As a tribute to Valentine’s Day, I wrote the first piece on this subject: “Christian Couples: Tips for Treating Your Mate Right (and Not Just on Valentine’s Day),” February 2009. In this article, I put forth the first five tips for treating your mate in a manner that will perpetuate a happy, healthy Christian relationship.
Here, I will continue this charge by giving four more pointers. And while, admittedly, these are principally aimed at people in a relationship, they are important to keep in mind as soon as you start dating someone. Because how you treat someone initially lays the foundation for how well things will go forever—as it’s very rare for a couple to start out in a state of pervasive disagreement or on disrespectful footing then evolve into a harmonious union (although, unfortunately, things often devolve in the opposite direction).
Furthermore, while these tips should be taken primarily from a perspective of what you can do to be a better companion, they can also be used as a tool for assessing a potential partner’s treatment…especially in instances where you might be sensing someone is an unsuitable match, but blinded by the initial infatuation of physical attraction.
So what are these pointers for promoting a loving and long-lasting Christian relationship? Well as I’ve said before, in a general sense, it’s showing up, supporting, and making sacrifices day in and day out that makes someone want to be with us. But it’s also in the details, like the following:
Be considerate
While some people are simply selfish, often when partners are inconsiderate, they are just forgetting to keep their mate’s comfort in mind. Common cases include making a lot of noise when your significant other is sleeping, studying, or working; talking loudly when they’re on the phone; changing the channel when they’re watching or listening to something; opening/closing a door or window without asking first if they are hot or cold; using up all the hot water when you know they need to shower…and a whole host of other examples that could continue on for pages.
While these are obviously not major issues, they are the little things that add up to either increase your partner’s feelings of affection towards you or his/her feelings of frustration and irritation. Think of the difference between sensing your wife tiptoeing tenuously around the bedroom in an effort to let you sleep an extra 45 minutes versus her leaving the door open so your screaming baby can be heard by your boss during an important conference call. The reality is that it is often in these seemingly insignificant moments that our hearts fill with the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. And all it involves on your end is keeping your mate in mind, putting forth a bit of extra effort, or making slight sacrifices to make him or her more comfortable.
Don’t make money the determiner of rank in a relationship
As I’ve said many times before, as long as both members of a couple contribute equally in their own way, it doesn’t matter who makes what money. If you are the mate who makes more, it is your job to ensure that the number of dollars each brings in doesn’t determine how much power the person has in the partnership. In other words, once you are a couple, you are a team. You should not keep score with money or give the person who makes it the power to make all decisions on how it is spent. Instead—regardless of whether you maintain some separate accounts—consider all money made as part of the joint pot. The primary earner isn’t more important than, say, the children’s caretaker…and they don’t get to singlehandedly decide whether you spend on a widescreen TV or wicker patio furniture.
Embrace your partner’s personality
Many Christian men and women believe that once they marry or start seriously dating someone, it’s okay to try to change them into the person you want them to be. It’s not. Most of all, you cannot successfully change someone’s basic personality. Equally as important, a large part of why we love a person is because we feel they “get” us; they love us for who we are, quirks, faults, failures, and all. A person whose mate is constantly trying (even inconspicuously) to remodel them doesn’t feel valued or appreciated. And they build up resentment. And they start looking to spend time with people who do recognize their value (and you see where this is going).
So if your man’s messiness is irksome, remember it was his creative nature that appealed to you in the first place. If his desire to save for a rainy day sometimes makes you mad, remember it was his solidness and practicality that you originally found fabulous. If his close relationship with his mother feels a bit much, remember it was his fondness of family that made you interested initially. In essence, the solution is this: While it’s normal to ask our companions to compromise, don’t select someone while counting on changing them into someone else. Instead, enjoy and appreciate all the wonderful things about the person you picked. Oh, and don’t forget to tell them, regularly, how much you love the traits that make them who they are.
Fight fair by not hitting below the belt
Every couple will have arguments…and they’ll even get heated here and there. But there is a big difference between arguing, or even fighting, and finding the meanest, most personal remark to launch at your loved one. Since we are the closest person to our partner, we know how to hurt them the most, and we can often do it with only a few words.
I heard a perfect example of this “hitting below the belt” in an argument between two female neighbors. While fighting about noise (one has a napping one-year-old, the other a Harley-driving husband), things got heated, and the woman with a child called motorcycle-man’s wife a bitch. Okay, not nice I agree. But, the noisy neighbor’s response was to call the other—who has been literally shattered over a forty-pound weight gain in response to medications taken to combat post-partum depression—a “fat cow.” Definitely attacking below the belt (the thighs, bootie, stomach, and self-esteem in specific).
Other prime examples are getting on a man about money if he feels insecure about his ability to provide or using other issues about which you know your significant other is sensitive in an effort to make them feel bad about themselves (a past addiction, being left in his/her last relationship, being abandoned as a child, etc.). In fact, award-winning research psychologist John Gottman includes a related term in his famous theory The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which seeks to identify the four most common characteristics shared by marriages that end in divorce. Number two is what he calls “contempt”; he explains it as, “…the intention to insult and psychologically abuse your partner.”
It may be tempting to think that in the fury of a fevered argument you can make yourself feel better by emotionally battering your partner. You can’t. You will not only feel terrible later, but your partner will hang on to your insensitive insult for a long, long time.
The final word
The bottom line is that all of these ideas are really just offshoots of the Golden Rule: Treat others how you would like to be treated. In fact, with all his complicated calculations and hypothesizing about horsemen, Gottman himself sums up much more succinctly the most important predictor of which marriages will ultimately work: The spouses are nice to each other more often than not.
According to the New Age Journal article that summarizes his predictions, Gottman explains, “’[S]atisfied couples maintained a five-to-one ratio of positive to negative moments.’” Myself, I like to simplify it even further…be as nice as humanly possible.
So even if things are going well, check in on yourself periodically with these lists. And if you’re experiencing bumps on the road to lifelong Christian coupledom, definitely use these tips as a guideline for how you can get things going again in the right direction.
Note: The John Gottman theories above were taken from an article entitled, “Psychologists at the University of Seattle’s ‘Love Lab’ Are Using Science to Uncover the Real Reason Why Marriages Succeed or Fail.” To read the entire article visit: http://www.holysmoke.org/fem/fem0430.htm.
