For some reason, when you enter into
relationships, you often believe that they will last forever. However, there
are many relationships that don’t and won’t last as long as you hoped that they
would last. The reality is, how you start your relationships will determine
their longevity. And if you aren’t continuously building upon the positives
that you and your mate brought into your relationship from the onset, it is guaranteed
that your relationship will not grow stronger, and it most certainly will not
last through time.
We’ve had some very unpredictable weather for
some time now. However, many times your relationships are just as unpredictable
as the weather. The difference is, you can’t and you don’t control the weather,
but you can control your relationships, without trying to control the people
with whom you engage in relationships. It is a given fact that if you and your
mate engage in relationship checkups at least every six months, you both will know
what is lacking, what is striking, what is positive, and what is negative. If
the relationship checkups are completed with honesty and without blame, you and
your mate will have the greatest levels of predictability as to the longevity
of the relationship.
It’s amazing that we have plans for building
houses, plans for the day and the evening, plans for our wardrobes, plans for
dinner, as well as plans for vacations, our careers, and our retirement. But we
often fall short with no plans to keep the relationships we claim to cherish,
growing and flourishing.
Just imagine if you and your mate both entered
into your relationship with a plan in mind for love, commitment, longevity, and
overall success of your relationship. The plan has to be a written plan that is
agreed upon by you and your mate. The plan should include your goals, and your
expectations for your individual selves, as well as your relationship, not just
for the day, but also for tomorrow and beyond.
You must recognize that the growth and success
of your relationship involves WORK! If you believe that you can sit on your
laurels and do nothing to build upon and expand your relationship, it will
suffer, not thrive, weaken, and eventually die. It is imperative that you don’t
allow your relationship to lack the love, commitment, trust, respect,
communication, lovemaking, sharing, and caring that it needs. Yes, sometimes
you can breathe fresh air into your broken and limp relationship, but if by
chance the neglect has gone on for an indefinite period of time, your
relationship might need to be placed on life support. And you are aware that
many times there is no survival while on life support.
Just as you build your wardrobe, your shoe
collection, your memories and other things that matter to you, you must
continue to build on your relationship, if it truly matters to you. You cannot
engage in destructive behaviors if you desire to stay with the man or the woman
with whom you chose to love and engage in a relationship. Having affairs, cheating,
lying, cursing, name-calling, physical and emotional attacks, any form of
abuse, engaging in addictive behaviors, and other destructive acts will chip
and chip at your relationship until it is either rendered helpless, hopeless,
or dead.
And the craziness that some of you engage in to
make your mate jealous and/or love you more, if at all; is just that…CRAZINESS!! There will be times in
your relationship when communication breaks down, times when you feel
disrespected, you are angry, or you are fearful about your present and future
life direction. However, these times are not the time for you or your mate to engage
in destructive behaviors. Warfare is never fair in relationships!
There should never be times in your
relationship that you or your mate decide to engage in emotional, psychological,
physical, financial, and/or materially destructive behaviors. Why are you
keying or breaking the windows of his/her car? Why are you calling his/her job or
the IRS with destructive accusations? Why are you calling, his/her phone, or
family members to harass them? Why are you stalking him/her? Why would you want
to go after him/her with a gun or other weapon? These are all destructive
behaviors. If you are engaging in them, STOP THE MADNESS TODAY! Destruction
does not build healthy and positive relationships!
And it’s amazing that some of you seem to
flourish in situations (that are really not relationships) that are tumultuous
and life draining on a daily basis. However, true relationships thrive and
survive because they are being fed healthy doses of love, healthy touches or
love, healthy comments of love, healthy looks of love, as well as healthy acts
of love each and every day. These healthy acts are truly a part of the
construction process that keeps your relationship from falling into a coma,
needing life support, without the possibility of survival.
No matter how strong and how long you have been
in your relationship, it cannot and will not flourish or grow when it’s under
destruction. Your relationship cannot and will not thrive, nor will it survive
under the weight of continuous anger, fighting, hatred, lying, animosity, and overall
destruction. Further, when your relationship is in destruction mode, too many
of you believe one of you has to win and the other has to lose; and you will believe
that you must emerge as the winner and your mate must fall as the loser.
During the destruction process in what used to
be your relationship, which has become a situation, you and your mate are now
in a competition and no longer a part of a coalition. You have abandoned the
‘we’ and ‘us’ mindset and have taken on
the ‘I’ and ‘me’ syndrome. You seem to nurture intense efforts to not only win
against your mate, but for you to also waste precious time in ‘getting back’ at
him/her, ‘getting over’ on him/her, or taking steps to bring physical,
emotional, social, psychological, and/or material harm to him/her. Just because
you are hurting, doesn’t mean that everyone has to hurt with you or be hurt by
you! These are acts of destruction, not only to your relationship, but also to
your mate, your children, your family members, friends, and yourself.
You and your mate must decide whether you will
be a part of the construction process in building and expanding your relationship,
or whether you all are a part of the destruction process that is and will lead
to the demise of your relationship. If the two of you have decided that you
want to build your relationship and make it stronger, it is time for the
construction process to begin or continue in your relationship. This must start
with a solid foundation, which entails what both of you bring into the
relationship.
Your attitude about each other and your
relationship, as well as your belief that you and your mate are on a winning
team TOGETHER, makes the difference as you continue to construct and build on
your relationship. It’s having a win-win attitude, living together, while
envisioning and speaking positivity each and everyday. It’s thinking positively
and expecting positivity. What you think, speak, believe, and expect is what
you will get and what you will have in your relationship.
Along with the regular relationship checkups,
it is imperative that you all learn to focus on the positive attributes and
characteristics that brought the two of you together. One of you has to take a
stand for what’s right! Somebody has to be man enough and/or woman enough to
admit wrong without shame and take responsibility for the roles played in the
relationship. It might as well be you! An honest and sincere apology can be the
first step to you and your mate starting or continuing with the construction
process. It’s going back to the basics of any healthy relationship, ensuring
open, honest, and positive communication, mutual respect, unconditional
positive regard, commitment, and dedication, to and with each other. It’s you
and your mate also evaluating your spiritual walk and taking responsibility for
where it is lacking. It really makes a difference to have spiritual strength in
your relationship; it gives you all an anchor when unwanted destruction tries
to enter.
There is always a light at the end of the
tunnel and God can show you and your mate the light to continue to move
forward. You must first trust Him, trust yourselves, and trust each other.
Always keep your relationship plan with goals and expectations close at hand so
that it can be reviewed during your six months relationship check up. It is
also important during the construction process of your relationship that you
keep inferior situations and people out of the relationship. I call them
infiltrators. If they are not assets, they are liabilities. The bottom line is,
keep people out of your business, unless the two of you have consented to the
involvement of a spiritual guide, a professional relationship therapist, or
other trained expert.
Listening is always an important asset to help
your relationship grow. You don’t have to have the last say, just hear the last
word and move on! Choose your battles wisely and make time for and with each
other. And remember, intimacy is more than sexual intercourse. Take time to
have intimate conversations, intimate spiritual journeys, intimate walks, intimate
projects, etc. A weekly date is always healthy and helpful, as well as allowing
individual time with yourself during the construction process of your
relationship.
You and your mate must remember that
relationships grow with construction, and not through destruction! The two of
you already have the blueprint plans for your present and your future
relationship. Now its time to gather the tools provided above and get to
building. But remember, any construction is a process and not an event. You can
never stop the construction process, especially if you want your relationship
to continue. Get up, and get going…you have some building to do!
