Love And Relationships
Ready For Real Love?
“Love can be a second-hand emotion” is a lyric from Tina Turner’s song “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” suggesting that Love may be a second-hand emotion because it’s often based on the “idea” of a relationship or the feeling of being in love, rather than a deeper, personal connection. And this is how many, if not most, relationships begin…
Real love is much more than an emotion or a feeling. Not that feelings and emotions aren’t involved, but rather feelings and emotions say more about who we become in a relationship or potential relationship, initially, than the depth of our knowledge about who we’re dealing with.
Have you heard that the divorce rate, within and outside of the church, is nearly 50%? If that’s not bad enough, research tells us that nearly 25% of the marriages that stay together are miserable, suffering, and on life support. That translates to 75% of all marriages, both within and outside the church, being destroyed or under siege. Why? The answer is simple…but complicated.
As you swipe left on dating apps, as you pray for Mr./Mrs. Right, I want you to consider this…there are tens of thousands of books on marriage, dating, and love, including “Christian” books, yet marriages fail at a higher rate today than ever before. The reason? Relationship versus Partnership. In other words, if you’ve been in enough intimate relationships, suffered in an intimate relationship with a narcissist, or you’ve escaped from a monster masquerading as a mate, you know that a relationship is not the same as a covenant partnership.
Let me say that another way…almost everything you read or hear about intimate relationships, love, and marriage is a devotion to emotions, a description of a place where we go to get things for our emotions, or a recipe for entitlement rather than sacrifice. Those 75% of marriages that are either destroyed or under siege will all have these 5 things in common — at a minimum:
- The Pre-marriage dating did not weed out/uncover disqualifications for a covenant partnership
- The marriage did not have or uphold a biblical covenant partnership agreement
- Unhealthy, dysfunctional, wounded, unhealed, and toxic emotions ran the show — controlled beliefs, expectations, and behavior
- The covenant partnership was not submitted to the prerequisites for intimacy, bonding, or connection in a covenant marriage.
- Beliefs about love, intimacy, and connection in a covenant partnership were conformed to world views, false teaching, unhealthy emotional conditioning — unreconciled or unsurrendered to God’s covenant partnership standards
Finding the love of your life and avoiding the relationship traps set for emotions requires us to show up to the dating table with a deep understanding of ourselves and an ability to quickly and easily identify whether or not someone is/is not covenant partner material — regardless of what emotions say, and how to date for covenant marriage.
The bible tells us, “Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3). What do emotions agree to when you start a relationship? What do emotions confirm, discern, or base the potential of a relationship on? Understand this, even if you’re emotionally healed, and your emotions are based in a healthy understanding of love, your emotions don’t determine whether or not the person in front of you is healthy, evenly yoked, marriage material, or if they’re wearing a mask to get past your emotions. Emotions don’t tell us who someone is; emotions tell us what we believe — them and you.
Beliefs inform emotions, emotions inform feelings, feelings inform thoughts…
The question becomes, what are the beliefs that our emotions are rooted in? What about theirs? Emotions play a huge factor in our discernment and decisions about a love relationship. But the truth is, if 50% of marriages end in divorce and 25% are suffering in misery, what does that tell us about relying on, or strictly relying on, emotional confirmation of a covenant partner? Emotions alone don’t have a very good track record when it comes to picking a mate. If either person has experienced trauma (unhealed or undiscovered) — developmental, generational, or relational, or historical toxic grooming — emotional or spiritual, emotions can be deeply influenced, unconsciously, by negative/unreliable beliefs. What emotions see and believe is what emotions get.
Get behind me, emotions!
Only in an intimate relationship do we encounter our deeply held beliefs, or unhealed emotions, about love, intimacy, connection, and bonding, which is why it is important to understand how we love, why we love, who/what taught us how to love, and the signs of unsurrendered emotions. And more importantly, whether the beliefs our emotions are rooted in, and theirs, are reconciled with covenant love, covenant standards, and covenant requirements. Any discrepancy between what covenant love and requirements are and what we believe sets us up to seek love that agrees with our emotions and filter love through emotions that are not aligned with the love we deserve.
“Emotions don’t pick, discern covenant partnership, emotions pick feelings. Holy Spirit-led emotions, discern fruit, see through masks and pick a covenant partner.”
Have you experienced the feel-good emotions that start a relationship, turn to horror and regret when you discovered that emotions made a big mistake, jumped the gun, or didn’t see red flags (or hear the sirens)? Too much pain, whether it came through abuse, neglect, abandonment, or betrayal, combined with not enough love, whether through insecure attachment, emotional deprivation, or codependence, can distort our understanding of what love actually is. When you meet someone, when you desire to be in a covenant partnership, emotions have to be repaired and prepared for a covenant partnership, and not simply a relationship.
Do you want to know why most marriages are doomed from the start and how to avoid this trap, how to qualify/disqualify a covenant partner before you say “I Do?,” how to repair and prepare yourself for real love — the covenant love God planned for you, and discover life-changing insights that every Christian single needs to know for finding, dating, and marrying their Mr./Mrs. Right? You can! Let me help you repair and prepare for the love you deserve with our exclusive virtual singles retreat designed just for you!
Join me on November 18, 2025 for the start of the life-changing, 5-week “Virtual Singles Retreat” for Christian singles who don’t have time or love to waste on a relationship that can never be the rocket ship that God planned for a covenant partnership. Follow the link below to find out more and register today!
Patrick Weaver
