Stop Sprinkling Holy Water on Her Red Flags
70
The grass is always greener...
It’s true, isn’t it? There is always someone better, if you’re only looking at a single trait at a time. If you’re looking at intelligence, there will always be someone smarter. Beauty? It fades, and the next hottie is always just around the corner. Holiness? Well, Mother Teresa is gone, but there are still a whole lot of saints-in-the-making on this earth, and I seriously doubt any of you are going to run across the very holiest of them all in your limited dating lives.
The problem is that when we move into that “uncertain” place in dating—the part where we see things going well and we get scared and our protective instinct subtly encourages us to sabotage the relationship—we start to pick apart those individual traits and notice anyone and everyone who is “better” in any one area.
Dating is not about finding someone who is the best.
The basic truth is this: dating isn’t about looking for the person who is the “best.” It’s about finding the person who is best for us. The person God has in mind. Dating isn’t so much about shopping or sampling or dabbling. It’s about discernment, and discernment takes some effort, some prayer and some serious searching for God.
That person God has in mind for you, the person who is going to help you get to Heaven—that person is going to have flaws. There are going to be things that get on your nerves.
There will be ways—little and big—in which you will have to die to yourself. Your dreams may play out differently than you imagined, your “picture,” of what your perfect marriage would be may not happen. God may not have the same picture. But He has a much bigger screen with a much, much clearer, more complete image than our puny little human imagination could ever comprehend.
So, how do you discern who isn't right for you?
Unfortunately, most of us in this day and age aren’t taught a lot about discernment. We aren’t taught about how to go about seeking and following the will of God. We tend, instead, to divinize our own feelings. We assume that if we feel a certain way, it must be God speaking infallibly to us. I find that many, many people talk about something being “God’s will” when it’s clearly only their own will with holy water sprinkled on it.
When it comes to dating and discernment, the mistakes go in two different directions. (Don’t they always?) In both cases they involve divinizing our own feelings.
Big mistake #1: Discomfort means it's not right.
The first happens when enter the uncertainty phase and we start to feel uncomfortable because we see a flaw in our intended, or we realize that continuing this relationship will cost us something of our dream or our comfort or our current lifestyle. We assume that discomfort must be God’s signal to us.
Big mistake #2: Mistaking attraction for God's will.
The other extreme is when we mistake our feelings of attraction for God’s will. Don’t get me wrong—real attraction is a gift from God. But because of the whole original sin situation, it can become convoluted. And then it starts to mess with our minds.
The problem is when attraction co-exists with real red flags in a relationship. The temptation then is to overlook the red flag and to take the strong feelings of attraction as a sign from God. This is where I see the most creative “holy-water sprinkling,” particularly among women.
Let me tell you, a Christian woman who knows the jargon can make any troubled loser seem like a delivery straight from the hands of the Almighty. “His brokenness has led him to turn to pornography and random sexual encounters, but the Lord has led him to me, to be filled with His Spirit in the sacraments of the Holy Church, through my good example and constant, incessant nagging...”
Let me be clear here: I do not mean that you should ignore actual red flags in a relationship. Dating is not about remodeling someone into the image and likeness of your perfect spouse. It is about discerning who this person actually is and whether that person “as-is” would be the kind of spouse who would help you to Heaven, the kind of spouse God has in mind for you.
Pay attention to the flag!
I have a saying with my friends: “Salute the big red flag.” When someone comes to me all excited about a new relationship, and I start to hear little rationalizations creep in, I pay attention.
“He’s got this ex-girlfriend who always hangs around, but they’re really just friends.” “She’s sort of demanding, but that’s just because she’s had a difficult life.” “He’s not as far advanced in the faith as I am, but he’ll give up the porn once he starts going to Mass with me.” “She drinks kind of a lot, but...” You get the idea.
When you see a red flag, you salute it. You pay attention to it. If it’s a big red flag (abusive or difficult personality, blatant substance abuse, extreme narcissism, serious mismatch in values, etc.) you leave. If it’s just a little flash of red fabric (the ex who’s always hanging around, subtle self-absorption, the consistent “a couple of drinks too many” at parties) you can stick around for a while to see if you’re seeing a tiny flag, or just the corner of a really huge flag. But don’t be daydreaming or planning the weddings or choosing curtains for your first home together just yet.
And if there is a big red flag, then this isn't the person for you.
“But what if this is the person God has in mind for me?” Probably not. More likely you’re just feeling your attraction and furiously sprinkling holy water onto it in the hopes that God will magically show up and make everything right. Maybe this person is someone God would have had in mind for you, had this person not made the choices or turned in the direction or hoisted whatever red flag you’re seeing now. At any rate, dating is not the place for evangelization, or rescue, or any other kind of drastic human remodeling.
Those kinds of problems are central to discernment. They are, most likely, God’s way of telling you to look elsewhere.
Find Your Forever.
CatholicMatch is the largest and most trusted
Catholic dating site in the world.