Jesus Lover of My Soul

EIGHT TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPS THAT WON’T WORK

Relationship expert and best-selling author, Barbara de Angelis, writes about eight types of relationships that will not work: 

1. You care more about your partner than he does about you. 

You are in love, but you are not sure how he feels. You think that the two of you can be perfect together, but he doesn’t seem to be that excited about the relationship. You can’t stop thinking about him when you are apart, but he seems to be doing fine without you. What does all this mean? It means you are in a relationship that is not going to work!

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3) 

There are always going to be moments or days when one person is more “in love” than the other. In a healthy relationship, this feeling switches back and forth so that both partners take turns pursuing and getting pursued. However, a relationship is not healthy when only one person is doing the pursuing most or all the time. This is a relationship that is out of balance and therefore will never work. If this continues over a long period, you will end up feeling angry, cheated, miserable and starving for love. 

2. You are in love with your partner’s potential. 

You aren’t really in love with who they actually are, you are in love with who you hope they can become. With that kind of mindset, the person is not your love partner, he is really your “pet project”! The Bible teaches us not to worship or be in love with an “image” (Rom. 1:23-25), or we will find ourselves loving in deception (Jer. 37:9). If you have begun a relationship with someone, make sure you love, respect and enjoy that person as he is today. It is okay to desire to see him grow, but he should be enough for you as he is right now . 

If you keep hoping to change your partner so that you will eventually be happy with him, you aren’t being fair to either of you. You are really gambling with both your happiness and future! If you are feeling something for someone right now, be honest with yourself. Ask yourself: “Am I willing to spend the rest of my life with this person if he never changes the way he is right now?”

3. You are on a rescue mission. 

Do you often feel sorry for your partner? Do you feel responsible for helping your partner get his life together? Are you afraid that if you leave, your partner’s life would fall apart? If your answer is “yes” to any of those questions, you are probably a “rescue-holic!” Rescue-holics don’t look for partners who are compatible; they look for partners whom they feel compelled to help. 

You come across someone who seems wounded, fragile, unloved and disadvantaged. You feel compelled to love and care for him. In time, he feels so grateful, and you feel so noble. Before you know it, your relationship looks more like a rescue mission than a healthy, balanced love affair. (That is one of the reasons why we don’t encourage males to counsel females, and vice versa.) Once you are in it, it is really hard to get out! Because you will feel guilty; as if you are abandoning your helpless partner and hurting him terribly. 

People who are on emotional rescue missions often mistake sympathy for love. The key word here to remember is “respect.” The person you choose to love must be someone you can feel respect for, and be proud of who he is. A genuine love relationship is not based on what you can do for a person, but on how much intimacy you two can experience together. Remember the heart-cry of God to His people: 

“O Ephraim and Judah, what shall I do with you? For your love vanishes like morning clouds, and disappears like dew … I don’t want your sacrifices— I want your love; I don’t want your offerings—I want you to know Me” (Hos. 6:4-6). 

God doesn’t want us to do things for Him. He wants us to have a love relationship with Him. Similarly, this should be how we look at our love relationship with a potential mate. 

5. You are infatuated with your partner for external reasons. 

“Yeah, it was her eyes. They just pierced my soul, and I knew I had to have her.” 

“When I first heard Sam play the guitar, I felt like he knew me inside out. I’ve always wanted to fall in love with a musician.” 

“When I saw Jennifer dancing the other night, so slinky and sexy, I knew we were meant for each other.” 

“I always wanted to marry a male model. So when I saw Seng, I felt like it was destiny that brought us together.” 

If you ever find yourself infatuated with one element of a partner’s personality, ask yourself: “If this person doesn’t have those big eyes, gorgeous hair, a great voice, or isn’t a model, basketball player, air stewardess … would I still like to be with him or her?” Remember the advice from Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing.”

6. You and your partner are really “trench buddies.” 

Both of you are thrown together on a project at work. The project requires long hours and teamwork. In the middle of it, you feel like you’re falling in love with each other. 

Take for instance; you go for a three-week vacation overseas, living by the beach. You meet a guy over there who is also on vacation. The two of you take long bike trips in the day and have barbeques by the fire at night. You have never felt so relaxed before and soon the thought creeps up on you: “I think I am falling in love!” 

“Trench buddies” are people thrown into the trenches of unusual environments where they live life together for a short while. In that period, they become intensely bonded together. But usually, it doesn’t last. Of course, one can meet a soul mate during a vacation or through a mutual work project. The danger is that you become so consumed with being together during that period that you forget: a happy, fulfilling relationship can only be forged through a substantial process of time. 

7. You choose a partner in order to be rebellious. 

Your parents have always emphasized the importance of money and prestige, and all your boyfriends are always broke. Your parents always insisted on order and discipline in your house, and all the women you befriend are total slobs. Your parents are very conservative and strict, and all the guys you bring home are wild and immoral. Your father brought you up believing that the family lineage is everything, and you continue to fall in love with guys who don’t want children. 

Again, the point here is not that relationships between people of different backgrounds can’t work. But if you have a pattern of choosing partners who upset your family, you are probably acting out of rebellion. When you act out of compulsion and not out of choice, your love is no longer genuine and the relationship is doomed to fail. 

8. Your partner is emotionally unavailable. 

In many ways, it is not a relationship at all! The first requirement you should have for a partner is that he is available . For those of us who like to pretend we don’t know what “available” means, here is the definition: 

Free to be in a relationship with you; not involved with anyone else; not married; not engaged; not going steady; not sleeping with another person; alone; single; all yours.

Stay away from people who are already married or in other relationships! No matter what the circumstances or excuses are, the result will be the same: you are going to get hurt and your heart will be broken! When you get involved with someone who is in a relationship with someone else, you are accepting that person’s leftovers! Believe me, you deserve much, much better than that! 

Apart from all these, consider whether you are ready to be in a relationship! What is your purpose of getting into one?