Can you help who you fall in love with? Can you be sure of marrying the right person?

A few years ago I wrote a short comment about a news article from the time and entitled the post ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with?’. Since writing it, it has become one of my most read posts. For some time, I’ve been meaning to flesh it out a little, and while the toddler is asleep it seems like a good opportunity…

Last week, Relevant magazine posted an extract from Tim Keller’s upcoming book on marriage, entitled ‘You never marry the right person’. Each marriage, he claims is a matter of making choices, and compromising.

We are lured into thinking that we will find a soul mate, another half, or someone to complete us. The movie Jerry Maguire brought is the phrase ‘You complete me’ which is a nice sentiment but it is untrue. This idea that a partner should bring us the ultimate in self-fulfillment comes from self-first consumer culture that we live in. We are used to self-help books, we are brought up to be fiercely independent, and we are used to doing things and buying things that fulfil us.

Yet when we apply this thinking to marriage, dating and partners we are on dangerous ground. The thinking is that love should not be hard, it should come naturally if you are truly soul-mates.

Tim Keller’s response is

“Why believe that? Would someone who wants to play professional baseball say, ‘It shouldn’t be so hard to hit a fastball’? Would someone who wants to write the greatest American novel of her generation say, ‘It shouldn’t be hard to create believable characters and compelling narrative’?

When one flawed human being relies on another flawed human being to complete him or her, it is never going to be completely straight forward. We are all less than perfect in different ways and we are never going to find a perfect partner to fill in the gaps of our own deficiencies.

The Bible talks about marriage as being, one flesh. The married couple are a single unit, but this is a unity that has to be worked at in relationship with God.

Nowhere in the Bible is love seen as a self-completing thing. It is always spoken about in relation to others – God, marriage partner, family, church and society. Love is not self-serving but others-centric. Love is a verb. The grand list of loving characteristics of 1 Cor 13 (written to a church, not a couple) are all acts of the will which involve putting the other before yourself – love is patient, kind, not self seeking etc. They point towards the character of God, who supremely demonstrated this love in Jesus. As we choose to love, and are given the power to do so by God, we identify with God’s character.

So, what do you do if you are attracted to someone? 

You will then need to decide what to do with that attraction. Attraction doesn’t need to lead to love.

Attraction, I believe, can’t be helped. We are attracted to all kinds of different people. Some may simply be people who happen to be nice to look at. For others it is an aspect of their character that appeals to us. Often we are attracted by characteristics that we don’t have, or that we’d like to get better at.

Before acting on this attraction, it is always worth asking whether this person would be a good match for me. Are they a nice person, fun to be around, interesting? Do they have some of the same values that you have, such as attitudes to money, family, faith? These are all things that would help any potential relationship go more smoothly. In these cases, the attraction can be helpful and we may decide to pursue it.

Sometimes, pursuing  the attraction is not a good idea.  What if the person is unavailable to you such as they are married already? For example, if a married man is attracted to another woman (this itself is not a crime) but he must choose what to do with that attraction. He may want to put in boundaries to remove or reduce the temptation, for the benefit of his marriage. He may avoid that woman and make sure he is never alone with her. Or if he has to meet her and part of his job or something, he could always meet in a public place. He could also confide and be accountable to someone else. There are many ways to reduce the temptation that would inevitably destroy his marriage, and avoid the attraction turning into something else. Each little step is a choice. It is worth asking the opinion of those who are close to you, and who know you the best.

There may be other reasons why the person is not available to you – for example, parental pressure or culture or distance. These situations can be emotionally painful. I remember falling for a person of another faith. In hindsight, it was absolutely right for s not to get together, but it was hard at the time. Is the barrier a good or necessary one? Your family may disagree for good reasons, or not. You will need to discern this. You may need to walk away and consciously choose not to pursue the attraction any further.

But it is always crucial to remember that the other person in a relationship is not there to complete or fulfil the other. Each is there to learn to love one-another in ways that they could not have imagined at the outset of the relationship.

Keller again:

The hard times of marriage drive us to experience more of this transforming love of God. But a good marriage will also be a place where we experience more of this kind of transforming love at a human level.

We never marry the right person. Love is a verb. Love is a choice

My 12 most read posts of 2011

1. The Best Caramel Shortbread – Not my most interesting post but it keeps showing up at the top of search requests! I updated it in December 2011 to include a recipe.

2. Lucio and Kaka show their faith – Comment on the place of faith in football, written just before the 2010 world cup.

3. Henry Scott Holland: “Death is nothing at all” – Some thoughts on the popular poem by Henry Scott Holland which is often used at funerals.

4. You can’t help who you fall in love with – A response to a news article where a prison guard falls in love with an inmate.

5. The poor in the gospel of Luke (iv) – One of a number of posts examining what Jesus says about the poor and injustice in the gospel of Luke. For the whole series, click here.

6. Into the Wild – movie review – review of the 2007 film about the true story of Chris McCandless.

7. New Starbucks Logo – Comment on the new starbucks logo announced in Jan 2011.

8. Kieran Richardson and Kaka – More about faith and football following Kieran Richardson’s “I belong to Jesus” T-Shirt and goal celebration in November 2011.

9. Martin Luther on Religion and Politics – Quote from Martin Luther.

10. Why didn’t the rapture happen? Will it ever? – Response and critique of rapture theology following Harold Camping’s failed prediction of the end of the world in May 2011.

11. Donald Miller reviews Love Wins – Donald Miller’s take on Rob Bell’s controversial book.

12. I just can’t find it in me to be glad one more person is dead… – Quote in the aftermath of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. See also Has Bin Laden been brought to Justice.

Please don’t read this book…

The point of joining a bookgroup is to read stuff that you may not usually read, getting the ideas of others to broaden your reading list and maybe even some ideas for other authors to investigate. The description of the book 16 Lighthouse Road by Debbie Macomber had a lot of potential. A county court judge, Olivia Lockhart, refuses a young couple a divorce on the grounds that they had had everything against them and hadn’t had the chance to try to make it work. The young couple had a miscarriage whilst the husband was away with the Navy and unable to return home. By the time he did returned it seemed too late.

What I expected was a decent exploration of the nature of marriage with deep well-rounded characters who investigated their own flaws and had a thoughtful sense of development. I was wrong.

There are a number of things wrong with this book. Firstly, it is not written particularly well. Even from the title, I was expecting much of the setting of the book to be based in 16 Lighthouse road, perhaps with a description of the house and area and history of what that house meant to those that live there. This didn’t happen. It seems that the title is simply a mechanism to create a series of books (There is a sequel based around one of the characters in this book called 104 Rosewood Lane).

More importantly,  much of the dialogue is clichéd and the narrator’s description of the characters’ internal voices is poor – particularly when writing from the point of view of the male characters. They don’t think like men think. There are too many occasions when the author goes off on a pointless tangent for a couple of paragraphs for no apparent reason.

There are several storylines in the book, most of which involve a romance. Cecilia and Ian are the couple who were denied a divorce. After the denial of divorce there is a dinner meeting to discuss the way forward, which turns into a passionate evening followed by a miscommunication, a refusal to see each other, and act of kindness, a return to sea, an accident on the aircraft carrier and some very clichéd exchanges of letters. It all ends with the predictable reconciliation.

The rest of the action surrounds Olivia and her friends and family. The local newspaper editor (new in town) hears about what she did, writes an article about her and takes a fancy to her. They have an on-off-on again romance punctuated by more miscommunication and an all-too-easy coming together.

Olivia’s daughter Justine is the former high school valedictorian and current local bank manager. Justine’s twin brother had died in an accident as a teenager. Her ten-year high school reunion is due, and she is nominated to serve on the organising committee. This brings her into contact with her brother’s former best friend and former high-school football star, Seth. He is currently a fisherman who spends a lot of time in Alaska and lives on a boat. There is the inevitable attraction, unspent passion and confusion. Justine continually changes her mind about whether to date Seth or stick in her current unfulfilling relationship with Warren, a wealthy man 20 years her senior who likes a the company of younger ladies. We all know she is going to end up with Seth. Warren detects the attraction and ups the ante by proposing. Debbie Macomber does her best to make this process interesting but is all reads like teenage indecision about who to go out with. The book ends with a shotgun marriage (to Seth) which didn’t seem true to Justine’s character.

There is a subplot involving Charlotte, Olivia’s mother, who tries to untangle a mystery left by a former inhabitant of a care home she used to work in. This man turns out to be Tom Houston, former 1950’s star of a cowboy show who had neglected his family when he was famous. He moved to Cedar Cove to be closer to his only remaining family – a grandchild who didn’t want to know him.

The other major storyline involved Grace, Olivia’s best friend. Her husband mysteriously disappears near the beginning of the book. He walks out on her, leaving his clothes, car and everything. This storyline isn’t really ever finished, to leave room for the next book.

One of the frustrating things about the book is the number of times characters change their minds about people or things without much explanation. The reader is left in dismay as yet another plot twist is due to a character refusing to communicate or even think about what might be best for them. I’m not saying that people always think through their decisions, but real life people are deeper and more complex than that, and the repetitiveness in the book was irritating.

Despite lots of broken relationships in the book, you do get the feeling that Macomber considers marriage and commitment to be important, and that relationships can be worked out, but in the book, the twists and turns of marriage seem to be things that happen to you, rather than things you might proactively work towards. All the major relationship developments occur as a result of something unforeseen – a child’s death, and explosion on the aircraft carrier, a chance meeting in a bar, a husband inexplicably leaving after 25 years of marriage.

The bedrock of marriage is mutual effort and trust, a willingness to work at love, discuss differences, and offer forgiveness. It involves real, deep, open communication, understanding the challenges your partner might face and seeking to support one another through them. A husband must realise how his wife receives love and should seek to show it in that way. In many ways, husband and wife become two individuals within a single unit in what they hope for and what their values are. Macomber’s characters were all about receiving love and nothing more.

There is only one relationship in the book that gets sorted out, and this does so through an exchange of letters (again, letters which, in the way they are written, do not ring true). It is a shame that Macomber didn’t take the opportunity in this storyline to investigate more deeply the grief that comes from miscarriage and the real struggles that might be involved in rebuilding trust in a marriage. It all proved to be too easy and predictable.

It is holiday chick-lit fluff, and nothing more.

Loving unconditionally

We’re told in the Bible to love our enemies, and that even though everything else will pass away, love will last forever. This is not love in the romantic sense, but in the sense that we value, respect, and honour everyone around us, regardless of whether they are like us or they agree with us.

I have now read two of Donald Miller’s books in the last couple of months, first being lent A Million Miles in a Thousand Years whilst on holiday, and then at home picking up Blue Like Jazz which has been on our shelf for a while. He is full of deep thoughts and brutally honest critiques of himself which inspire him to do something about changing. He seems to learn from every situation he is in and whomever he is around.

But here’s the thing I’ve most noticed. Everyone he talks about in the book, he writes about them as beautiful, amazing people. It makes me want to meet the people he’s met as they seem like the most interesting, wonderful people in the world. In the third-to-last chapter, you find out how he manages to do that.

He talks about the metaphors that are used regarding certain subjects. For example, when we think about cancer, we use words like battling cancer, overcoming cancer, fighting cancer. They are all war metaphors which raise the level of fear about the disease. Cancer is something to be fought.

What about love. Often with love and relationships we use economic terms. We invest in people. We value people. We give our time  to people we love. Some relationships become bankrupt. These metaphors are economic because we think about love as conditional. We only show love to people if we think they are worth it or our love will be valued. We struggle to truly give something for nothing, to receive something for nothing, and therefore to love unconditionally. Yet grace is unconditional, and God’s love for us is unconditional. It is not an economic contract.

Jesus’ said love your enemies. Why should we do that? With the economic metaphor of love, there is no point. But because we are loved, and they are loved, we should love. We are able to see Jesus in them and the barriers are broken down. So, I guess, Donald has been able to see a little bit of Jesus in everyone he meets. Even when he doesn’t like them, he loves them, and then he finds he likes them.

There was a guy that was really getting up his nose, annoying him and Donald got all defensive and judgemental, trying to change the other person. After he’d worked all this stuff out, here’s what happened.

After I repented… I didn’t have to discipline anybody, I didn’t have to judge anybody, I could treat every body as though they were my best friend, as though they were rock starts of famous poets, as though they were amazing, and to me they became amazing, especially my new friend. I love him. After I decided to let go to judging him, I discovered he was very funny. I mean, really, hilarious. I kept telling him how funny he was. And he was smart. Quite brilliant, really. I couldn’t believe that I had never see it before. I felt as though I had lost an enemy and gained a brother.

The people Donald meets aren’t any more or less extraordinary than the people you or I meet. They are equally as loved by God as you or I, and equally as unique and special.

Daily Mail: Premarital Abstinence leads to better marriages

Interesting article in the Daily Mail based on research done in the US – Couples who don’t have sex before marriage on average have more stable, satisfying relationships than those who don’t, and generally have better sex too.

In particular, relationship stability was rated 22 per cent higher, relationship satisfaction was 20 per cent higher, quality of sex was 15 per cent better and even communication between partners was 12 per cent better.

I guess the research was done through interviews of couples.

Mark Regnerus, author of Premarital Sex in America… said: ‘Couples who hit the honeymoon too early – that is, prioritise sex promptly at the outset of a relationship – often find their relationships underdeveloped when it comes to the qualities that make relationships stable and spouses reliable and trustworthy.’

Read the whole article – Want the secret to a happy marriage? Don’t have sex before the wedding | Mail Online.

It shouldn’t be surprising that those who wait put less emphasis on the physical side of the relationship at the beginning and more time learning how to communicate and making stable foundations for the marriage. Love is a verb and we have to learn how to do it well.

H/T Peter Ould

You can’t help who you fall in love with

BBC News are carrying an article about a former prison officer, Kelly-Anne McDade, who has just been sentenced to jail time for two things. She had a sexual relationship with a male inmate, resulting in her getting pregnant, and she also smuggled in mobile phones for use by inmates.

I’m not going to probe deeply into the case, but what struck me was the excuse/defense that her solicitor was trying to put forward.

Richard Germain, defending McDade, told the court: “There is no doubt it was an inappropriate relationship, but Ms McDade would say ‘You can’t help who you fall in love with’.”

via BBC NEWS | England | Beds/Bucks/Herts | Inmate-sex prison officer jailed.

This is a myth. You can help who you fall in love with. Perhaps you can’t help who you find attractive, but love is a completely different thing. Love is not an uncontrollable emotion.  Once the impulses of attraction come along, we choose whether to act on them. We choose whether to show love to someone else. There certainly are feelings associated with love, but these feelings themselves are not love. They are merely associated with it. Over all, love is a choice.

If we are attracted to somebody, it doesn’t mean we have to love them. For example, if a married man is attracted to another woman (this itself is not a crime) but he must choose what to do with that attraction. Hopefully he will put in boundaries to remove or reduce the temptation, for the benefit of his marriage. He may avoid that woman and make sure he is never alone with her. Or if he has to meet her and part of his job or something, he could always meet in a public place. He could also confide and be accountable to someone else. There are many ways to reduce the temptation that would inevitably destroy his marriage, and avoid the attraction turning into something else. Each little step is a choice.

We can help who we fall in love with and it is the result of hundreds of little choices.

Update 12/01/12: There is now a more detailed post on the subject here.

Fred, Dalila and an internet proposal

So, Fred wants to marry Dalila, so what does he do? Start a viral internet and social media campaign to persuade her (Twitter #SayYesD, http://www.sheknows.com/articles/810383.htm). Aparrently Dalila has difficulty making decisions!

What I like about this:

1. Marriage – it is great and it shows commitment and love. Spending the rest of your like with someone isn’t easy but is very regarding with a bit of dedication and hard work. People wanting to get married and commit to another person wholeheartedly should be encouraged and applauded.

2. Who one married used to be a question for the whole family, maybe even the wider community. Getting the opinion of friends and family on whether you have made a good choice is an excellent idea.

3. Fred has thought long and hard about what he likes about Dalila. This is some sort of love letter expressing his feelings.

What I don’t like about this:

1. Come on Fred – you don’t need a gimmick or a jumbo tron. Just take her somewhere nice and ask her – to her face.

2. We all know that popular opinion can be fickle, untrustworthy and ridiculous (look at Big Brother and a host of other reality TV programmes). Get advice from people you trust, not a random collection of strangers.

3. The medium is the message – we are used to seeing advertisements for things that we don’t need or that promise more than they can deliver. Is Fred reducing marriage to the consumerist level?

3. If she reallys needs this much persuading, perhaps it is not a good idea to get married. Perhaps she needs time not pestering.

My Advice:

Dalila – Only say yes if you actually love him. Get advice from close friends and family, not internet strangers (!).

Love and acceptance

Complete and total strangers are looking for love and acceptance just the same as any of us

What do these media like postsecret tell us? They tell us that we have a inbuilt desire to know that we are not alone, that we need to be known and want to connect with others people. And that in our present society so may people are not finding this.

Jesus offers us a way to be connected with him (our ultimate deepest desire), and ultimately connected with each other. Through Him we are able to understand ourselves, know love and acceptance, and able to connect and love other people too (often people we would never have met in our ordinary circles of life). The church is called to demonstrate this community to the world. It is something that people are looking for and something the the church uniquely through Jesus are able to offer.

We want to be known. Who better to know us that the God of the universe.

Before I Die – a book review.

I tend to like novels that ask difficult questions about life and it’s meaning, which is why I picked up the recent novel Before I Die by Jenny Downham. On the surface it looks like quite a depressing tale – a young girl, Tessa, of about 15 is dying of leukaemia.. It is terminal and there is nothing the doctors can do for her. Reading it at the moment when there are high profile cancer sufferers such as Jade Goody, (and several I know in my life), it offered and interesting read. The book is not entirely depressing, although in the end the predictable happens and her illness gets the better of her.

Facing up to her death, Tessa realises she has two options. She can either succumb to the illness and fade out gradually, or try and eek every last ounce of living out of her life. She chooses the latter, and decides to make a list of things to do before she dies. Number one is sex. Egged on by her best friend, they find a couple of boys in a nightclub and go back to theirs. Number two is saying yes to everything. This gets her into trouble. The list continues.

Strangely though, she doesn’t seem to be happier or more fulfilled by the list and she starts moping about more. This fulfillment eventually comes through the introduction of a love interest -  the boy who has just moved in next door with his mum. He has also had some sorrow in his life so can understand her better than most people. After some reticence – unsurprising given how the relationship will eventually end – they grow closer and their relationship deepens. Tessa has finally found love before she dies.

Downham writes well and seems to capture what might be going through 15 year old girls brain. The last section capture well Tessa drifting in and out of consciousness.

In many ways, the message of this book is not a bad one – we only have one life so we should live it and make the most of our opportunities. As Tessa doesn’t believe in anything afterwards (and Jenny Downham barely mentions religion in this book), living for this life, however short it may be, is all that remains. Unfortunately the subtext of such a message reveals that life is only worth living if we find love – without her relationship, (it is implied), Tessa’s life would have been a waste. Downham’s conclusion is an obvious one for such a worldview, albeit a depressing one. The meaning of life is always read through the lens of death and through beliefs about what comes next. It’s a shame that the meaning revealed by Jenny Downham in this book offers little more than to urge the reader to find love whilst they can get it. A charming story, but ultimately one without hope and one that fails to deal with the issue of death on a serious level.

Love and Marriage

Every week I read the postsecret blog – an art project of postcards that people send in revealling their deepest secrets. This is my favourite.

Love is not accidental, it is not random, it is not by fate or by chance. It is intentional, an act of the will as well as the heart. I feel so happy for whoever sent this.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Cor 13:4-7, NLT)