What IS Important in Relationships?

[Sharon Moore Stenhouse]

What I have come to realize after being divorced for many years is my ex-husband and I did not share the same core beliefs. For him, the ideal marriage was keeping a wife "barefoot and pregnant", to use an old phrase. During our relationship before we got married, this deeply embedded conviction, passed down from generations of men in his family, never surfaced. We both way too young to even think about getting married --at least I was, and perhaps that blinded me from recognizing the signs of his belief.

We didn't last more than two years. All the love making, humor, communication, or material comforts of our home could not mask the fact we were two souls with differing principles and goals in life. I don't think I love him any less for being who he is however, I didn't like what he was doing to me emotionally. He basically tried everything in his power from mental to eventual physical abuse to stifle and control my spirit. And you know what? That is who he is and control is important to him.

Would I become involved with him or someone like him again? With him no, with someone like him, I pray that my years of learning and discerning has opened my eyes enabling me to share life in a loving relationship.

As humans, both male and female, we have the same needs: love (intimacy), support, compassion, affirmation, faithfulness, honesty, truthfulness, and security (assuredness).

One of the poems in my book Amani na Mapenzi: Love & Peace is titled Making Love. The poem reflects upon the fact that in relationships we are constantly 'making love' to each other and to God.

Here is an excerpt...

Love is love.
Or is it God
Is it with God
Can it exist without God?

Self love is love.
Or is it God
Is it with God
Can it exist without God?

Being in love is love.
Or is it God
Is it with God
Can it exist without God?

Making love is love.
Or is it God
Is it with God
Can it exist without God?

When I think about love in its truest form I think of God

He loves us so much he gives us the gifts of Agape love, being in love and making love.

To be in love is human…to make love is human…to be human is to be in the image of God

To make love I must be in love; to be in love I must love myself


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Galatians 5:13-26 (Darby’s Translation: Bible in Basic English)
In this text, the Apostle Paul exhorts believers to stand fast in the faith as it is in Jesus, and to abound in the fruits of the Spirit, and in a right use of their Christian freedom.

“Because you, brothers, were marked out to be free; only do not make use of your free condition to give the flesh its chance, but through love be servants one to another. For all the law is made complete in one word, even in this, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself. But if you are given to fighting with one another, take care that you are not the cause of destruction one to another. But I say, Go on in the Spirit, and you will not come under the rule of the evil desires of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; because these are opposite the one to the other; so that you may not do the things which you have a mind to do. But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are clear, which are these: evil desire, unclean things, wrong use of the senses, Worship of images, use of strange powers, hates, fighting, desire for what another has, angry feelings, attempts to get the better of others, divisions, false teachings, Envy, uncontrolled drinking and feasting, and such things: of which I give you word clearly, even as I did in the past, that they who do such things will have no part in the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, a quiet mind, kind acts, well-doing, faith, Gentle behaviour, control over desires: against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have put to death on the cross the flesh with its passions and its evil desires. If we are living by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us be guided. Let us not be full of self-glory, making one another angry, having envy of one another.”

[Savannah J]

Wow . . . well said. I too, was in a marriage with a man who did not share my core values. We were both God fearing, Bible believing people. We attended the same church, even participated in a ministry together but we were and still are on different paths. One day he sat me down and said, "I know you feel like I live in a box and I do, but what you need to understand is that I like it here in this box." I knew then that what we had would not succeed and it didn't. Though we are divorced we found a way to be friends and I've learned to love him for who he is and appreciate where he is. Would I marry him again . . . no. Now I am learning to love me completely and unconditionally and embrace where I am and not settle for someone who I know is not my equal. So that when the right one does come along, as Jason said, I will enter the relationship whole.

[jason slaughter]

i agree totally, being unequally yoked has always been associated with whether or not a person knows God...but we can know God and still be unequally yoked...this is why the core beliefs must be explored before marriage not during marriage...you must come into the relationship whole...nothing missing, nothing lacking within yourself, therefore the need for power is irrelevent. What is then exposed is the love of God shining out upon each of us, turning what flesh would make selfishness into selflessness.