Falling In Love Can Be Hazardous

Falling in love is exhilarating! There’s nothing like it! You feel more alive than any other time in life. But falling in love can be hazardous to your health if you allow the heart to block your thinking. Heartbreak is inevitable.

It surprises me that young people think that healthy dating habits come naturally! They think they would never fall in love with someone who would later break their hearts and the hearts of their children.

But after forty years of marriage and ministry, Pastor and I have seen an unbelievable amount of miserable couples, broken families and devastated children. None of us thinks it will happen to us. But it does. If we don't prepare and plan for success then no preparation or planning naturally leads to failure. No one wants to fail but so few want to prepare or plan. It means admitting we don't have all the answers and that goes against our pride. Last time I heard, "Pride goes before a fall."

Fifty percent of Christian couples end up in divorce – the same rate as non-Christians. This doesn’t include the couples who stay together but haven’t grown in their relationship skills enough to even be happy. They don't know how to communicate, resolve conflict, validate each others dreams and the list goes on.

What is the cause? Well, Dr. John Van Epps will tell us the major cause is faulty dating. What we do in dating sets us up for poor choices and latter heartbreak. Marriage relationships are difficult enough with someone with whom you are compatible; but unbearable if they end of being incompatible.

In our Love Thinks Workshop next Saturday, March 5^th, you can prepare yourself with the knowledge needed to develop skill in dating. Then you can use that skill for making better decisions and building healthier relationships. That's a good place to start.

Go to www.lovethinksde.com to register today! I hope to see you there!

My Stint as a Jerk

What do you think of when you hear the word “Jerk?” One person told me, “When I hear the word jerk, I think of someone who is a really bad and lousy person with little or no value, especially for marriage.” We probably all have different definitions of the word jerk according to our experience. But that is not the one we’re looking for here.

Maybe we should look at the dictionary’s definition for jerk.

Definition of Jerk: Slang. . a contemptibly naive, fatuous, foolish, or inconsequential person.

Naïve: lack of experience, judgment or information. Credulous; little or no formal training

Credulous: willing to believe or trust too readily, especially without proper or adequate evidence; gullible.

Fat·u·ous /ˈfætʃuəs/ - foolish or inane, especially in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly.

Foolish = resulting from or showing a lack of sense; ill-considered; unwise: a foolish action, a foolish speech. Lacking forethought or caution.

So, if we go by the dictionary definition a Jerk is “someone who lacks experience, judgment or information.” When I started dating as a teenager I would say that definitely described me. I think it describes most teens and many young adults. I had gathered no experience or information about how to go about a dating relationship without getting taken advantage of, hurting the other person or making many mistakes of judgment

I was definitely credulous in that I was too willing and ready to trust. I just expect other people to be trustworthy since I am. How naïve! I don’t think I was “fatuous” but a little foolish, “yes”. I lacked caution because I was naïve and too trusting. So I guess you could say I was a jerk and didn’t even know it.

By the time I started dating the man who is now my husband I had learned some information about what I wanted and didn’t want in a man. I had some experience but not enough. At one point we both realized that the relationship was going too quickly. We had to pull in the reigns of the runaway horse, so to speak. We were at college and we ate together, worked together, studied together and had fun together. We realized that we needed to see each other less and pace the relationship or we wouldn’t be able to keep to our values.

One night after two hours on the phone with him arguing about who I smiled at that day, I realized he was a jealous man. I absolutely knew jealousy was one thing I just couldn’t tolerate. I broke off the relationship. I told him I would pray for him and that I loved him but jealousy was one thing I wouldn’t live with. Had we not paced the relationship better, my head would not have gotten through to my heart. After a month of us both being apart and fasting and praying, he was delivered from the insecurities that drove his jealousy.

How did we know we needed to recalibrate the pace of our relationship? It was because our heads were still working with our hearts in the relationship. We weren’t so emotionally or physically involved that the hormones hijacked our judgment. This is one of the principles taught in the Love Thinks Workshop.

You won’t learn this important information in a movie or magazine. But for the price of a couple of movies and a soda, you can learn what you need to practice for healthy relationships in every area of life.

How to know if you're a Jerk

Most of us would never think that we would fall in love with a Jerk. But just talk to many who are divorced and they’ll tell you they didn’t either. So just what are the criteria for being a jerk? Well, first Jerks come in both genders; it’s not specific to one gender.

According to Dr. John Van Epp, founder of Love Thinks, the most fundamental identifying feature of true jerks is their persistent resistance to never changing their core jerk qualities. NEVER! Of course, they never show these qualities before you are blinded by the hormones that produce the euphoria that causes you to be blind to them. The part of your brain ithat produces judgment is literally turned off by the hormones so you don’t see the negative traits until it’s too late.

What are some of those core jerk qualities?

• Jerks habitually break boundaries
• Players – play the field, need the fix.
• Space invaders – what’s yours is mine; entitled to your attention, interest, money, time, and emotional support. You have to adjust to their agenda
• Utter Inability to see anything from anyone else’s perspective –
• This will be very frustrating but easy to overlook at first.
• You never feel understood or validated.
• In time you feel invisible to your partner
• Dangerous lack of emotional controls or balance
• Failure to express emotions appropriately immobilizes ones ability to build healthy relationships.
• Immature and emotionally turbulent or
• Emotionally flat and inexpressive
• Either explosive and overly reactive or
• Flatliners – seem easy going but later you discover that they are cold and detached.
• Emotionally unstable people are usually very good at the beginning of the relationship.

Believe me, Pastor and I have dealt with many married couples who never realized they were displaying the qualities of a jerk because they were blinded to their own selfish, issue produced behavior.

So What are the Signs of Being in Danger of Falling for a Jerk?

Relationship too fast paced’ accelerated attachment is like superglue

· Overlook and minimize problems

· Blinds vision; see the part and not the whole.

· Intoxicates your hormones and emotions so that you feel safe and secure in the poor relationship.

You could be in love with a jerk or be a jerk and not even realize it. I’ll share Pastor and my experience of being jerks in the next post and what we did. But until then, please consider attending this workshop to empower you to build a healthy dating relationship instead of being blinded by love.

Go to www.lovethinksde.com for more information or to register.

“Emotional Bonding is intrinsic to relationships and learning how you bond provides a practical guide for pacing your relationships. This is way to be immunized against the love-is-blind infection.” Dr. John Van Epp

Choosing to Love

With Valentines day just a few days away there’s lots of emphasis on love and the heart. Usually the emphasis is on your heart throb boyfriend or husband and how he will show his love. I heard one lady was thrilled to receive a specific iron that she really wanted. That would definitely not be something that said “I love you sooooooo much” for me. Yet, I’ve been disappointed in the dinners out with steak too rare or tough, too long of a wait, restaurant freezing and a whole list of other date dampening experiences.

Recently, I came home late from work and my loving husband had bought lean pork chops for me to make for dinner. I was bone tired on a Friday night and my body was screaming, “take me out, pleeeease.” Instead, I gathered my resources and stood cooking for an hour. We had one of the best meals I’ve eaten in a long time and a great date night. We hadn’t planned every detail or spent a lot of money but it rivaled many of our Valentine meals out.

Love can be spontaneous, unexpected moments of happiness and connecting with our husbands. Some of my best planned have been my most disappointing times. The over expectation of Valentines Day can set us up for disappointment. Love really is more of a choice than a feeling. Once the euphoria of hormones has settled in the dust of courtship, what remains are moment by moment choices to love and be loved.

My husband had chosen to love by grocery shopping and I had chosen to love by cooking. Love is a joint effort in marriage. I’m not sure if we will top that date night but I know he makes choices to love every day; not just Valentines day.

I hope your Valentines day celebration will be a good one but even more I hope you choose to love all year long in big and small ways, unexpected and spontaneous ways that say, “I love you soooooo much!”