A successful relationship begins with several characteristics that when placed together form a beautiful tapestry of growth, strength and health. These characteristics include: self-regulation, "going in the other direction," facing your anxiety, receiving freely, relationship continuum, cooperating rather than compromising and knowing "it’s not about me" just to name a few. When you understand how these and other characteristics fit together you have a plan of action that will work to help you have that successful relationship.
I have illustrated just one of these SuccessFully Relating characteristics below for you to consider where you are on the road to successful relationships.
Do You Receive Freely or Fairly?
Suppose you want to borrow one hundred thousand dollars from a bank and the banker says, “Today we have a special interest rate we are offering on loans. You may borrow the money, and the special interest rate we are offering is only twenty-one percent.” After checking to determine if you heard him correctly, you would want to go to another bank to check their interest rates. Assuming you could borrow the one hundred thousand dollars at any other bank at an interest rate of seven or eight percent, would you borrow the money from the first banker at twenty-one percent interest? Certainly not. It is bad news that this banker is trying to loan you the money at such a high interest rate.
Let’s assume that after refusing the first bankers offer, He continues to offer you not just one hundred thousand, but two, three, four, even half a million dollars at twenty-one percent interest. Would this be increasingly better news or increasingly worse news? Because the interest rate is fixed at twenty-one percent, the more you borrow the more money you will have to pay in interest. It is bad news getting increasingly worse.
Clearly the banker is attempting to loan you this money "for" himself because the more he does "for" you the more you will be obligated to him. He will be able to say look at all I’ve done for you, now you have to do all this for me! Whether you want to or not of course because you are obligated to him. (Sound familiar?)
Now suppose you want to borrow one hundred thousand dollars from a bank and the banker says, "Today you are quite fortunate for you see I am the CEO of another company and we recently took this company public and the IPO initial public offering of stock went very well. As a result, I am worth several billion dollars. If you need one hundred thousand dollars, here is a check made out to you. This is a free gift from me to you. Please take it. There are no strings attached. Have a good life. Be responsible with the money. It’s yours. Is this good news or bad news?" Clearly it is good news.
Would you have some feeling of obligation toward the banker? If you had an ongoing relationship with the banker where you saw him at church or in a social setting would you feel obligated to him? Would you feel like you needed to pay the banker back in some way? Most people feel some sense of obligation and would readily look for a way to pay the banker back. Some people would not take the money as it represents too much of an obligation and almost everyone would ask, "What’s the catch? Where’s the angle? What’s he really want?"
Suppose you decide to put that money into the generous banker’s bank as a way of satisfying your sense of obligation to him. This would allow his bank to benefit from the money by charging service fees and allow the bank to use the money.
Now let’s assume you have found a new bank that is closer to your home, more convenient banking hours, and it advertises lifetime free checking and savings. Would you hesitate to move the one hundred thousand dollars from the generous bankers bank to your newfound bank or would you leave it in his bank because of the obligation you feel toward him? Would you feel guilty or selfish if you moved the money? Would you worry the banker may ask you why you moved the money and then feel exposed because you "owe" him an explanation? Some people would never move the money because they feel so obligated to the banker.
Finally, can you see that some people would begin to feel some resentment toward the banker because you are not able to move the money out of his bank without feeling guilty or selfish and being afraid the banker would ask why you moved the money. You may say you wouldn’t move the money at all because it really never was your money. You could feel trapped by your feelings of obligation and wish you had never even taken the money. Often the reply is that nothing is free in this life.
The banker gave the money freely, but you didn’t receive the money freely. While you know the gift is good news, you don’t receive it that way. The banker didn’t obligate you; you obligated yourself because of your sense of fairness toward the banker. The banker wanted you to receive the money freely just as he gave it so that it would increase your choices in life but you didn’t receive it that way. You received it in obligation and as a result it decreased you choices instead of increasing your choices.
Can you identify with feeling obligated toward the banker? The difficulty in relationships is in your inability to receive freely. There is a difference between how another gives and how you receive. You may say, but my partner expects to be repaid for all he or she does "for" me. Go back to the first banker. Did he loan you the money "for" you or "for" himself? Clearly, the more he did "for" you the more obligated and indebted you became. The first banker and your partner may be saying his or her efforts are "for" you but they are really designed to obligate you so that you will have to repay him or her. These efforts at obligating you don’t increase your choices in life, they decrease your choices and you begin to resent your partner for this. This is a sick and unhealthy relationship!!!
The banker gave the money freely and intended that his gift would give you more choices in life rather than fewer choices. The way you receive what he intends as a gift determines whether your choices are increased or decreased. If you receive on his terms (freely) then you have more choices in life. But if you receive on your terms you will feel obligated to the banker feeling guilty, afraid and exposed for taking the money and you will eventually resent the banker for putting you in such a position (blame). This resentment really has nothing to do with the banker. Your resentment is because of your own dependence on what the banker thinks of you. You need your own brain cells.
You are bound by your inability to receive the gift freely. When you receive based on fairness, you receive based on owing and deserving. You think you owe the banker and he deserves for you to pay him back. But when you receive freely, you are transformed so that instead of feeling selfish you are so grateful that the only response possible is to return to the banker to say "Thank you." The response is not obligation, but responsibility for the gift itself from a position of gratitude.
Let me summarize what I’ve said up to this point.
Banker #1 Attempted to loan you $100,000.00 at 21% interest. You refused. He attempts to loan you $500,000.00 at 21% interest claiming he is doing this "for" you. While he claims this is good news, clearly it is not good news. He is attempting to inflict his help on you. The more he does "for" you the more obligated you feel. Bad News!
Banker #2 Gives you $100,000.00 dollars freely. You take it and say it’s good news, but you feel obligated to him and after leaving the money in his bank, begin to develop feelings of resentment toward him for putting you in the position of being obligated to him.
One real difficulty in relationships is in how you receive. Your partner may give freely, and although you know differently, you feel obligated. As a result you constantly try to be good enough and work to measure up but you can never get there. So quit trying. Yes, I said the sooner you quit trying to measure up and be good enough the sooner your can start down the road to a successful relationship.
Receiving fairly always results in obligation which always results in resentment, while Receiving freely always results in responsibility which always results in gratitude.
Are you obligated to the banker? To your partner? To your parents? To God? Who obligated you?
You have lived your life in the depths of obligation to your partner. You may still believe that you can measure up and be good enough satisfying your partner’s demands and desires. I hope not! I hope you have read through this page and realized that you can never do enough to be good enough, you can never do enough to measure up, you can never do enough to take the constant pressure off.
I hope you realize that your relationship is totally hopeless given the way you have attempted to shape, form, will, and move your partner. Instead of living your life from minus 10 to minus 2 on the proverbial 1-10 scale, it is possible to live your life above the line of fairness and give your life freely to your partner, demanding nothing and receiving everything in return. It is possible to be free yet connected to your partner even though you have never done it.
The problem is that you have a history of doing things "for" your partner to obligate him or her rather than doing those same things freely. As a result, your partner has come to believe that everything you do is for some ulterior motive. In other words, your partner doesn’t trust you, and you have done that to yourself. You can do something about that and this is where your faith comes in. Faith? Yes, Faith!
You see, you have been less trustworthy than you know. You have represented yourself as giving freely on one hand, but being angry, hurt, wounded, shattered on the other hand. You haven’t trusted your partner to meet your needs in his or her own timing. You have done everything possible to save yourself from the anxiety of trusting your partner to know what you need and give it to you in his or her own unique way and timing. But this requires that you face your fears that your partner will never meet your needs so you continue to try to leverage, coerse, will, shape and move him or her so you get your needs met. Sorry, this doesn’t work.
You still want what you want when you want it. You have a variety of strategies for getting what you want but the reality is the same: You are trying to get out of the hole of obligation by doing so much "for" your partner when all of your efforts are really "for" yourself. Your partner didn’t obligate you. You obligated you by not receiving your partner as a gift freely given by God. Rather you have taken the gift that was intended to free you and you have wrapped yourself up in so much obligation that you have even come to believe you are paying your partner back "for" him or her. All you’re doing is "for" you, so you won’t feel so guilty, ashamed, afraid or exposed.
You may say, but if I start receiving freely and not allowing myself to be obligated by all my partner does "for" me, he or she will be very angry because he won’t get back from me what he wants. His or her efforts at obligation will not work any longer. I would say, you have to start somewhere. It would help if you both agreed on this new approach to having a relationship.
I would also like to suggest you look at the big picture before you begin this process.
If I were to ask you what do you "owe" God you might say, "Everything, My life, Obedience, Love, Honor, etc." Who obligated you? Hang on, wait just a minute. Let me finish...don’t leave yet! This is important. In fact, this is the most important section because it is the key to being free from the obligation you have felt.
The Creator of all has given life and His Son, Jesus Christ freely. No strings attached. While you may feel like you owe God everything, or your life, that is about you and not God. You see, God has had the bravery and courage you have not had. The Creator sent his Son, (Who fulfilled the law and all the requirements of a Holy God) because you couldn’t do that. In fact, II Corinthians 5:21 says, "He, Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us, so that we might become the very righteousness of God." Wow. He set us free from the obligations of fairness and gave us His Son.
Our part is to receive the gift of His Son freely... responding in gratitude. Not fairly...with obligation and resentment, but with thanksgiving and gratitude. There is a major difference between receiving in obligation which results in resentment and receiving freely and appreciating it. The guilt you have felt in the past when someone mentioned God or the church is really not about God or the church. It is about the obligations you have felt toward God. You have felt like you could never do enough to please God or measure up and you are right. You can’t so quit trying and just receive the gift of Jesus Christ freely, no obligation, no strings attached and the result will be gratitude, thankfulness and appreciation for all He has given you.
For you to have a relationship with God on your terms you will make it about owing and deserving and your relationships and life will not be changed. For you to have a relationship with God on God’s terms means that you will not owe God anything, but that you will want to give him everything. This is the paradox of life. When your partner completely frees you of any and all obligation, you admire that in your partner (because you know you haven’t done that). In fact, this is the message of the gospel. Jesus Christ gave his life ultimately for you and me, and as a result he defeated death and experienced resurrection from the grave.
Similarly, when you die to your own demands, and emotional requirements to have your partner meet all your needs this frees your partner, and you too will experience a resurrection in your relationship as your partner is freed to give to you those very things you had to have. You don’t just want your partner to listen to you, you want your partner to want to listen to you. You want your partner’s heart, not from a sense of obligation.
But you have to realize you are dead in the water and all the attempts at goodness and paying back will never bring you the intimacy and closeness you have been so desperate for. You have to lose your life to find your life. Uncoupling leads to intimate coupling. It’s that simple, but it’s not that easy! The process is up to you. When you receive Jesus Christ freely without reservation, your life will be transformed and your relationship can begin all over again not in obligation but in gratitude and thankfulness for each other.
If this has been helpful you might want to subscribe to the SuccessFully Relating Newsletter. It has similar articles that are as interesting and explain the concepts in a systematic way helping you have a successful relationship. I am grateful you have allowed me to share this with you today. Praise God YOU ARE FREE to BE YOU!!!
