honeymoon phase…” and the dot dot dot they leave hanging at the end implies that it will all come crashing down and reality will set in and we will soon see what its really like. We will fall out of love and into “marriage”. I hate it.
That said. I wish people had talked a little more honestly about how hard marriage is and how much daily work it takes, in the months leading up to our wedding. They were very quick to tell us about sex, but not much beyond that.
I also hate it how people don’t speak honestly and truthfully about marriage and their marriages now. Especially people who have been married for years. I don’t like how there is no space for honesty, truth, for saying “it really is tough. so worth it but tough” or “we’re having a hard week and really need your guy’s support” or “B and I are struggling to find time to fit in all the people in our lives and we’re taking a hit” or the myriad other things that are never said, but should be.
B and I are doing marriage prep counselling with a couple in our church. As we were talking the guy used an analogy – he said, “Marriage is like a movie. You can tell us what it’s like and recommend it to us, but we have to go and watch the movie and experience it for ourselves.” Which is cool. And reminded me of another analogy.
Recently B and I went and watched a fun hip-hop/streetdance style play at the Barnyard Theatre. It was great fun and we really dug it, but there were one or two things that detracted from the greatness. So when we recommended the show to our friends we said, “It’s great, especially the purple crew dancing in the second act, but watch out for the narrator. We found him very annoying and mis-cast.” They went and watched the show and loved it, but thanked us for warning them about the narrator.
This is like marriage. We need people to highly recommend it, to rave about it, to build-it-up, to love it – but we also need those people to tell us “the narrator sucks, watch out”.
Pre-marriage counselling is great and highly recommended. But I think we would have benefitted a whole lot more from a monthly catch-up and re-cap with Mr Basson in the months following our wedding. You see, the thing is, what happened with me is I got into this marriage thing and suddenly it was hard and tough and I thought I was doing something wrong, I wasn’t good enough, I was failing. At times I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with our relationship. That’s lies. There isn’t. But if someone had been there and told us and shared their vulnerability and their falling and their learnings, it would have all made a lot more sense and been easier to get through.
So, marriage is wonderful, I love it, I love B and am always always glad and confident in the choice I have made. I highly recommend it. But let’s face it, sometimes “the narrator sucks”. Anyone for a little honesty?
Like this:
on schizophrenic love…
I met a guy today. I think I gave him a fright as I entered the Vineyard prayer room in the Neelsie. He was huddled in front of the kettle talking loudly to himself. He quickly recovered and offered me something to drink. I went foward to shake his hand and, when I asked him why it was bandaged, he said he had fought with a lion. Jokingly, I asked him who won. Then the games began. For the next five minutes I was taken on a rollercoaster ride of word salads, outrageous statements and apologetic retractions, whispered self-beratement, four different voices, provocation, misplaced words left hanging in the air. Thinking he was messing with my mind, I eventually walked out but he came to ask me back. We tried to start over. His words and thoughts and voices and pacings surrounded me. He apologised for tearing down the posters and scribbling on the walls. I left. I wrote him off.
See, the most profound thing about the second part of that revolutionary command, love your neighbor as yourself – you know, the one that all the law and all the teachings of the prophets hinges on – is that a lot of the time people are incredibly difficult to love. I think Jesus knew this when he said it. I think he knew that our neighbors would dissapoint us, hurt us, confuse us, frustrate us, rip our stuff and leave it a mess, scribble over our religious acts, trample on our hopes and dreams and passions, mess up our hard work, anger us, and fail us. I think he knew they would be difficult to communicate with, be in the same room as, and understand. I think he knew that the loving part would not always come naturally or easily or gracefully.
In fact, I think the love and the life he calls us to is schizophrenic. It is characterized by abnormalities in perception, content of thought, and thought processes. It is counter-cultural, counter-intuitive and contrary to ‘normal’ assumptions and behaviour. It results in, or perhaps emanates from, an ‘abnormal’ perception or expression of reality. It most commonly manifests with significant social dysfunction… It does not make sense. It is not easy to be around. It confounds those around us. Perhaps it even frightens them a bit. It flies in the face of the way things are. It turns common sense and social convention and religious piety and illusions on their heads.
I wish I had gone back and hung around that guy a bit more, instead of hiding out in anger and frustration because he messed my stuff and my head. I wish I had gone back and loved him.
but I thank him. Because, although I wouldn’t recognise his face again, and I had to ask twice for his name, he has challenged me more directly, thrown me into deeper self-examination and more candid awareness, than have some people I have known for years. If I do meet him there again, I’ll take him up on the offer of coffee….
my vows…
You are my best friend.
You are God’s love made visible to me
You are the evidence of things I had only hoped for
You are my safe and quiet place
You are my heart
Brett,
Knowing that our marriage relationship is meant to be a reflection of the relationship between Christ and the Church, I will show in my life how the Church responds to Christ. I will submit myself to you, in everything, even as you love me as your own body.
I will pray for you, asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. I pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way; bearing fruit in very good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
I will follow your leadership, not pressing for my own way, but trusting you and trusting God.
I will honour and respect you, even when others I love criticize you or when I may not understand you.
I will be your best friend – confiding in you first, before all others, and drawing you in to my life and thoughts and plans and dreams and listening to yours.
I will be intentional about working out my love for you, in words and in actions. I will affirm you and support you and will spur you on to live in the fullness of who you were created to be in every sphere of your life.
I will be your number one fan, cheering you on from the sidelines, in areas where God has called you to be in terms of your specific gifting, skills and calling.
I will encourage and comfort you in distress, spiritual difficulties and sickness.
I will appreciate you and forgive you even when you disappoint me or fail to fulfill my expectations.
I will seek to satisfy you as a whole person recognizing you have both needs and desires that may be physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual, always trying to strike a balance between the different areas of who you are and not giving any of them to too much or too little attention.
I will laugh with you and take joy in who you are.
In loving you, I will embrace all that love is. I will continue to seek every day to love patiently and kindly, not envying or boasting in anything I do in or for love. I will seek to love and not be rude or proud. To love, not seeking my own way, my own satisfaction, my own rights or what is owed me. I seek and will continue to seek to love without being easily angered. In this I will try to approach every interaction and altercation from the base-line that you love me and so will try to interpret your words and actions in that light. I will seek to love in a way that does not keep a record of wrongs or slights or hurts or disappointments or frustrations. I will not delight in evil but will rejoice, always, with the truth. I will love you with a love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.
This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God.
I have chosen and will continue to choose to love you and commit my life to you above all others.
I, Valerie, take you, Brett, to be my husband, according to God’s purpose. As your wife I will submit myself in love to you as to Christ. I will do this in His strength, no matter what may come our way.
