Rock Your Relationships

Are you, “In a relationship?”

Check one: [ ] No [ ] Yes [ ] It’s complicated.

[X] No

Excellent! That means you can actually think clearly, because you don’t have love chemicals flooding the brain and a relationship to defend. Like the couple to the right. (Yeah, that’s me, Michael Johnson, and my then-girlfriend, Julie.)

[X] Yes

Oh wait, you are in a relationship?

Then break up and come back.

I’m kidding (sort of), but it’s likely you won’t pick up on half of what this page will lay down for you.

I’m not questioning your intelligence. I’m questioning your objectivity.

It’s nothing personal. It’s science. Chemistry to be precise, because the chemical reactions that go on in your brain when you’re “in love” inhibit clear thinking.

Still it would be better to get half of what we’re trying to say here than nothing at all, so READ ON!

[X] It’s Complicated

What did you say? “It’s complicated?” Huh?

You actually have been crushing on this one person since childhood, and you think they like you too, but they don’t know you’re a superhero (or a secret agent or a rock star who sold your soul to the devil) and that being in a relationship with you could endanger their own life. Hmmmm…

Whatever your relationship status, consider this page your portal to healthy relationships, as we share the best Date Night Advice (DNA) posts and LoveEd and MAN2MAN videos Future Marriage University (FMU) has to offer on the topic of relationships.

Series: Relation^ology

This series is foundational. It begins by clarifying the deepest relational need of your heart. And then it goes about identifying the impostors we seek out or settle for instead.

More importantly, it will help you understand why we feel so tempted to chase after lesser relational needs, to the long-term detriment of our soul.

Grasping the material in this series will answer a plethora of questions regarding human behavior, like why some seem to “only want attention” while others will do whatever they can to be accepted, or why some are driven to control people while others are driven to pursue highly exclusive relationships with them, or why we seek fame or romance or sex.

Yes. It covers a lot, so it’s high time you get going, don’t you think? And right now you can walk through the entire Relation^ology series in our LoveEd program, beginning with this video.

Or if you don’t have time to watch videos, jump right to the first DNA blog post in our Relation^ology series…

What is the Purpose of Love?

They call it the “Intimates department.” And that’s curious, because the only thing you’ll find there is women’s underwear.

I say that’s curious because here’s how Merriam Webster’s full definition for the word “intimate” reads:

Belonging to or characterizing one’s deepest nature
Marked by very close association, contact, or familiarity
Marked by a warm friendship developing through long association
Suggesting informal warmth or privacy
Of a very personal or private nature

Did you miss the part about women’s underwear?

That’s because it’s not there.

But despite omitting the “satin and lace” aspect of intimacy, something pretty significant is being described here. Many summarize it this way… [read more]

Join our Online Classroom!

Want to get really crazy? Consider walking through this entire series in a small group of friends. To help you do just that we consolidated all 24 posts in the Relation6ology series into weekly “readings.” Everyone reads the posts recommended for each week and then you come together to discuss! Here’s the first in that online classroom.

Let’s Get Intimate

Back when I was ten years old, Olivia Newton John released the hugest pop hit of the moment: Let’s Get Physical.

And as a result, every single public school variety show featured at least one group of prepubescent girls aerobicizing to that song. (And apparently, as seen in this video, the popularity of the song has continued to hold in parts of Asia, and it now appeals to an even younger crowd than when I was a kid.)

Be that as it may, if you listen to the lyrics, aerobics wasn’t the kind of physical exertion Olivia had in mind. (God bless the innocence of youth.) Yep. Shocker. She was singing about sex.

Today, the opposite confusion takes place whenever you mention the word “intimacy.” Most assume you’re talking about getting physical. That is to say, sexual.

This couldn’t be more tragic, because our heart’s gnawing need for true intimacy – the kind that’s at once relational, emotional and spiritual – runs deep. Far deeper than our yearning for sexual or romantic intimacy. [read more]

Series: Beyond Sex & Salvation

This is actually the name of our three-book discipleship program that you can read about here, but we have also have presented the basic elements of the series on our LoveEd YouTube program.

Here’s the first of eight videos in the playlist for the first book covering the Three Critical Life Lessons for Relational Success.

And here’s the first video in the ten-video playlist for the second book addressing the Three Key Life Disciplines for Relational Success.

Friends First!

Of course, we love to talk about sex and dating and romance, and, obviously “Marriage” is our middle name, so you might get the idea that’s the extent of our relational interest.

No way!

In fact we believe great lovers must first learn to be great friends, so if you’re game at all to try this novel approach to relationships, read one of these posts:

True Friend > Great Lover

Are you looking for a lover? You know: that person who will change the entire course of your earthly existence. Forever.

Even if they wind up leaving you after 500 days of Summer. Or winter. Ice. Cold. Winter.

If so, know this, great lovers don’t stay together forever. True friends do. Even better, true friends can wind up being fantastic lovers too (though it’s never about that)!

However, when I was in the dating scene (back when a text was a collection of pages bound together with words printed on them) I was looking to fall in love. More accurately, I was desperately trying to get a pretty girl to fall in love with me. I was looking for a great lover; not a true friend. I wasn’t too different from Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, who grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met “the one.” [read more]

What You Don’t Know about Romance CAN Hurt You (Romance Part 1)

It’s time for #3 of the TOP10 Dumbest Reasons to Date, but you’re probably not going to like it.

In fact, if you identify with the fairer sex you’re probably going to hate it. This might be the last Date Night Advice you ever read, but here it goes.

The #3 Dumbest Reason to Date is… wait for it…

“Romance.”

At this point, you may be thinking something along the lines of… [read more]

Can Guys & Girls be Friends?

You may be a guy you may not, but odds are, you’ve wondered why guy-girl relationships can be so complicated, so even though this Man2MAN memo (like all MAN2MAN memos) is speaking directly to the male species, the reality presented here is just as applicable to the female counterparts.

Why We Believe in Marriage

Yes. We’re aware that marriage is something most people don’t want to think about unless they’re in the throes of a romantic fervor they’re certain will last to infinity and beyond. Aside from that, if you’re not married (and you’re straight) it’s a taboo subject.

Despite it’s waning popularity, one astute observer pointed out that we can’t take the word “Marriage” out of FMU, because then it would just be FU. Point taken.

Is Marriage Outdated?

Worse than taboo and a low approval rating, some seem to think marriage completely outdated. That was the conclusion of a viral post entitled, Five Reasons Marriage doesn’t Work Today. Of course, the first reason had to do with sex, so this first video from our four-video response on our LoveEd YouTube program starts there.

Is Marriage for You?

[WARNING: I wrote this post to a college age male. If you’re a female long out of college and never married, this post is probably not the best one for you. Read this one instead: TOP10 Signs You’re on a Bad First Date.]

I wrote my first song when I was in third grade.

It was a love song, of course, called My Darling’s Moving from Missouri.

You can probably tell from the title that it was a country song too. And yeah. It sounded as bad as the title would lead you to believe.*

Not to mention that I didn’t even have a “darling” in 3rd grade, nor 4th grade, nor 5th or 6th, nor in middle school or high school, nor throughout the majority of my college existence.

Perhaps you can relate to the wait. Perhaps you’re already out of college or even grad school. Perhaps your college career is a distant memory and you’re still waiting for your first exclusive dating relationship.

Or worse. Maybe you have so much romantic wreckage in your past, you just don’t think you can afford even another First Date FAIL, much less another failed relationship.

Whatever your story, I’d like to encourage you with these words… [read more]