Worth Fighting For

In a previous post, Necessary Roughness, I made mentioned of a gentleman from my past. At present, I can recall myself and the gentleman in question discussing how he would always seek to be honest and forthright (whether I liked it or not) because “how are you going to trust me when you don’t know what’s going on?”

It didn’t take long for that theory to be tested. A few months into our relations, I was unknowingly pulled into a conversation wherein his ex-wife began to assert, what she believed to be, her position in his life. I never responded. I never questioned a thing. I didn’t need to. As she spoke, my mind trailed back to his and my very first phone conversation.

Our initial discussion, like others referred to in that same blog post, was unsolicited. I’d never asked him about the woman in question, so he was never under any obligation to even mention her. Although the two of us would not ultimately end up dating, I was able to see that the unsolicited moments of truth were a way for him to protect not necessarily what was, as much as what might be.

This man knew who he married as much as he knew who he’d divorced.

Proverbs 21:9 (NIV) says it is “better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife”.

What people often fail to realize is that everything you do in this life is most always in efforts of answering a question. In a relationship, people become misguided, often working to answer the question, “how much do you love me”, when the greater question is, “how much do you respect our union?”.

I can remember watching a Sarah Jakes and Toure Roberts video in which she said, “I’d had a love worth fighting for…literally, but I’d never had a love worth protecting”. That statement struck me.

I could recall accepting a man’s ring, having just months before, showed up to his ex-girlfriend's JOB, ready to bash this woman’s face in. This was a woman who had stalked us for the greater part of a year. I was livid with her for not respecting our space, our privacy, and our relationship, when the reality was that he had failed to protect our union.

He knew who we were dealing with and thereby, should have known the necessary measures to put in place to prevent the ridiculous and dangerous situations born out of their residual conflict. As adults, we often wander from one romance to the next, trailing behind us the weight of our former relationships. We like to play a game with ourselves and others, as if we have no idea why we are burdened and exhausted by the effort necessary to maintain successful relationships. The truth is that we are well aware of the weight that we carry. Whether we accept responsibility for the outcomes of our past relationships or not, we carry the truth of those relationships somewhere within our being.

The gentleman of recent note can carry the knowledge of our interactions with the weight of a feather. No harm was caused; no ill-will is harbored, and the remnants of our time together are in no way burdensome. Yet his ex, along with the woman who stalked me & my ex-fiancé, those were heavier relationships - the type that require deliberate unpacking.

I was so angry about this woman playing on our phones; being camped out in bushes across the street from my apartment; shining lights like Girl Scout signals in my bedroom window; showing up at events that we attended, and a host of other acts, that I never stopped to question where she was getting her information. That was... until he called me one night because she had him locked in her apartment.

There are some doors that are better left closed, while others require padlocks and chains....theirs was a door requiring chains.

This woman pretended to have car trouble so that he would bring his mechanic brother...with no car 😒 to her home to check things out. While waiting for his brother, he asked to use her bathroom, and she deadbolted him in.

Do I question the validity of his story? No.
Was he being honest? Sure.
Do I care? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

It does not matter how innocent you THINK your actions are; what matters is how your actions can be interpreted and received. He knew her well enough to know that the slightest interaction would invite continued, dangerously dysfunctional contact. At this point, if you can’t do it yourself, it is left to the police to rescue you, not the woman who served as the other party in the union you failed to protect.

When we are entering into relationship, we have to slow down long enough to see the forest AND the trees. God closes doors to unhealthy relationships not because He’s testing us to see how far the door will crack without being fully opened - God will never tempt you! He is giving you an opportunity to ransom yourself.

Release the burdens of your past. Otherwise, instead of being protected, you'll end up with a love worth fighting for!

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth

Fighting Together

My father once told me that there’s no such thing as a fair fight.  It took me 36 years to realize that I disagree.

A year ago, I had a very nasty fight with a particular person of interest to me, and Lord God, when I say that it got UGLY…it was ugly. It was so far beyond me, who I want to be or how I want to be in my relationships that I COMPLETELY shut up! Not shut down, SHUT UP. I stopped talking and started praying. I prayed that what the TRUE problem was in our discussion, that it would be revealed to us in a manner that could be rightly understood and addressed, because I knew that what we thought had caused our disagreement, was not what had led us to that moment, and in order to address the real problem, we had to be able to hear each other clearly enough to figure out what it was.

Whether we give in to its practice or not, there is only one way to hear something, and that is to actively listen. Understanding that the two are opposites, we as adults desiring to be in loving relationships, have to accept that you CANNOT talk and listen at the same time!  So, I shut up and did what we all should do – I prayed. I prayed over the broken communication that had led us to that moment. I prayed over the communication filters created by our pasts that had truly led us to that moment. I prayed over everything that stood between us, but beyond our understanding, because the wall of offense had been built long before that moment. The wall between us had been formed from remnants of past hurt that neither of us had taken part in working to heal. 

I prayed for us to see through what was said in pain or anger, and to live out the revelation of what fighting in a relationship should be. Then, when it was finally over, I prayed for God's guidance, and I sent him a very clear email about the types of engagements that I refuse to participate in. 

I get so annoyed when people say that fighting is healthy. IT'S NOT. 

To communicate effectively you, you will need to openly disagree, but in order to do so, within your relationship, there are a few things that you need to remember:

1.     A fight, by essence of its very definition, dictates that a battle take place, within which weapons are employed and there must be a winner. Why would you seek to use words against someone you love in efforts of winning a stupid fight? There’s enough that comes up against solid, Godly relationships - do you really want to help tear the two of you apart?

2.    When you chose to marry, or to date with intention, you took on the understanding that the two of you would become one. Proverbs 4:23 warns that we are to guard our hearts, for out of it flows the issues of life. Acknowledging and accepting that you don’t know what issues their heart has been forced to endure up to this point, you should guard the heart of your loved one in the same fashion that you guard your own. You should never be comfortable hurting anyone that you profess to love, no matter how you feel at the time.

And finally,

3.    In any disagreement between people who care about each other the most important thing for you to remember is that it is never you AGAINST them.

When I became silent during our disagreement, I was able to hear the wounds of his past that remained unhealed, and how even the smallest action could trigger an unfavorable response, because some of those wounds were still so fresh and tender.

After reading my message and getting a good night’s sleep, he realized the one thing that we must all come to terms with – when you care about someone, it’s never me vs. you, but us vs. the problem.

If we can listen, and pray our way to understanding, we can start to heal the wounds that build walls between us; the wounds that trick us into believing that we’re on different sides, when what we really should be doing, is fighting together.

Follow Me as I Follow God

@RevealingRuth