by
Amy Key
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Instead, I have wanted to be changed. To become or resemble an ideal of someone’s romantic partner, always looking within myself to identify what it was that got in the way of love, the tiny adjustments I could make to fulfil another’s vision. My eyes were so trained on my own imperfect state that I failed to consider the imperfection of the romantic partners I sought. If I think back to the man I had the affair with, the desire for him to like me like me – to see me as valuable to him beyond sexual pleasure – was so strong I didn’t even ask myself if I liked him. Once the spell was broken, I realised I didn’t. He would text me now and then over the years since we were involved, telling me he missed me, talking like friends. There was no friendship there for me. He was boring, arrogant, talked down to me. And who would blame him when I so clearly placed myself in service to him, failed to stand up for things that I desperately wanted, became oddly characterless in the face of his personality.
i mean maybe you should do both
[...] Sex, I miss, but I’m aware some of the things I might want from a romantic partner are infantile. Someone to be able to be a brat to without consequences, someone to baby me with soft words and the tucking in of a blanket when I feel vulnerable and unwilling to be accountable for myself. I wail that if I don’t get a romantic partner, I’ll never spot that lump that needs to be checked out and then die. Then other things I want are more than equalled by my closest friendships – emotional intimacy, making plans for the weekend, for short trips, for things we want to celebrate, and the foundational support of curiosity, feedback and encouragement that helps the people we love go after things they want.
this sounds like wanting a mother ngl
I need to cross a threshold – from the place I am in now, where I can still feel confused, ashamed, embarrassed, angry even, that romantic love is not part of my life, to a place where I care less about what other people might think about me and don’t punish myself when I do care, judge myself less for always wanting more. I have to own that romantic love is a present desire, not consigned to some fantasy me.
agreed about the first sentence, not sure of the second
[...] That’s the risk of abundance. It can be easy to find it lacking. A birthday party where you’re sore someone didn’t come rather than delighting in all who did. A canyon of want that is impossible to fill.
somewhat nice turn of phrase
It wasn’t until recently that I paid attention to a line in Blue ’s first song that goes, ‘I love you when I forget about me.’ In the last few years, I’ve come to realise that in the romantic loving I’ve done, I’ve often obliterated my sense of self: I’ve not located my needs, let alone asked for them to be met. I’ve just doggedly pursued a kind of abstract reciprocation – have I been noticed or have I not? – and because I’ve not paid enough attention to what I want, the vast contrast between what I want and what I’ve received hasn’t been as visible to me. Romantic love transformed me but not in the way I’d dreamed it would. It made me forget myself, not to my self’s flourishing advantage – connected, inspired, courageous – but to my detriment. My resilience, self-image and facility for care scrawny with neglect.
Knowing what love is certainly helps us learn to walk in love, but we are also wise to understand what love is not. Many people become confused about love because people tell them they love them and then act in ways totally inconsistent with real love. Love is not talk or theory, and it is not merely a sermon. It may produce feelings, but it is much more than a feeling, because we can love by choice even when the feeling of love is absent.
[...]
We don’t have to feel like doing the right thing in order to do it. This is what it means to love people who are hard to love. It means to treat them as Jesus would treat them, no matter how they have treated us.
Loving people means doing what is for their good, not necessarily yours. Love is the greatest thing in the world. It has the power to change lives, and it defeats the devil in his works on the earth. Nothing gives people more joy than feeling loved. We can tell someone we love them, and it is meaningful, but when they feel loved, it is much, much better. People will always remember how you made them feel when they were with you, even if they forget what you said or did. Make people feel good about themselves and you will have many friends.
I think few men would have done what Dave did, because most people are too addicted to their own comfort to be willing to suffer in order to give God time to heal another person. But Dave is a godly man, and an unusually patient one, and he learned early in our relationship to enjoy the parts of me that were enjoyable and turn the ones that weren’t over to God. He knew he couldn’t change me, so he prayed for me and went about enjoying his life.
When you find yourself faced with someone who is hard to love, thinking about how God loved you when you were hard to love will help. The first step toward loving people who are hard to love is to pray for ourselves to have a godly attitude and to remember that God loved us when we were hard to love.
Having a desire to please God doesn’t mean we will enjoy loving people who are hard to love. Remember, love is much more than a feeling. It is how we treat people. God isn’t asking us to let people abuse us, but He is asking us not to give up on them simply because they are difficult to deal with. There are times when we cannot be with certain people because they are abusive, but we can still pray for them and love them in ways that won’t put us in harm’s way. These are rare cases, and most of what we are talking about in this book pertains to ordinary people who for a variety of reasons are just hard to love.