Don't Make My Mistake: Let Your Date Be Free to Love
147
How do you love others? Freely? Or possessively?
I came upon this inspirational quote on Facebook recently.
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
It was attributed to the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Each of us values our freedom—the freedom to choose to accept or reject the advances of another. The #MeToo movement is a case in point. These were women who were forced against their wishes to capitulate to someone’s desires. Everything within us wants to be able to choose to love, not to have it thrust upon us.
The very creator of the Universe created us to love Him forever, yet gave us that ability to reject His love—love that took His Son to the cross for us. Our model for loving others is the love that God has shown us. He pursues us, but does not smother us with His love. He gives us the space we need to breathe and make our own choices. Paradoxically, when one chooses to possessively hold on to another, they slip away. As the old 38 Special song goes:
Just hold on loosely
But don't let go
If you cling too tightly,
You're gonna lose control
Your baby needs someone to believe in
And a whole lot of space to breathe in
I learned this lesson the hard way.
When I was young, I fell quite hard for a vivacious, pretty girl. Unsurprisingly, every other guy in town also wanted to go out with her. When we started dating, I began to be very possessive of her. I was so insecure about losing her that I started to tell her who she could be friends with. I began to spend so much time with her that she didn’t have time to spend with anyone else. Every other male was seen as a threat.
After a while, she began to resent this. She loved me, but in restricting her freedom to have other friends, I was suffocating her. I ended up marrying her. I got the girl of my dreams, but in marriage (as in courtship), I continued to be very controlling. It didn’t turn out too well eventually and our marriage ended on the rocks.
I’m not that person anymore. I’m a lot more secure about myself than I was then and losing the person I loved the most in life taught me some valuable lessons about love and friendship. Friends, the takeaway from this is to give people the room they need to make their own choices, to develop their own personalities, to choose their own friends, to love anyone they choose. In doing that, we are set free to receive whatever they are ready to give us—whether it is just friendship or their everything.
Consider not just your own relationship timeline, but the person's who you are courting.
And that brings me to the second lesson God had to teach me. I have had to learn not to put my feelings for someone above their right to love me back ‘in their own time.’ I have to actively work to keep that temptation at bay. I met a fantastic woman last year on CatholicMatch.
She was kind, smart, and beautiful, mature and loved God. We became fast friends very quickly and as we shared details about our lives with each other, I grew quite fond of her. At some point, I wanted to take it to the next level but she needed more time. At first, I was frustrated and I began pushing hard.
It took a while for me to realize I was repeating the mistakes of my youth. I was anxious that some other eligible man on CatholicMatch or in her parish would steal her heart. I was anxious that I was not getting any younger. I was anxious that I was being ‘friend-zoned.'
If you feel anxious and insecure too, ask God to reassure you of His love.
Through all of this, God began working in my heart to reassure me that He loved me and was attentive to my prayers for a spouse. I stopped being pushy with the young lady and began to relax and just enjoyed the wonderful friendship we had. I prayed for her and encouraged her through her personal trials and our foundation of friendship became stronger. I no longer ‘coveted’ her like I did in the beginning.
It is rare for two people to both be ready at the same time to take a relationship to the next level. When you find yourself in that place where you are ready but the other is not, exercise patience. Don’t let anxiety force you into pushing for something the other is not yet ready to give, because you risk fracturing the relationship. Impatience leads to errors in judgement and hasty decisions that we come to regret later.
God will do great things for you on His time, not your time.
It is humbling to open up my heart to you, dear reader, and be vulnerable by sharing my experience with you. I hope that this will help you as you reflect on how you relate to those you might be dating. I leave you with these thoughts to ponder from 1 Corinthians 13.
Love is patient—It gives people the freedom to respond in their own time
Love is not self-seeking—It seeks the welfare of the other over our own interests
It always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres—Keep doing the right thing, love those that God brings into your life the best way you know how, but trust God to fan the flame of love in their hearts in HIS time.
Find Your Forever.
CatholicMatch is the largest and most trusted
Catholic dating site in the world.