But there are other things that just can’t be repeated for the sake of trust and connection: fabrications, dishonesty, adultery, addiction, rage, disrespect – that sort of repetition.
They say grace loves you too much to let you stay where you are and a meaningful apology is the beginning of a change, a jump start to growth: the antithesis to repetition. If we truly regret an action, if we truly hate whatever we did to another person, we won’t ever repeat it again. We’ll sweat blood to make sure we don’t.
(Welcome to the glory of sincerity).
But it always throws me when I witness someone apologise for hurting their beloved, only to see them do it again. It is for this reason why accountability is so vital in life and why any of those I wish to keep as close as a mother’s newborn, must have it too.
My very own mentors are in marriages where the wife has their spiritual father on speed dial, should pride or arrogance ever get the better of their husband. It’s why, if a boyfriend wants my heart but refuses to speak to my spiritual father because of a wrong he’s done, I have to leave, I have to get out, for his pride swallowed the very air I had to breath and be free amid his world. I am lost, I am scared of what on earth he could do next; because nothing is stopping him from cruelty. Or idiocy.
No one should expect to have the world at their fingers, without the wisdom of people greater at relationships than ourselves. You are not too big for correction…
You are not God.
Living in a vacuum relationship scuppers the potential for growth. If there are no people around you speaking into your relationship, if you have ‘wise men’ but not fathers who can see your every turn, who can check not only your blind spots but the roads you’re about to go down, who can see that you’re disrespecting your boyfriend on the phone late at night, or your girlfriend by exceeding boundaries with other women that would make Ms. Fidelity uncomfortable, then your relationship only can go so far. Without accountability, it’s like expecting to be DeBeers when you are only able to achieve the quality of H. Samuel jewellers.
I have been burdened in the past by staying too long with men who apologise, but repeat. Who apologise and repeat. My heart gets tired. My body is unbruised but the heart is pulverised. If they cannot seek wisdom, never mind correction on why they keep doing what they are doing, you cannot, should not, stay in it. Love them, but don’t date them.
‘We all want progress’, so CS Lewis tells us, ‘but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive’.
How do we know to even make a u-turn if we won’t listen to those far wiser than us, those who have lived life for decades longer, those who have succeeded in marriage, in relationship, in love?
No.
You must be curious. You must be always hungry. You must be accountable. You must be willing to be accountable, if you wish to lead an extraordinary life. Not just in mistakes, not just in poor decisions, but it dismisses the victim mentality, perspectives that void you of your best.
If you find you are in a pattern of poor behaviour, if you have been unable to manage a relationship longer than 6 months because of this behaviour, then it’s time to not just eat humble crumble, but purge on it.
It’s one thing to be content in being single, it’s another thing when you are unwilling to listen to leadership, to a parent, to someone better at the battle you’re trying to conquer.
If you have tried to love a man who has repeated the hurts; give it time. Pray it out. But for God’s sake and your own (therefore both of yours), don’t stay with him, until he learns his remedy. And by that time, you’ve probably worked out there are guys that already have clocked onto this, there are men who can and will white-flaggingly apologise,
And this time, he will mean it. And unlike your vinyl, you will not find repetition.
