How true relationships are built

    This week I had the opportunity to look at some really interesting data regarding relationships and what factors effect their success. In today’s world I personally feel that there is so much ambiguity on what a relationship really is. On all levels, even between friends. I personally think that there is at least one major reason for this. Lack of intent. What I mean by that is that you don’t see people going on on real dates anymore, we more or less just kind of “hangout” and on the surface this looks totally fine because we can say that if both people are okay with that then what the problem. The problem lies in where it leads. You see so often in today’s world we see couples that in stead of “dating” we simplicity all of each other’s time and call it dating. the problem lies in that we don’t actually get to truly know each other and after enough time we start building a future together on a really pretty shaky foundation. Even though we have spent hundreds of hours together. I’ll explain further after covering what I think is a crucial principal with any relationship.

                The RAM models. The RAM model is mostly common sense, but we often fail to see it. It goes something like this: as we get to know someone, we begin to trust them, as we then begin to Trust someone, we then begin to rely on them, as we begin to rely on them, we begin to commit to them, and after we are substantially committed to them be begun to be intimate with them. To summarize that it looks something like this:   Know à Trust à Rely à Commit à Intimacy.  Its really rather simple, it only has one rule. The level of the next stage cannot exceed the level of the first. That the golden rule. For example, we should rely on someone only as much as we can trust them, right? As simple as this model is its so often broken without anyone ever realizing it.

Coming back to my original problem of people not being intently, without intent in our relationships we begin to build futures on things that aren’t really there. We so often see people engage in the latter 3 steps with ought ever really taking time for the first two. This is a result of “sliding into relationships. When we find ourselves in relationships that are convenient and then thye quickly ead into high commitment levels and intimacy, however when things become challenging and its no longer convenient, they come crashing down because the first pillars of the relationship were minimal at best. The unfortunate part is by the time this happens often kids are involved, and the couple has been married.

So how do we fix this? We become more in tentful in our dating and pursuing of our relationships. This means being willing to assort between people instead of falling into relationships that wont last beyond a hardship. It means being mindful of the pattern we earlier shown. The first and foremost goal is to get to know them. If we do this all the others will naturally trail in that one’s footsteps. I believe that if we as a society were in tentful in filling this pattern and who we pursue the pattern with we would see a dramatic drop in divorce rates and broken families. Hearts would not be broken nearly as often, and people would generally be happier together. I personally feel this is why I am so happily married to my wife and fell very secure on my relationship with her because we were diligent in following the steps when were dating. And that patter continues. As we continue to get the know each other we then trust more, rely, more, and commit more, etc. I invite you no matter where you find yourself to be intentful in building relationships even if that means starting over a bit with someone who you may already be with. Go on a first date again.