Gay
christian relationships
Love is romantic love in many cultures these days. Most
of us do not have to marry the person anymore your
parents have chosen for you and the situation for gay
relationships improved in some countries. For example The
Netherlands became the first country in the world where
couples of the same sex could marry (this was in 2001).
Still many (gay) people find it hard to build strong and
healthy relationships, why is that? Maybe this page can
give you some advice how to improve your (gay)
relationship or how you can make it stronger. If you are
not in a relationship now it might give you some help for
the day the man or woman of your dreams comes along.
Why
many gay relationships turn into love/hate relationships All relationships seem to be perfect in the
beginning. You are "in love" and living on pink
clouds. This is a deeply satisfying state. Your existence
has suddenly become meaningful because someone needs you,
wants you, and makes you feel special. When you are
together you feel whole. Nothing can go wrong. But one
day your dream castle starts to shake. Arguments,
conflicts, dissatisfaction, emotional or physical
violence drops you from your pink cloud and you fall down
with your face on the earth. Hate enters your
relationship. This seems to be normal to all kinds of
relationships.
Many
"love relationships" turn into love/hate
relationships after some time (about 50% of all the
heterosexual marriages in America for example turn into
love/hate relationships and end in divorce. Source:
www.divorcemag.com).
This love/hate relationship can go on for a while between
the polarities of "love" and "hate".
Why? Because it gives you as much pleasure as it gives
you pain. It is not uncommon for some couples to become
addicted to those cycles. Their drama makes them feel
alive (and give you something to talk and gossip about!)
but most of these relationships finally come to an end.
How
the hate comes in Why is there hate? Let us start with the
question why a romantic love relationship is such an
intense and universally sought-after experience?
Because it seems to offer you liberation from a
deep-seated state of fear, need, lack, and
incompleteness. However, these are needs the other person
can only temporarily meet. Because there will be always a
point where your partner behaves in ways that fail to
meet your needs. It seems like an addiction. Especially
gay people suffer from this because many carry with them
a heavy burden of guilt, shame, church judgement and pain
form the past. Of course you want to get rid of those
hurting feelings and a relationship seems the perfect
drug.
But just like with every other addiction, you are on a
high when the drug is available, but there comes a time
the drug (your partner) no longer works for you. When
painfull feelings reappear, you might even feel them more
strongly than before, and what is more, you now see your
partner as the cause of those feelings. That is
how the hate comes in.
You start blaming your partner and this may awaken your
partner's own pain and he or she may counter your attack.
At this point you are still unconsciously hoping that
your attack will be sufficient punishment for your
partner to change his or her behavior, so you can use him
again for a cover-up of your pain. But this will not
work.
How
to get out of a love/hate relationship
Looking at
relationships this way, as a sort of addiction, the
solution is how to get out of the addiction.
Every addiction arises from an (unconcious) refusal to
face and move through your own pain. Every addiction
starts and ends with pain. Whatever the substance you are
addicted to (alcohol, food, drugs, a person), you are
using it to cover up your pain. That is why after the
happy start, there is so much unhappiness and so much
pain in intimate relationships. Relationships do not
cause pain or unhappiness. They bring out the pain and
unhappiness that is already in you or your partner.
That is a reason why some people are avoiding
relationships, in an attempt to avoid pain. But that
doesn't help because the pain is there anyway inside you.
A relationship can help you to face your pain.
So the first thing you should do is accept what is, your
pain, your partner. Only that will make room for love,
joy and peace. Then stop judging yourself and your
partner. The greatest catalyst for change in a
relationship is complete acceptance of yourself and your
partner as he or she is, without needing to judge or
change them in any way. Then there are no victims and no
perpetrators anymore, no accuser and accused. This is
also the end of all codependancy, of being drawn into
somebody else's unconcious pattern and thereby enabling
it to continue. You will then either seperate - in love-
or move into a deeper relationship.
Look
for love inside you Love is a state of being, of who you are. Love
is not outside, it is deep within you. You can never lose
it and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some
other body. Why? Because God is Love. God is the eternal
life underneath all forms of life, God is the creator who
made you, who gave you life. Feel the presence of the One
Life deep within yourself as you breathe or walk. Try to
be it.
You cannot transform yourself and you certainly cannot
transform your partner. All you can do is create space
for transformation to happen, for grace and love to
enter.
This attitude will help you to listnen to your partner in
an open nondefensive way. Give your partner space for
expressing himself or herself. Give space to yourself.
Then instead of mirroring to each other your pain and
your unconsciousness, instead of satisfying your mutal
addictive ego needs, you will reflect back to ech other
the love that you feel deep within.
