RELATIONSHIP
4.1 Why Love is Not a Vending Machine
I attended a talk once where the two speakers, an older married couple, were
speaking on sex and relationships. I was engulfed in their wise words. I drank
them in like flowers yearning for Spring rain. I was interested in their words
because I figured I would need to rely on them soon; and I did, because
months after that talk I started dating Carly.
One illustration they used stuck out to me, not only because it was
funny, but also because it was convicting. The speaker grabbed the attention
of the men in the room, and said,
“Now men, we have a tendency of treating sex like a vending
machine. You believe you put in 75 cents and you can get whatever you
want, whenever you want.”
I’ve never had sex, so I had no clue what he was talking about
honestly. I just laughed because I was an immature twenty-year-old who
loved the illustration of sex and a vending machine. The speaker went on.
“Now, moving on from the area of sex, both men and women can
treat their relationships like this. We can treat them as if it’s an ‘I do this’ and
‘you do that’ sort of thing. But the problem with this thinking in relationships
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is that when the motivation behind your actions is girded with a desire for
self-fulfillment, you are building up a faulty structure for your relationships.”
I left that talk with my mind reeling. There were two things that stuck
out to me from that lecture: one was the idea of expectations, and the other
was the idea of self-fulfillment in relationships. But first, let me address the
expectations aspect.
__________
Expectations left Carly and I bruised and battered so many times
during the beginning of our relationship. This happened because oftentimes,
our expectations weren’t met. I put in the 75 cents and a soda didn’t come
out. She put in a dollar and she got what she didn’t want. We expected
things from the other that hurt when our hopes weren’t fulfilled.
I spent the days after that first argument dwelling on where we both
went wrong, and I found that the root cause of our quarrel was unmet
expectations. I expected her to be happy that we were going to bed at a
decent time, because I thought she was more introverted like me. But she
expected me to stay up longer, because she thought I was more of a night
owl like her. Our unsatisfied expectations, dashed on the rocks of reality,
snapped us out of our ideal pictures of the other and brought us into the
hard place of learning to deal with another wholly different person. And it
hurt.
I realized that my unmet expectations sparked the fear I felt that this
relationship might not last. It was my fear that moved me into the realm of
doubt, meaning that I only doubted our relationship once I didn’t get what I
wanted. How trivial of me, I thought.
It’s odd how the moment we don’t get what we want, we consider this
opportunity to be something apart from truth. This is not where we are
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suppose to be. This can’t be all there is. This isn’t what I expected. We chant
these sentiments as if reality should cater to what we want from it. But life is
unfortunately unfair, and our expectations will be unmet more than they will
be satisfied.
The key is, however, to not run when our expectations aren’t met.
I used to be so afraid of change. I didn’t like how it hurt, how it
stretched me outside my comfort zone. I didn’t like how it challenged me to
be more daring and to hold things with loose grips. I wanted security, which
is ultimately why I held onto my expectations.
My expectations, to me, were a truth because they made me happy.
But maybe, truth is better found in our possibility for change than it is in our
possibility for happiness. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be happy with
our relationships. This is to say that happiness is not the end goal for
relationships; change is.
A convicting reality is that we are not accidents in this world. We are
not tiny blips on the radar waiting for the moment we flash off screen. No,
life is more than chasing after a brief moment of happiness. Life is drawing
the story forward, which only happens with change. Change is the fruit of a
meaningful life.
__________
But the hard truth with change is that it requires commitment. The
ideal of change seeps into every facet of our lives: in the way we carry
ourselves, in our ethics, in our worldview, and for our purposes, in our
relationships. We should be positioning ourselves to be in relationships of
impact, but that only happens once we commit. Happiness requires
wandering, while change requires our perseverance.
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The problem with many relationships today is that we live in a tension
between a desire for happiness and change. Our ideologies on the matter
can go either way. Two people can dive into a relationship for the purpose of
being happy or for the purpose of making an impact in each other’s lives and
the world around them. It’s the difference between living a selfish and a
selfless love.
Society has skewed the conversation to lean on the side of happiness as
the purpose for relationships. This is why people can be cynical on love,
because once they find they are not happy, love can seem to be a false
illusion misguiding us.
When Carly and I entered into our relationship, I honestly did doubt
love. I saw her and she captivated me enough to give our relationship a shot,
but I was so convinced that love’s purpose was for our happiness that I
doubted love could work. I was afraid that at some point, I would be
disappointed and call the whole thing off, hurting both her and myself.
But once I discovered after that first fight that love’s purpose was
rather to make us into better people, things started to change. I began
walking deeper and deeper into our relationship, shutting the door behind
me as I walked further in. Each argument, petty debate, and quarrel turned
into hidden graces refining my hard heart. The more I committed, the more
I changed; and the more I changed, the more our relationship flourished.
The most intriguing lesson I learned then was to shut the door behind
me as I traversed deeper into the relationship. You see, the problem with
having relationships centered on individual happiness is that we have exits
propped open behind us. We essentially live in open relationships, where the
exit is always available. We can leave anytime we want, forfeiting our chance
at change to chase happiness instead.
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If we have a way out, we’ll truly never commit to things. We might
believe we’re fully committed, but we’re not. There’s a difference between
committing with full knowledge that there’s a way out and committing with
knowledge that there is no turning back. With the latter, you’ll do anything
to make the space you live in habitable. With the former, you’ll always have
the opportunity to leave when it gets too difficult.
It’s further commitment that changes us, and it’s a relationship held
sturdy upon the ground of change that lasts when the tides of life try to
submerge it.
Love is not a vending machine. You don’t always get what you want
with it, and that’s okay. Don’t let this be a sign to run. Instead, let this be an
opportunity to grow, to let the current carry you instead of drag you under.
4.2 You Should Give Up
Red is both the color of passion and of blood, and I think there’s something
so profound in that. It’s as if the two intersect somewhere; love and pain,
devotion and sacrifice, life and death all exist in communion with each other.
In fact, I would venture to say that the two can’t exist without each other.
True love is the act of shedding your own blood for the sake of
another. Passion comes at a price.
I faltered in my thinking upon this. I thought marriages were for
happiness, and any relationships that showed a hint of trouble were destined
for doom. I figured that a person would know that a relationship is bound to
be well if both people were absolutely happy.
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But utter happiness without any strife is not the sign of a well-off
relationship. If anything, it’s the sign of a blind relationship, where ignorance
is used to veil everything.
If I’ve learned anything from love, it’s that I shouldn’t be going into a
relationship because I believe it’ll make me happy. I will be happy in the
relationship, but when I typically think about being happy, I define it within
my own terms, where I sacrifice nothing and only reap the benefits. After all,
who wouldn’t be happy if they were losing nothing?
Maybe, love is best measured in the willingness to lose everything for
the other. It’s extending the limits of what we’re willing to sacrifice that
makes love last.
__________
I remember the time I first told Carly I loved her. I was frightened.
We were sitting on a black couch in my room, lights off except for the
Christmas lights strung around the ceiling of my room. Our eyes were locked
on one another as we were completely turned to face the other. Her golden
hair was swished to one side, hung over her left shoulder. Her smile was
warm, matching the red color of her face. And she had this expectant and
endearing look, as if she knew what was coming.
We entered into the space of vulnerability through laughter. We were
laughing about a recent mishap with friends, and that joy ringing through
our bodies eased our muscles, helped us relax. My heart quickened in an
instant, like it knew what was coming. I avoided direct contact with my eyes
and allowed my stare to shuffle around the room.
“I have something to tell you,” I said, my voice shaking with fear.
“What is it?”
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At that moment, my eyes locked with hers, as if they returned home
from senseless wandering. I opened my mouth and nothing came out the
first time. I opened it again and still nothing. All the while, she just smiled
from ear to ear.
“I-”
“Shh,” she interrupted. “I know what you’re going to say.”
And then, the words came out fast and sure, like the moment you dive
into water.
“I love you.”
There were many things special about that moment, things seen and
unseen. There was the slow and short kiss, the words spoken back, and the
smiles shared that served as tangible memories for the things seen. But inside
my chest and mind were the thing unseen that sealed that moment as a
landmark event, not just for our relationship, but also for my soul.
It was the first time I was truly willing to commit to love. It was the
first time I was willing to let go and give up on the things I was holding onto
with clenched fists, like my fear of change and my doubt on love, in
exchange for a more life-giving and radical perspective. But most
importantly, that moment was the first time that I sacrificed my fears and my
comfort to step into a space where the door was shut behind me and there
was no turning back. Carly and I were locked in this place of deeper
commitment, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way.
__________
Love is sacrifice, because it’s sacrifice that brings us to the point of
change. I wouldn’t have been any different or wouldn’t have committed to
this relationship any further, if I didn’t learn to sacrifice the things that kept
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me comfortable. It was in sacrificing my fears and doubts that I changed,
and it was in changing that I learned to love more deeply.
I have many friends who don’t sacrifice with their relationship, (or at
least, not as much as they ought to) and I relate with them on that desire.
They want to be comfortable with love, happy and fulfilled with the
emotions that allow them to be secure. Yet, it’s always a bad and tricky road
to navigate when one person isn’t willing to move any farther because they
can’t sacrifice any more. This is when the love ends: when one person refuses
to move.
I got in a debate with a group of people the other day who believed
that marriage wasn’t necessary for relationships. They believed that a person
could be fully committed without a contract of marriage. I wasn’t in the
mood for debating, and it honestly didn’t matter to me whether certain
individuals chose to get married or not. They live their lives in their own
ways.
But as I thought about it, one thing struck my mind as being sad.
Marriage is typically the next step for a relationship. Not everyone wants it,
and that’s okay, but it is a societal norm to get married after some time
together. But what a sad thought it is if one person knows that marriage is
the next step, but allows their opinions on the institution to speak louder
than their willingness to sacrifice every thing for the other. In other words,
what if there is always that next step forward that could be taken, could be
accomplished through sacrifice, but is not taken? In my mind, it seems like
there is not enough sacrifice in that relationship. That one person is not
willing to sacrifice everything, because there is one aspect in which they
could give up their opinions for a deeper commitment, but refuse not to.
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It’s like walking up stairs and stopping halfway. How much would it
bother you if the person you were walking up the stairs with could take the
next step, but decides to camp out halfway up? They’re not willing to move
up with you. They instead want you to settle in a place of comfort instead of
work for change by moving up the stairs.
I described it to the people as this: love means always taking the next
step.
This means sacrificing your opinions. This means sacrificing your
fears. This means sacrificing so that you ensure your relationship is moving
forward, not staying stagnant. This means that if there is a next step that
could be taken, you sacrifice so you can take that next step.
Oftentimes, the things we hold onto for our selves provide friction
when we want to move forward as a couple. When fear blocks the path
forward, we want to stop and not go any further. But love needs growth. It
needs movement. It needs for two people to grab hands, express to each
other that they’re willing to risk for the other, and trek forward into the
unknown. This is what sacrifice is.
If you commit yourself to love, you essentially commit to moving
forward, not standing still. Love is closer to movement and sacrifice than it is
to comfort and complacency.
With love, each step forward is a sacrifice. If you find that you’re no
longer compelled to change, no longer compelled to become better, then
maybe you’re standing still. Maybe, you’re no longer open to sacrifice. If this
is the case, I encourage you to look over your life, find the things holding you
back, and give them up. Push forward in the direction of change. After all,
love is best expressed in our willingness to change, not to stay comfortable.
__________
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Today, I’m excited about what the future holds for Carly and me.
This is because we’ve planted the foundation of our relationship in the fertile
ground of change and sacrifice. We know we’ll never get stuck at some point.
We know our love story will be an adventure because it’ll continue moving
forward. We know we can change the world with our love because we’re
willing to sacrifice and risk anything for the other. We’ve embraced the
courage to change; and so far, it’s making all the difference.
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