Romance is in the air. Lovers across the globe take off work early, perhaps doing a little shopping on their way home before a romantic night on the town.
If you are married and have children, you might be scrambling for a babysitter (they’re usually full tonight). If you don’t have children, you may have taken the whole day off!
And if you’re dating, you might have reserved the hottest location—private and quiet—hoping to pop the big question with a “Yes!” for an answer.
Some of you, however, are sitting at home watching a movie with a bag of potato chips in your hand doing your best to drown out all things Valentine’s Day. The day seems more appropriately titled, “Single’s Awareness Day,” and just reading that pierces your gut like a knife slicing a watermelon.
You want to be married. You wish you were at least dating. But the last relationship failed, as did the one before that, and you’re as lost and confused as ever about pursuing the heart of a lady or winning the affection of a man.
I’ve been there!
I know how it feels to have celebrated Valentine’s Day one year and be empty-handed the next. But I also know how it feels to have been married for six years with three glorious children begging for attention. And today as I look back on those years I desperately wanted a Valentine, but didn’t have one, I wish someone had told me about the most important thing I could do to prepare myself for love—for these years of marriage and children and all things romance.
Because today—and every day I am married—it remains the most important thing I can be doing to make sure my love life goes well.
It’s easy for us to get caught up in the game of figuring out whether we’re doing things right.
“Is he attracted to me?”
“Am I enough for her?”
Even when we’re married, we can tend to focus far too much on making sure the other person is happy with us.
And there is a big difference between “making the other person happy,” and “trying to keep them happy with us”!
You see, as long as we play that game—as long as we read the other person for whether or not we’re doing things right—we’ll almost always fail. This is true whether we are married or not.
As a single, if I’m observing every other single girl trying to figure out if she’s into me or not before getting into her, I’ll always end up disappointed. Certainly, if she’s clearly not interested in me, or clearly is interested in me, it makes my decision a little bit easier. But my decision should not be based on her being into me, anyway.
My decision should be based on whether I am into her.
Am I willing to do what it takes to pursue her? Am I willing to let the relationship end in something other than marriage?
Now that I’m married, however, I’ve noticed few things about love actually change. The only thing that has really changed is that I’ve settled which girl I’m into. But I still can’t base my level of interest in my wife on whether or not she seems into me. I can’t sit back and try figuring out how happy she is with me before I decide what we should do for Valentine’s Day. If that’s my approach to love, I will end in frustration and disappointment.
And so will she.
We are different beings. The essence of relationship means there is constantly a certain level of mystery as we learn how to serve and love each other well. We’re going to make mistakes. The other person isn’t always going to be happy with us. Which is why the single most important thing anyone (married or unmarried) can do to prepare themselves for love is to become the best version of themselves they can be.
It truly is that simple. But although it’s simple, it can be really hard to actually do.
It means the focus of our lives is not on getting or keeping the other person happy us—we’re not trying to impress. Rather, the focus of our lives is on continual growth.
To become the best version of ourselves, we must focus on growing in all of our relationships–not just the romantic ones. We must focus on becoming healthy both personally and relationally.
“Am I the type of person I would want to be married to?” That’s the question to be asking, not “Is he ‘the one’?” or “Is she into me?”
Read books.
Get counseling.
Take risks.
Learn how to serve others.
Stay faithful in the mundane.
Be willing to try new things.
Invest in children, even when you don’t feel like leaving your own room.
Get to know elderly people, even when the rest of your friends are going to the movies.
When talking with people, ask questions you would want someone to ask of you.
For the record, these are things anyone finds difficult to do–regardless of marital status. But we must do them if we’re going to become the best version of ourselves we can be.
And becoming the best version of yourself is the only thing you can do to guarantee you are ready for love—whether that happens tonight or thirty years from now.
How has personal growth helped you become better prepared for love? You can share your thoughts in the comments below.
