I am absolutely NOT an expert on love and/or relationships, but I have watched people succeed and fail in their romances, and I have had friendships that have failed and friendships that have blossomed. So I decided today, in the middle of a conversation with my boyfriend, that I would write this blog post.
Far too often in our relationships (whether it be friendships, father/daughter relationships, romantic relationships, etc) we get to a point where we are so comfortable with each other that we forget to check our tone and the way we speak with each other. Like, anything goes! But that's not how we should treat our relationships; we should treat them with value, honor and respect, in every situation.
I am going to use my boyfriend and I's relationship as an example of this (attempting to be extremely vulnerable...please, be patient). The Lord is teaching me SO much through this relationship; in my opinion, it wouldn't be a healthy relationship if we weren't constantly growing and learning. Being my first real romantic relationship, I have QUITE a LOT of things to learn. One of the lessons I am learning now is how to speak with Daniel. What phrases make him upset or angry? What does my tone sound like? How is he receiving what I'm saying to him right now? Should I pull back or march forward? etc, etc. But beyond those simple and obvious ways of speaking with people, I have to constantly ask myself "does what I'm saying build him up or tear him down?" Because whether he's acting like a prince or not, it's my job to make sure I always treat him like a prince. I have to catch myself (or I'll find myself apologizing 10 seconds later) when I feel the urge to call him a jerk because, well, he's kinda acting like one! But if all I'm doing is calling him a jerk when he's feeling low, I'm sure that isn't going to encourage him to be my prince charming when I need it. I have to make it my job to tell him he's great even when he's being the opposite of great! I want to call out his better traits instead of focusing on his flaws, because a healthy relationship between two healthy people brings out the best in us, not the worst.
Now, let's be real ladies. It doesn't matter if we're sweet like sugar, and cuddly like teddy bears and we always smell nice; we can be totally mean sometimes. In our weak moments, do we want our friends and boyfriends telling us we need to "stop crying and get tough" or let us lean on them while they tell us we're amazing and they believe in us? I'll take the second choice, please! We just have to make a choice - in the middle of a heated discussion and all you want to do is scream at each other and let your words get the better of you, choose love instead. Choose to be the solution instead of the problem. Break the chain, change the atmosphere, all with a little encouragement. Bring the gold out in your relationship.
Another big contributor to this, is communication. Now, if you are dating someone who fluently speaks the same language as you do, you don't really have much of an excuse. It's funny, my boyfriend and I have almost created an entirely different language in order to communicate effectively with each other. It's not quite english and it's not quite spanish. :P I'm joking, obviously. But you should see us talking with each other. 2 hours on skype for us, is the equivalent of 30 minutes for a couple that speaks the same language. It takes us time to translate some things because of accents, or different culture. Understanding each other is incredibly important to us, so we put a lot of effort into it. And this is the same, whether you speak the same language or not. I don't ever want to hang up the phone thinking Daniel said "I don't like talking to you", when really what he was trying to say was "I don't like not talking to you." Communicating effectively is so important to uncovering the gold in a relationship. My goal for my relationship with Daniel is to one day be excellent communicators, but I have to be willing to get through the awkward moments of "what the heck are you trying to say to me!?!" (And, we've totally both said that to each other...). The bottom line is, you will get out of the relationship what you put into it. If you put time and effort, you will reap rewards. If you put love and respect, you will receive the same. And I fully believe that.
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