Do We Have a Strong Enough Friendship?

“Romance Begins An Intoxicating Journey.”

We have been created in such a way that powerful chemicals get added to the mix when our hearts first get connected to another. These chemicals flood the brain with an intoxicating feeling of being in love.

You want to thoroughly enjoy this chemical kickstart to your relationship as the way you feel earlier on is not a good indicator of the long-term success. Overtime, the brain will dull to the effects of these powerful chemicals, which causes the relationship to change. At this point, commitment and friendship between a husband and wife become the glue that holds it all together. Researcher John Gottman has established that couples who are satisfied with their marriages “ know each other intimately and are well-versed in each other’s likes, dislikes, personality quirks, hopes and dreams. They have an abiding regard for each other and express this fondness  in big and little ways.” In other words, they are great friends.

“So what does it take to build and maintain a friendship that stands the test of time and enhances your life with each passing year?”

It is impossible to be a friend with someone you seldom spend time with. It is also difficult to build a friendship with someone you don’t enjoy being around. In the short term, it is easy to want to be together because you are fascinated with each other and curious about all the new aspects of your relationship. The challenge will come later when responsibility forces you to prioritize your time and stress requires you to do the things that relieve stress effectively. Since a person’s spouse will be intricately connected to the responsibility in their family life, (careers, bills, kids, home ownership), many couples find that spending time together raises  stress over time rather than helping them feel better about themselves and their life. It is vital, therefore, that you discover common interests that will lower stress throughout your journey together.

Here are some questions to answer honestly and  individually  then share your responses with each other.

• What areas of my life tend to increase stress?
• What activities help lower my stress?
• What things do people do that raises my stress level?
• What things do people do that helps lower my stress level?

If your friendship is strong enough to navigate the ups and downs of life, there will be some intersection points on your list of what helps you lower stress. Expect to have differences based on your individual preferences and life experiences, but there should be at least a couple of stress relieving activities you both enjoy. If not, when the inevitable stress mounts, you will isolate yourselves from each other rather than band together as friends to face life together. Based on your responses, are you confident that you can effectively relieve stress as a couple?

“Will Your Friendship Welcome Common Struggles?”

You are thinking about intimately connecting your life to someone who is as imperfect as you are. You have become skilled at living with your talents and deficiencies because you don’t have any other choice. You are aware that you have some unique abilities that are efficient and highly effective in producing results you enjoy. Since these are strong, you rely on them and apply them to life as often as possible. At the same time some areas of your life need to mature. Areas such as over reacting, irritating habits, or bad attitudes.
“Real friends commit to accept one another and work through the common struggles of life together. It is even more intense in marriage since you live with this  imperfect person every day. You are going to become acutely aware of just how imperfect your loved one is because they are probably strong in areas you are weak and vice versa.”

“The question we must all ask is, am I willing to be as patient with my partner’s growth as I am with my own?”

Some areas that we all struggle with in varying degrees are insecurities, triggers from the past, lust, romantic longings, concerns over money, differences in needs for men and women. Most women have an ingrained need to connect verbally. Most men want a relationship that is easy.

“With all of these common struggles, the question becomes, are you willing and emotionally mature enough to be sensitive and patient with your loved one’s area of struggle?”

Following is a list of questions for each one to answer honestly and  individually and then compare your answers.

• Of the common struggles listed above which ones surprised you?
• Which of these struggles are you concerned your partner won’t be willing to work with?
• Which of these struggles are you hoping your partner won’t face?
• Are there other struggles you face often and that are not on the list?
• Which of these is so important to you that your partner must accept it, be sensitive about it, and be willing to learn together with you about it?

“Is your friendship based on loyalty?”

”As you take your marriage journey together, you will go through some distinct stages. Each of the seasons transforms you as demands placed on you change. The way you allocate your time is unique to each phase. Your energy level and emotional reactions to each phase are different from the phase before.  In simplest terms, the major seasons of life include: 

Young Adult. This is the time of life before you have children. Life is relatively simple and you have the luxury of focusing on you and your needs. Even if you are married during this time, your life is spontaneous and self-contained. You can go where you want when you want without having to make arrangements for anyone else.

Young Parents: With  the birth of your first child, life changes joyfully and dramatically. You rejoice over the new life that has been entrusted to you. Your schedule gets focused around the needs of your young children. You grow stronger and less selfish as you learn to give your life away to others. As the kids grow, you get busier with your career to keep up with the growing needs of your family, and your social life builds around the parents of other kids who are involved in the same activities as your children.

The Oasis: This is the stage where your kids are out of preschool but not yet teens. For the most part, they think Mom and Dad are awesome and wise. They love to hear your ideas and are generally cooperative. However, this is the stage of life when your family pace will pick up as children start various activities, so as a couple you will need to create a plan to meet the needs of your children and balance that with your need to stay romantically connected. [Be careful not to over commit your children to too many activities that will wear both you and the children out….my two cents worth. LRC]

Parents of Teenagers: Teenagers have a way of bringing out the best and worst of who you are. You are proud of them at times and other times you will be irritated with them. They think they are smarter than they actually are and they periodically push you away in an attempt to establish their own identity. 

Midlife/Empty-Nesters. At midlife, (45-55) you will do an intense evaluation of yourself. By this time you will have collected significant life experience and have a lot of wisdom to share. This sets you up to be a mentor, advisor, and coach to many others. You need to ask yourself, “am I willing to share my life experience for the benefit of others?”

Influential years:  If you have embraced the challenge and integrated the wisdom of your experience, a new world opens up to you. You will find you no longer need to do everything and are more content to do what you do best. Others have a natural respect for you because they recognize your insight, confidence, and competence. If you reject your place of influence, you may become frustrated as you attempt to re-capture your younger life.

Mature years. You have to face the effects of your body failing to respond as it used to. Health concerns become a greater priority. Activities that used to be easy now take concerted effort and you may have to take turns being a caretaker for each other. Loyalty tends to be solid at this point because you have been through so much together.

Bill and Pam Farrel encourage you to ask yourself the following question about your loyalty to each other:

“Can I say with full conviction that I will stand by your side through each and every one of these transitions we will go through?”

Here are a few more questions to answer individually and honestly and then share your responses with one another.

• Which of the seasons of life discussed above sounds most interesting to you?
• Which of the seasons of life makes you nervous?

“Will You Receive Advice When It Is True?”

“ This is an especially difficult part of a marriage friendship. Your love gives you an intense level of influence since you can reach a place in each others heart that no one else can reach. As a result, your encouragement of one another is more motivating than anyone else in your life. Likewise, any criticism you share with one another has potential to hurt at a deeper level than anyone else on earth can access.“

Jesus invited his followers into a deeper level of friendship when he said,

“I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:15.

Jesus wanted his friends to benefit from what he had learned through his relationship with God the Father and he shared with them in a humble and respectful manner. This is how we ought to share any advice with one another.

Be very careful not to embarrass your spouse by scolding, correcting, making them feel stupid, childish or embarrassed. It is even more offensive when done in front of other people. (This behavior will withdraw love units from your love bank with your spouse.

[For more info on communicating, check out this article Disrespectful Judgements. LRC]

“Are you committed to open doors of opportunity for each other?”

When we see an opportunity that is good for one of our friends, we tell them. If you two are friends, you will be committed to do the same thing for each other.  Many people seemingly get married based on what they can get from the other person. We don’t want our spouses to be too busy because we want to dominate their free time. We don’t want our spouses to be too ambitious or to have too many interests because we want them to respond to our needs whenever we want our needs met. As a result, we end up stifling the growth of the one we love the most rather than looking for ways to open doors of opportunity that help them develop their full potential. Consider these admonitions from the apostle Paul:

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves”. Romans 12:10

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up… Acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because if their work… Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”1 Thessalonians 5: 11-15

[Marriage specialist Willard F Harley, jr., author of Love Busters,  strongly believes that it is very important to always discuss your plans  with one another and come to an enthusiastic agreement  before moving forward with your plans. This article Independent Behavior will help you understand the importance of enthusiastic agreements in all your decisions. LRC]

Here are a few more questions to answer honestly and individually and then compare your answers.

• How do you feel about future goals and ambitions of the one you love?
• How do you think his/her hopes and dreams for the future will affect you and your hopes and dreams?
• Can you each buy into what the other hopes for your future?

“Do  You Play Well Together?”

A big part of being friends is having fun together. Women rate their friendship high when it is rich with conversation, vibrant with emotions, and characterized by cooperation. Men on the other hand build friendship based on activities. Men rate a friendship high when it is fun, makes them feel capable, and lowers their stress. Since men and women approach friendship differently, it’s important early in the relationship to agree on a plan for dating and having fun throughout your life.

“Are You Going To Keep Dating?”

Dating is one of the prime activities gives you energy for everything else in your life. Many couples do not continue dating for the simple reason that their responsibilities take precedence over their friendship. They don’t mean to interrupt their friendship, they just fail to make it a priority.

Complete the following statements together.

I would like us to have a date:    1x a week;    every other week;      once a month

I like our dates best when:    they are free or nearly free;     we spend a little money;     we spend a lot of money

I like our dates best when:    I plan the date;     you plan the date;     we take turns planning our dates;     we plan our dates together

I like our dates to include:     just us;     another couple;     a group

It is natural that you may like very different activities. However to build an effective friendship, there must be some activities you like to engage in together so that you will discover a satisfying  mixture of personal and shared activities that create memories and interesting conversations.

It would be helpful to make a list of activities that you like to do on your own or with your circle of friends and the ones you like to do together.

“Laughter Is Good Medicine!”

It is important to be able to laugh together because laughter  improves your physical, mental and social health in many ways. Being able to laugh at yourself when you make mistakes is also very helpful as a couple.  While it doesn’t help fix things necessarily, it does set up a great mood for working on it.

“Is Our Friendship Healthy?”

“Some couples experience an incredible journey together where they support one another, enjoy each other, and figure out life together. We can all think of couples who inspire us to believe in marriage. Other couples manipulate, frustrate, berate, and even abuse each other. Likewise, we all know couples who are so hard on each other we wonder why they ever got married. If you can establish that you, in fact, have a healthy interaction with each other, you can enter marriage with confidence and boldness. If you discover that your relationship is not healthy, you have no business getting married to each other no matter how much you think you are in love. To determine the health of your relationship, be honest with your answers to the strategic questions throughout the following section.

It is true that love is blind and the heart is easily fooled. Trustworthiness comes down to habits. Anyone can appear trustworthy for a short period of time, but habits will eventually rule the day and determine the atmosphere of your relationship. Healthy habits demonstrate quality character development and dedication to personal growth. Unhealthy habits point to a self-centered, immature approach to life that will be insufficient to handle the realities of marriage.

The following are questions that you should complete honestly and independently and then share your answers together.  For each question, rate your partner from 0 to 5. 0 means you wouldn’t recommend this behavior to anyone; 3  means their approach is adequate; 5 means you consider your partner to be a role model everyone ought to emulate.

The authors, of Before-You-Marry, Bill and Pam Farrel,  provide some areas to consider while evaluating the questions.

Is my partner the same person online and in real life?

• What is being written on their Facebook, Twitter, or other social media accounts? Who are his/her online friends and what kind of conversations are they having?
• Do you notice him/her having conversations that ought to be happening with you?
• Is he/she recognized in a positive way on his/her workplace website?

Does my partner have healthy work relationships?

• Do you know anyone from the company where he/she works? What do these people say about him/her?
• Do you know his/her employment history and highlights?
• Are you welcome at his/her workplace? If not, is there a reasonable and credible explanation?

Does my partner have a healthy social and family circle?

• Is he/she close to his/her family, and have you met any family members?
• Who are his/her friends, and are you comfortable with them?
• How does he/she spend his/her off work time?
• Does he/she seem to have any friends he/she does not want you to meet?

How healthy is my partners financial status?

• Is he/she living within their means or is he/she stressed by that?
• Have school loans been re-paid? If not, is there a realistic plan in place to pay them off?
• Does he/she use credit more than you feel comfortable with?

How well does my partner handle responsibility?

• Does he/she work, and how hard?
• Does he/she abuse or frequently use alcohol, drugs, or tobacco?
• Does he/she take care of his/her house or apartment, car or yard in a way you are comfortable with?

How is my partners personal hygiene?

• Does he/she take care of his/her body in a reasonable way?
• Does he/she  have reasonably healthy eating habits?

This is a personal survey not a scientific test, but the score will reveal a lot about your relationship. If the total is under 18, you should honestly ask if this is the right person for you. Score of 24 or higher indicates confidence in your dating partner as a trustworthy person in your life.

The purpose of evaluating your potential life partner’s habits should be from a sincere desire to see the relationship truthfully, so you can make an informed, confident decision. It is not intended to be suspicious, nor should it be.

Date To Discover

Each of you make a list of shared activities you both might be able to enjoy for lifetime – travel, food tasting, sports, dancing, art, home improvement, etc. Each select a date off the other persons list you are willing to try and see if it’s a shared activity you might want to keep in your future. Set a date within the next two weeks to try these two activities. After both dates, debrief  and rate the activity 1 to 5, with 5 being the top score. (You can keep trying things with this system if you’d like all through your dating, engagement, and on into marriage!)