Being selfish and self-centered makes it impossible to make compromises in any relationship. I believe that’s why for the longest time I was so unsuccessful with anyone I’d attempt to date or have a long-term relationship with.
I’ve been in my current relationship now for about 17 months. During all those months there is one thing I’ve done differently that I believe has continued to help in my ability to stay out of self and work towards compromises on just about everything; I ask God each day to be at the center of my relationship with my partner.
Asking God for this has helped me to understand many things in this relationship from a much healthier perspective. One of which is the realization that both people have their own opinions on things such as where to go out to dinner, what movie to see, where to go on vacation, what plants to buy for the gardens, what paint colors to choose, etc. In a thriving connection, all of those decisions take compromises especially when both parties have different desires.
In most of my failed relationships in the past, I didn’t do compromises well at all. That’s only because I really didn’t care about the needs of the people I was with and instead, only thought of my own wants. Because of this, I always made convincing arguments when those mutual decisions needed to be made that always slanted everything towards my own needs. In being this way, I ended up at the restaurants I liked. I went the movies I wanted to go to. I travelled to the destinations for trips that I had the desire to visit. And so on and so forth. But guess what, I also always ended up in many arguments and eventually, always single.
What I didn’t realize until I asked for God’s help, was that while a partner may go along for the ride and do all the things that I want to do for awhile, deep down they will become resentful the more it continues to happen because they will feel their voice and opinion doesn’t matter. Until I became willing to ask God to be at the center of my relationship, I never grasped this lesson and repeated the same behaviors time after time. The only result was one failed attempt at a relationship after another.
Just the other day, I got to see the progress within myself on how far I’ve come from those old behaviors when I went to Lowe’s with my partner. We were looking for a carpet to put down in the master bedroom that’s being redone and we were also needing to get a new weed whacker due to his former one kicking the bucket recently. For something like this in my past, there’s no question that it would have ended up in a big argument in the store where others would have been pointing and whispering at the antics they were seeing. But thankfully, with the work God has been doing in my life, my partner and I were in and out of the store in a short period of time with mutual agreements on both things we needed to get.
The truth is that I think of my partner’s needs first now more times than not and this is making any compromises I need to make with him much easier. I can only give credit to God for that and the healing being done within me. It has led me to moving farther and farther away from being that selfish and self-centered person I once was throughout my entire life.
I encourage anyone who may be reading this that is having trouble in their own relationship, to consider the possibility that maybe one or the both of you are thinking only of your own needs when it comes to decisions being made. There are two people in every relationship and each have opinions and voices that matter. Ask God to be at the center of your relationship and in doing so, you’ll probably find yourself making much better compromises when it comes to decisions and noticing you’re arguing a lot less.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson