Chapter One
Understand What You Are Getting Yourself Into
I find it interesting that relationships are like investments. If you want to get great returns from a relationship, not only do you need to invest wisely, you also need to find the right investment. This is what smart investors do. I learned that smart investors generally look at five things to help them make smart investment decisions. For example, before they invest in a stock, they look at the fundamentals of the stock. They call this fundamental analysis.This analysis deals with evaluating a stock by looking at the financial health of the company offering the stock, their management, their gains, losses, debts, etc.
The second thing they look at are the technicals of the stock. This is what they refer to as technical analysis. Here, they use mathematical computing formulas and charts to help them project whether the stock will go up or down. The third thing they look at is the economy. This approach involves noting what is happening in the economy and how this affects the stock. The fourth thing they consider is sentiment, which has to do with listening to analysts or financial experts’ views of the stock. Finally, they pay attention to any news about the company offering the stock. Is the company going bankrupt, merging with another company, facing a lawsuit, releasing their quarterly profits or loses, or bringing in a new product?
These five things: fundamental analysis, technical analysis, economy, sentiment and news, help wise investors decide whether or not to invest in a stock. As a result of applying these techniques smart investors choose the right stocks and reap good to great returns. Every once in a while, they lose money. But because they did their homework they don’t lose money as badly and as often as unwise investors do.
Unwise investors don’t perform due diligence to their stocks. They often do what everyone else is doing. They invest in stocks that are popular, and they are quick to follow stock tips from anyone from anonymous emails to the guy in the barber shop. Consequently, they lose big. Sometimes an arm and a leg.
That is kind of what happens in a lot of relationships. People are doing what everyone else is doing. A plethora of individuals are going about relationships based on what is popular. They receive tips from any and everyone about relationships. They invest in relationships like unwise investors. Therefore they end up disappointed and distraught when the person they invested in, did not yield returns. Rather, the only “returns” they get is their love interests returning home to their parents. Some others return to being single. Others return to the volatile singles’ market, hoping and scoping to invest in another prospect. Others quit completely. Mad at the world. Mad at marriage. Mad at the opposite sex. Even mad at God.
A vital key to being successful in a relationship, especially one that leads to marriage and stays in marriage, is to approach the relationship like a smart investor. This approach will more than likely help you end up with the right person and experience a wholesome relationship. This does not mean that you won’t encounter losses in the form of finding out that the person you thought was the one for you turned out not to be. However, it means that should you encounter a loss, you encounter it before the altar rather than after you’ve said your vows. It also means that your losses will be parting with a few prospects as opposed to going through a whole bunch of prospects before you end up with the right person for you. Even if you have already gone through an annulment or a breakup, learning to think and act like a smart investor will help you in your next go around toward the altar.
Just like smart investors educate themselves on the investments they are about to put their money into, we should also educate ourselves on who we’re planning to share our lives with. We should also understand a fundamental aspect of healthy relationships necessary for us to find and keep that person. This aspect, which we need to understand but is often misunderstood, is love.
There are all kinds of love today. There is the one night stand love, midnight love, thug love, puppy love and popcorn love—none of which is really love. It is imperative and advantageous for you to understand what true love is—especially while you are single. If not, you are likely to end up in a relationship that will end up in disaster.
My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge…. (Hosea 4:6)
A lack of knowledge of anything in any area that is relevant to you leads to your failure in that area. For example, not knowing the material on which you are being tested in an examination leads to your failure in that test. Not knowing that you should not microwave any food wrapped in aluminum foil can lead to fire. This fire can destroy the microwave, the food and the aluminum foil in the microwave, the kitchen, the house, and the realtor’s confidence in your ability to handle domiciliary responsibilities.
Prior to marrying him, a lack of knowledge of who Benson really was, left Janet with the impression that he’s charming. But not long after their wedding she found out that he’s harming—harmful. She didn’t know that when he said he had a job as a freelancer he meant that he was free from not having a job. She also didn’t know that he had incurred huge amounts of debt as he owed Wells Fargo, the local credit union, Wal-Mart’s layaway department, Home Depot, Best Buy, child support, and three women. These women were the mothers of his five kids for whom he owed child support. Kids that Janet didn’t know about. All these led to her depression, destruction of her credit, her dignity and her marriage.
A lack of knowledge of who Isabella really was, left Richard befuddled and feeling manipulated when he discovered that without makeup she transformed from looking like Halle Berry to looking hardly pretty. Her alluring rosy colored manicured nails were artificial. Her Miss Piggy eyelashes were synthetic. Her vivacious hair was just a wig that she bought for five dollars at the local thrift store. And her beautiful teeth were actually dentures which she obtained from her Dentist. Subsequently, on the night of their honeymoon, when she took them out of her mouth in an attempt to consummate her marriage vows, Richard was appalled by her façade and his romantic intentions were abruptly extinguished.
Not knowing that the non-citizen married her because he only wanted to reside legally in the country, left Dorothy devastated, dispirited, and in a dilemma after the individual obtained the immigration papers, served her with the divorce papers and of course, nullified the marriage paper. Regardless of how ludicrous these examples are, I don’t want you to miss the main point. The issue is not the chaos faced by these fictitious characters. The issue is the lack of the proper knowledge that would have either prevented the individuals from being in those situations or prepared them to handle them better.
A lack of knowledge of the true meaning of love has lead droves of bachelorettes and bachelors to search for it in night clubs, astrology, tarot cards, reality shows, soap operas, twitter, facebook, myspace, your space, outer space and every other space. As a result, countless numbers of relationships have been short-lived. This was inevitable since one or both individuals involved in the relationship didn’t really know what love is. Subsequently they didn’t know what to look for. And even if they did know what to look for, they didn’t know where to find it. So they were left in a quandary of either looking for the right thing in the wrong place, or looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place, and worst still—in the wrong person. Whichever case, the results were still the same: disagreement, disappointment, discontentment, and even divorce.
There are different perspectives about love. One of those views about love is put forth by Dr. Pat Love. The relationship consultant categorized love in four stages: infatuation, post rapture, discovery and connection.
What I found particularly interesting in her discussion of love was the physiological aspects of it, which she began to elaborate in the infatuation stage. She describes this stage as the one in which we find ourselves very attracted to someone. Our euphoric affection for this individual is often characterized by having those bizarre “I’m so in love with you, I can’t do without you” feelings. Hmmm, sounds familiar. However, she cautioned that what we often think is love, is actually an aftermath of the influence of a mix of chemicals, which she labeled the love cocktail.
According to Dr. Love, when we are in contact with the person we are infatuated with, these chemicals aggressively alter our brain chemistry. Some of the culprits that comprise this chemical mix are phenylethylamine (PEA) also known as the love molecule, dopamine and norepinephrine. These work in unison and boost us with excitement and energy, which inspire us to do whatever it takes to please the objects of our affection. This naturally-produced love potion is so powerful that it inhibits the amygdala, the inhibition center of our brain from helping us to be reasonably cautious about getting involved in a relationship with the person we are attracted to.
Unfortunately for us, these hormones don’t tell us when they take a break, a vacation, quit, resign or retire. Neither do they give two weeks notice before they take their typical undisclosed hiatus. And when these chemicals go “AWOL” and if we don’t know any better, as we often don’t, so does our relationship with our beloved; because, it is now up to us to willfully duplicate what the chemicals did for us. Dr. Love also revealed that the infatuation stage lasts for about six months to two years.
That is when reality hits and this is when true love begins according to the marriage therapist. She designates this impasse as the post-rapture stage. She said that this second stage of love can be marked with huge arguments or gradual and subtle changes. Like, couples not hanging out and conversing with each other like they used to. Couples not as excited about each other, and even noticing things about each other that they thought were cute and overlooked, but are now getting on each other’s nerves.
If these individuals survive the post-rapture stage then they progress to the third stage of love. The discovery stage. Here, they truly begin to discover each other by gathering information from each other about each other. They begin to understand each other and work out ways of meeting each other’s needs. They begin to find out what says “I love you” to each other—each individual’s unique love language, and express it appropriately and accordingly.
Having done this successfully, couples can now connect and usher themselves to the fourth stage of love. The connection stage. In this stage, she emphasized and expounded on the invaluable and healthy results of commitment to a relationship, which in the long run promotes and illustrates true love.1
I found Dr. Love’s research on the truth about love very insightful. Her discovery on the truth about love had always and continues to be epitomized by another physician. In charismatic circles, this individual is known as The Great Physician. He has “been there done that” in all aspects of all relationships. Therefore, this Physician knows how you feel and what you deal with in any relationship; whether you are single, married or divorced. While others can only claim that “there is no mountain high enough” to keep them from their respective heartthrobs as an expression of their love for them, this Physician spoke to mountains to move and told them were to relax.2 I hope you know whom I’m talking about. The Doctor of Love—Jesus.
“Why Jesus?” You might ask. Well, He personifies what true love is all about.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
Amongst numerous and equally profound insights revealed from that verse of scripture, Jesus is the perfect embodiment of love as He is the way to love, He is the truth about love, and He is the life of love.
1. O. J. Toks, While You Are Single (Paoli, PA: Elevator Group Faith, 2016), 12 – 18.
