Pastors and counselors should definitely add Keep Your Love On! to their bookshelf. This book by Danny Silk is a goldmine of helps for repairing, restoring and strengthening relationships. You can read my full book review by clicking here. Below are a few quotes from this book.
“Most people haven’t learned to build their relationships on the premise, ‘I choose you.’ Their premise for relationships is, ‘You choose me.’ … However, if all our relationships are based solely on our natural impulse to return liking for liking, then we are going to have problems. Liking is a conditional state—it changes. Making ‘You choose me’ the foundation of a relationship dooms it to change, and probably collapse, the minute one person’s liking happens to turn south.”
“A healthy, lasting relationship can only be built between two people who choose one another and take full responsibility for that choice. This choice must be based on who they are, what they want, and what they are committed to doing as individuals. … In order to be able to make and keep commitments like this—commitments to enduring, intimate relationships—you need to be a certain kind of person. You need to be a powerful person. Powerful people take responsibility for their lives and choices. Powerful people choose who they want to be with, what they are going to pursue in life, and how they are going to go after it.”
“Often the first thing that reveals a powerless mindset is powerless language. Frequent use of the phrase is ‘I can’t’ and ‘I have to’ is a hallmark of a powerless person. … Powerless people also throw in ‘I’ll try’ to absolve them if they do not come through on a commitment or promise.”
“Powerless people approach relationships as consumers. They are always looking for other people who have resources of love, happiness, joy, and comfort to offer in a relationship to share with them, because they don’t have any.”
“Powerless people often blame the messes they make on other people. The reason their life, marriage, child, finances, job, or whatever is the way it is has nothing to do with their choices. Someone else—their parents, their spouse, their teachers, society—created the life they’re living. They don’t have the power to create their own lives.”
“The classic relational dynamic created by powerless people is called triangulation. When you believe that other people are scary, unsafe, and more powerful than you, and when you believe that you need to get them to meet your needs, then you have three possible roles you get to play in relationships: the victim, the bad guy, or the rescuer. If you’re the victim, you’re looking for a rescuer to make you feel safe and happy. If you’re the bad guy, you are using control and intimidation to protect yourself or get someone to meet your needs. If you’re a rescuer, you’re taking responsibility for someone else’s life in an attempt to feel powerful. Powerless people will switch in and out of these roles in relational interactions.”
“In order to stay in relationship, powerless people make an agreement to exercise mutual control over each other. The unspoken pact between them is, ‘It’s my job to make you happy, and your job to make me happy. And the best way to get you to work on my life is to act miserable. The more miserable I am, the more you will have to try to make me feel better.’ Powerless people use various tactics, such as getting upset, withdrawing, nagging, ridiculing, pouting, crying, or getting angry, to pressure, manipulate, and punish one another into keeping this pact. … A relational bond built on mutual control simply cannot produce anything remotely like safety, love, or trust. It can only produce more fear, pain, distrust, punishment, and misery.”
“Powerful does not mean dominating. In fact, a controlling, dominating person is the very opposite of a powerful person. Powerful people do not try to control other people. They know it doesn’t work, and that it’s not their job. Their job is to control themselves. As a result, they are able to consciously and deliberately create the environment in which they want to live. They don’t try to get people to respect them; they create a respectful environment by showing respect. They deliberately set the standard for how they expect to be treated by the way they treat others. As they consistently act in responsible, respectful, and loving ways, it becomes clear that the only people who can get close to them are those who know how to show respect, be responsible, and love well. Life does not happen to powerful people. Powerful people are happening—they are happening all the time.”
“What is the goal in your close relationships? Are you trying to create a safe connection or a safe distance? Are you building a skill set to move away from or control the distance between you and your husband, wife, friend, child, etc.? Or are you building a skill set to move toward them and keep your love on no matter what?”
Stay tuned: more quotes from Keep Your Love On! coming soon…
Craig T. Owens 