By: Martha Morales

Destructive courtships are the possessive and childish ones, the ones that asphyxiate, that harass, that take away your mobility, time and freedom, that obstruct and difficult your studies, work, sports, family, social and friendship relations.

It is important to learn how to love. Tomás Melendo says that this subject does not exist today. Love and mushy sentimentalism are confused. To love means loving the other as another one. Regarding animals the reference is always the “self”, the own good, there are things an animal feels attracted to and things it rejects. On the other hand, the human being can control his/her instincts and do something because he/she considers it to be good, even if he/she is not attracted or interested in it.

When a human being loves, he/she is able to control his/her convenience, comfort and pleasure. To love is wanting the well being of the other; it is not easy to pursue the well being of the other, because we have a strong tendency to selfishness. That well being that we offer to the beloved one must be a real one, must be something that helps the other to improve, and it should not only be beneficial for me.

Any good is a real good, if it helps the person to improve. What does improve mean? That it makes him/her be full and worthy, as a whole; something that gets him/her closer to his/her destiny of love, towards God. When we love someone, we teach him/her to love, to restrain, to be kind.

A destructive boyfriend will not write letters to his girlfriend, he will want to go with her everywhere she goes, he will want to experiment deep kisses and caresses with her. He will look only for the sexual side of the relationship, he will call her all the time, and he will want to see her early in the morning until late at night. He will be jealous, make threatens and exert hidden manipulation. That person creates emotional conflicts and takes away inner peace.

Develop a previous friendship

The definition of Courtship implies a commitment –although many people do not like to talk about commitment- of an affective treatment between two excellent friends. Spouses should have been best friends before getting married, if not it is possible that their marriage fails. Engaged couples must be excellent friends.

Young people constantly look for the ideal couple or at least the right one and many times they fail or get disappointed. When a friend points out the (idealized) beloved one’s defects they become angry. Then, friends walk away thinking that “love is blind”.

It is not always good to exchange friendship for love. But true love -mature love- is not blind, it does not idealize. When we are in love of a face or a body we usually get sick with passionate urgency, we feel the urge to kiss, hold and feel the other person closeness.

When someone says: “I don’t have time”, we should ask: “time for what?”, because there are plenty of time. Today, some people do not have time for friendship because they have lost the sense of taste for friendship.

Falling in love stages

• Courtship.- There is chemistry, magnetism, attraction, joy for life. It is the stage of loving statements; this stage lasts from a few days to a few months. A young person may love, but how to know if he/she really loves his/her boy/girl friend? The only way to know is asking him/her if he/she is a better person: a better student, son, daughter, friend; if he/she gets better grades and improves in his/her relationships with the family, teachers and comrades.

• Understanding.- It is the essence of courtship, the couple knows each other. Hold hands. There are slight caresses. This stage may last months or years. Sometimes they do not know each other, because they only talk about superficial things or because they do not show how they really are. If you do not know the loved one defects we cannot know him/her thoroughly, because there are not perfect human beings. Once we become aware of the defects, we get the impression that the other person insist on them to bother us, but it is not true, it is a defect of habit he/she already had and that we had not noticed. An in love person used to say: “When he gets mad he is not himself, I do not recognize him”. Well, know him! That is the way he is, it is time to break up or accept the person.

• Commitment.- There is a promise of love and fidelity. We are talking about exclusivity in love. This is the stage when marriage is planned. It is important to overcome difficulties so that love can grow, that is why it is contradictory that –before difficulties- we look for escape, because it prevents love from growing. To overcome difficulties, it is necessary to fight and strengthen the character.

• Intimacy.- A deep relationship has been founded and there is a deep level of communication of virtues and defects, of ways of thinking about marriage and children education. The couple thinks about the future, of living a life together, in good and bad times. If you do not trust that the loved one is going to improve, there is nothing to do. What makes a person grow is the faith others have in him/her.

Many couples do not follow this order; they leave out any kind of commitment and shorten time as much as they can. As soon as they feel love they look for intimate caresses. The typical case of soap operas characters that fall in love and they go to bed immediately.

A relationship without knowledge (2nd stage) and commitment (3rd stage) is fated to fail and will leave serious consequences.

Tomás Melendo says that it is necessary to purify our love. We can improve in many aspects, but as individuals we only can get better if we reorganize the category of our loves. It is very positive when we say “I am going to be better with the sole intention of loving better the people I have to love”. Then everything is in terms of love: I have to rest in order to smile more and love more those who I have to love. Why do I have to love others? Because they are human beings.

Loving means wanting that the loved one develops, becomes a better person, reaches his/her call fullness. Loving means to be grateful with God and tell Him: “Thank you for sending me this fine person”.

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