Safe and Healthy Relationships

[reallyME]

I have been learning about some things for a while now, and I've decided it's time to share the information with some people.  I've been sharing it in email with my friends/relatives, but I thought maybe this forum would benefit from the information as well.  If you can't use it, toss it out.  If it helps, well I thank God for it.   Either way, keep pressin on and standin strong!

Because we were made in God's image, we will desire to be in relationships with other people. We were created that way.  When we lack maturity and ability to discern and interpret the character of other people, we run into problems.
 
Even God Himself expressed concern over His relationships with His Creation...His people.
 
He said:
 
Isaiah 29 v 13, Josh 22 v 16, Deut 8 v 14, Ps 36 v 2, I John 4 v 20, Rom 2 v 1
 
  that His people are  "Unfaithful"
, that they were "proud and perfectionistic"
, they were "unloving"
, and they were "judgemental"
 
The "religious" people were the ones that Jesus and the Old Testament prophets confronted over and over again, looked good on the outside, but up close and personal, is a nightmare.
 
Sadly, we tend to get to know people on the outside, and then we enter into a relationship with them and come out of it EMPTY and disillusioned.
 
Character problems are usually very under-the-surface with unsafe people.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[reallyME]

Abandoners
 
People who begin relationships but can't commit.  Commitment-phobics.  They start telling us that they are committed to the relationship, but in the end, when we need them most, where are they?
 
Often, these people were once victims of abandonment themselves.  They don't like true closeness, and instead seek surface-type, shallow relationships.  Sometimes they seek out the "perfect friend" and they leave when they see flaws in the person.
 
They create mistrust in the people they "befriend" to a point that the person often feels they can never trust anyone again.
 
God's plan is for us to be rooted and grounded in love from Eph 3 v 17.
 
Critics
 
These are the ones who try to mother/father you immediately.  They are judgemental, bossy, domineering, graceless and ruthless.  They want to confront the errors in people but never connect on a personal level with them.  They tend to condemn people who struggle, saying they are in sin, rather than just needing re-direction.
 
They see the solution as getting everyone to be exactly like them or their group.  They are intelligent and defined- speakers and thinkers, but they are no good in the relationship dept, because they cannot connect intimately with you.
 
When they do tell you the truth, it is coupled with ridicule and scorn.  You will find yourself coming away from them feeling guilty, compliant  and terrified of messing up, lest their WRATH or the WRATH OF GOD come upon you.
 

[reallyME]

Irresponsibles
 
They don't take care of themselves or anyone else.  They cant' handle delayed-gratification, they act impulsively without considering the results, they don't follow-through and keep through word.  They are like adult-children.
 
If you are in a relationship with an Irresponsible person, you will find yourself:
 
Cleaning up after them
Making excuses to others for them
Apologizing to people for them
Giving them repeated chances just to be disappointed again
You will pay for their forgetfulness and wrongdoings
You will become a nag and a pest to them
You will resent them
 
Proverbs 17 v 12 says "Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly"
 
An Irresponsible person always has to have someone ENABLING them in some way.  This person will protect them, allowing them to get away with being irresponsible and unnaccountable.