What did being in a relationship teach me? It taught me a lot of things. For those that don’t know, I was in a serious relationship for 2.5 years. I broke it off after feeling led to by God in July.
Here’s some things that I learned.
1) I was not ready to be in a relationship.
-I got into this relationship when I was 17. It was during my senior year. I didn’t know anything about who I was, who I wanted to be, none of it. I didn’t know what life was supposed to look like. I was battling severe mental illness. Yes it was nice to have someone to go through life with but at the same time, if they are not leading you to Christ, it could just push you further away.
2) I want to be in a relationship with someone who has a strong foundation in Christ.
-This is something that was very hard about the relationship. I wanted to go to church. I would want to read my bible. I would want to pray. And it just wasn’t the same for the other person. And in that crucial time of my senior year when I was struggling hardcore with everything, instead of having someone who pushed me closer to God and the people who cared about me, I had someone who unintentionally pushed me farther from my faith because they didn’t encourage me to get back into my faith.
3) Relationships are not always 50/50 but sometimes 80/20.
-This is something I really struggled with and still sometime struggle with in my relationships. I don’t like when I need extra support. I don’t like when I need extra help. And in most of the time when I was in the relationship, I could not even give 50 and sometimes not even 20. But on the flip side, I was never allowed to give more either. They did not allow me to support them when they went through hard times.
4) You need to choose to be in the relationship because you want to be in it, not because someone else wants you to be in it.
-There I said it. Can I leave now? I loved the person I was with last a lot but I don’t think my full heart was ever in it because I was pushed into the relationship. Yes I could’ve said no but in that time, all I was hearing was “you should give him a chance,” “he’s a nice guy,” etc. so all around me I felt like in order to make this person happy, I needed to be in the relationship.
5) Ask God before you get into a relationship if it is right for you and pray for clarity for if this is right for you throughout the whole relationship.
-This is something that I will I had done. I wish I would’ve stopped and prayed about it before I got into the relationship. I wish I would’ve really evaluated my life at that time and see if it was really a good choice. I wish I would’ve talked to the important people in my life about it before I got into it. I wish I would’ve really been praying for clarity and opened eyes throughout the whole relationship so I wouldn’t have waited as long as I did to finally see the red flags in the relationship and would have seen that the relationship was not what I was supposed to be in.
6) God needs to be the center of the relationship.
-God was not the center of that relationship. It didn’t matter if I read the Bible and prayed everyday. A relationship is 2 people. 1 person can do that but it doesn’t make the relationship centered by God. God is only the center of the relationship when both parties agree to follow God with the relationship, further their own relationship with Him, and challenge the other to do the same. Things like praying together and doing bible studies together is something that could help make God the center.
7) You need to be in the right headspace to be in a serious relationship.
-So some people may very much disagree with what I am about to say and that’s okay. This is just what I think. I believe that if you are struggling with severe mental illness (like I was) that you need to get help and get better yourself before you go into a relationship. I believe that you need to be in a space where you can support someone else without falling down yourself. You need to be in a space where you are not severely struggling to keep your head above water. Now as someone who has a good chance of struggling with mental health the rest of their life, I know there’s going to be times where you struggle and are severely struggling. I get that. Believe me I do. That’s where the 80/20 comes in. But I think you should each be giving 100% when you can instead of 50. I think you should be healthy before you’re in a relationship because it is so easy to let a relationship define who you are and if something happens to that relationship and you are not in a good headspace, you could go even further. Yes ending relationships suck especially if it’s not a mutual thing but when you are in a better headspace, there is a greater chance that you will not fall down a very, very deep hole that requires a high level of medical attention.
8) You should learn who you are before you get into a serious relationship.
-Being defined by a relationship is something that is easy to do. Not knowing who you are is hard and so is trying to find who you are. It can be easier with someone else but it could also hinder you if you start finding your identity in your relationship. Your identity should come from God first. I battled with depression since I was 10. I have bee depression free since the middle of April. I didn’t know who I was because for so long depression defined me. One of the reasons I ended the relationship was because I didn’t know who I was. I needed to find out who I was before I could be that person for someone else. How can you be someone you don’t know how to be?
These are some of the main things I’ve learned about being in my last relationship. Relationships are important. It’s important to make God the center of the relationship.
Stay strong and hold onto hope.
Madison Rae <3
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