Boundaries Blog — dating life

Respect is a necessary element for any couple to grow in love. Each person needs to feel that they are respected by the person they are getting to know. This involves creating boundaries in dating where both parties have esteem or regard for all aspects of the other. Respect is different from empathy, though any relationship needs both to be hand-in-hand.

Empathy is the ability to feel another's experience, especially painful ones. Respect is the ability to value another's experience. You may not be able to actually empathize with someone, but you can always take a position of respect for them....

Setting wise boundaries in dating becomes more important as two people feel more attracted to one another, especially when they're opposites in personality. However, one reason people are initially drawn to an individual with opposite traits is a pretty healthy one. It is that we are drawn to those who possess what we do not, so that we can internalize and own that trait for ourselves. This is a good thing, as that is how God designed the growth process. However, dating is not a good arena in which to develop oneself in a specific and important aspect of growth.

Take for example Lindsey and Alex. Lindsey was more of a lover than a fighter. She was good at caring and connecting with others, but she had a hard time with assertiveness and conflict. It seemed she often ended up having to put up with maltreatment or inconsiderateness from others....

The question that many people wonder is "If I'm nice, then why do I keep attracting such jerks?" They think that something is inherently wrong with them, and sometimes they can begin to get quite hopeless over their chances of finding good friends, someone good to date, or building a great marriage.

The key to remember is that the reason why nice people attract jerks is ...

To some extent, our society is afflicted by a Hollywood distortion about relationships. Don't get me wrong—I (Dr. Townsend) am not anti-Hollywood. I am a movie person, and my sons are in school studying film. But we need to free ourselves of a distortion embedded in the DNA of the movie culture: passion trumps everything. That is, if you deeply connect on a romantically passionate level, you have entered relational Nirvana, and your love conquers all. This is the stuff of lots of great entertainment, but it is not how real relationships actually go to the next level.

For example, Sharon was dating Alex, a man to whom she was extremely attracted. He had many of the qualities she looked for: the same spiritual values, warmth, lots of friends, and ambition, and it didn't hurt that he looked like a fashion model. Plus, he was an incurable romantic, and she loved that aspect of the relationship....

The ability to build a healthy relationship is based on the degree to which you are able to be clear and honest about everything, especially in a dating situation. Sometimes, people will deceive each other about the nature of other people in their lives. They may act like someone is "just a friend," when in reality there is more of a history or more in the present than is being said.

For example, I (Dr. Cloud) was working with a man named Frank who was trying to figure out his relationship with the woman he was dating. He had a funny feeling that something was wrong....