If you are in a dating relationship, you want to know if it is healthy. I’ve already given some positive principles to follow, and if you follow them, you will greatly increase your chances of having a healthy relationship. I now want to give some warning signs. Think of these as you might think of a warning light on your car dash. If you see these, you need to either make some changes or end the relationship.
Warning Signs:
- You make time for each other, but you don’t make time for God. How you spend your time reveals your priorities. If you have no time for God, He is not a priority to you. He is not first, and keeping Christ first is the most important thing you can do toward maintaining a healthy relationship.
- You pull away from God’s people. When a couple pulls back from God’s people, they are in danger of living in their own little world.
- You have no time to serve God’s kingdom. If the relationship is pulling you out of ministry altogether, you have a problem.
- The other person begins to cling to you. Clinginess shows an unhealthy need for you. It reveals a soul that is not content outside the relationship. Contented people are not clingy, and discontented people are miserable to live with. Thus, when you see clinginess, you are seeing someone you don’t want to marry.
- The other person is more interested in you than in God.
- The other person is not free from the control of his or her parents. I’m not talking about someone who merely lives with her parents. I’m talking about an unhealthy control that the parents exert in this person’s life. I’m talking about parents who interfere excessively in the life of this person. In marriage you must leave the parents and cling to the spouse. Parents who want to control their adult children are one of the biggest problems married couples face. If your love can’t say “no” to parents now, he or she won’t be able to do it later either. Of course, consider age here. Parents should have more control over a sixteen-year-old than a thirty-year-old.
- At least one of you talks about living together before you are married. Living together unmarried harms the integrity and purity of the relationship usually for the sake of convenience. Even speaking about living together is a warning sign. It says something about how the person thinks. People who maintain the integrity of the dating relationship are also more likely to maintain the integrity of the marriage. This issue by itself is serious enough to consider ending the relationship.
- The other person prioritizes the pursuit of money or material goods. These priorities will not change after you marry.
- The other person is not content in Christ.
- The other person makes sexual advances. When this happens, draw the line immediately. If the other person ignores the line you’ve drawn, end the relationship now.
- The other person is romantically involved with someone else.
- The other person is caught up in the broader culture. One of the big problems with being caught up in the culture is that the culture informs how you think. Thus, when you marry, this person will not think from a godly mindset but from a cultural one. That will hurt you in the long run.
- Godly people tell you they have concerns about the relationship. Many people will want to give you advice on your relationship. Not all advice is equal. But when godly people speak, you need to listen.
- Disagreement on fundamental spiritual issues. Disagreement itself is not a warning sign. All healthy couples disagree on many things. But if you are a Christian, there are some basic spiritual issues you and the other person must see eye to eye on. Those agreements will help you resolve your disagreements. They give you common ground on the most important things. Examples of fundamental spiritual issues include the basics of the Christian faith: the authority of Scripture, the Incarnation, grace, the Trinity, the Atonement and bodily Resurrection, the presence of a heart relationship with Christ. This doesn’t mean you have to agree on every spiritual point. A believing Baptist and a believing Lutheran can have a healthy relationship. They may have to talk through some of their disagreements, but those disagreements are minor compared to the centrality of Christ.
- Dysfunctional resolving of your disagreements. You will disagree, and you do not have to resolve those disagreements perfectly. But pay attention to how you handle them. How you handle your disagreements often says more about the relationship than the actual disagreements themselves.
- If either of you tries to sweep conflict under the carpet, you have a problem. Conflict avoidance is not conflict resolution. When people avoid conflict, they add underlying pressure to their relationship. Over time, that pressure builds, and the long-term cost of conflict avoidance is much steeper than dealing with the conflict in real time. Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
- If either of you consistently deals with conflict by using verbal abuse or strong anger, you have a problem. The key word here is consistently. There will be times when healthy couples out of anger speak words they regret. Regretting those words and seeking forgiveness for them is a healthy sign. But if someone is blind to his consistent abuse and anger, he will be difficult to live with, and he is not walking well with God.
- To the Christian: the other person is a nonChristian. If this is the case, end the relationship now.
- To the guys: a girl caught up in her looks.
- To the guys: a girl who wants to take the lead in the relationship. Here we are looking at the big picture, not an event or two.
- To the girls: a guy who wants to dominate whether it be physically or verbally.
- To the girls: a guy who won’t lead or move.
- To the girls: a guy who views pornography.
These are just a handful of warning signs I have seen in romantic relationships. Think of them as symptoms. If you see them, something is wrong. They do not all mean you need to end the relationship now, though some signs are more dire than others. This is not a complete list.
