The Gantt Report
When is “I changed my mind” an appropriate excuse for lies told, promises broken and commitments ignored?
Long lasting relationships take hard work. A fake smile and the words “We tried” is not a satisfactory explanation when one party in a relationship tried their best and the other didn’t try much at all to work out or address any concerns.
At the first time you lay eyes on someone, you can tell if they are attractive to you or not. After the first 15 minutes of your first conversation, you can tell if the person you are talking to is worthy of future discussion or consideration.
If there is any question as to whether a relationship will lead to marriage, you almost know the answer immediately. In the rare cases that you don’t know if marriage or long-term relations are possible you still know right away if it is worth any time doing further consideration.
OK, you date for a while and for whatever reason, you want to stop dating. That’s understandable. But at that exact moment, men should stop romancing a woman and women should refuse to accept any money or anything of value from the man.
Why? Because someone will eventually feel they gave more in the relationship than they received from their partner. Someone will feel they have been pimped!
Smart daters know that friends can remain friends, lovers can become friends, spouses can have a friendly relationship after divorce but it is very difficult for daters to be friends.
The main reason is because you were supposed to be “friends” while dating. You could assume that people dating cared about each other, shared with each other and respected each other. If all, or some, of that was perceived to be a lie, you can’t be friends.
Another reason for the difficulty in being friends is the way one person decides to breakup. If you tell a man or woman that they are bad for you, you can’t take relating to them anymore, don’t call me and there is nothing I want to hear about any reconciliation, who would want to be “friends” with someone that dislikes them so much but can’t say exactly why, can’t say when the dislike began and can’t say they are sorry if they hurt you? A bad ending to a dating friendship is not conducive to having a good post-relationship friendship.
If people aren’t perfect, relationships can’t be perfect. There will be things said and done that will be sweet and bitter. There will be good days and bad days, richer days and poorer days, sick days and healthy days.
You can’t be friends with someone that seeks your respect but doesn’t respect you. You can’t be friends with someone quick to talk about drama and negativity and slow to talk about good things or enjoy and desire romance and affection. You can’t be friends with someone constantly looking for a reason to end the friendship when you’re always looking for ways to enhance, strengthen and embellish the relationship and consummate a marriage.
You can’t be a good spouse or good partner or a good friend to someone that has no clue what those things are. A good friend is not someone that you can control or does what you say do, talks how you say talk, acts how you say act or lives like you say live.
A good friend is trustworthy, dependable, responsible, considerate, cooperative, understanding, compromising, loving, caring, helpful, thankful, accepting, appreciative and things like that.
If someone is designated as your BFF (best friend forever) they will accept you, adjust for you, sacrifice for you, pray for you, they will fight for you, they may even risk their lives or die for you.
If someone wants you to beg them to have a friendly relationship, a good friendship is impossible to realize.
You can’t tell someone they are terrible and then say “We are friends”. Friendships are like tangos. It takes two to tango and it takes two people that desire to be friends to have a friendly relationship. Real friends are friendly to each other, not to themselves.
Sometimes “broken” is good. That’s why God chose an alcoholic Noah, a murderous Moses and a womanizing David to do God’s will.
