J-No

Sad to hear about J-Lo and Marc Anthony. . . not because I was a huge fan or anything. . . but because divorce didn't have to happen, and there are small kids involved. Those things always get to me. Here's J-Lo's quote:

Jennifer Lopez says it took some time before she realized that she had to leave her relationship with husband Marc Anthony behind because she was “compromising” herself.

In the new issue of Vanity Fair, the singer and actress, 42, opens up about her recent divorce and why she finally realized after seven years of marriage that Anthony was not good for her.

“It’s not that I didn’t love myself before. Sometimes we don’t realize that we are compromising ourselves,” she says. “To understand that a person is not good for you, or that that person is not treating you in the right way, or that he is not doing the right thing for himself—if I stay, then I am not doing the right thing for me. I love myself enough to walk away from that now.”

Um, "compromising myself". . . . welcome to marriage. See, this goes along with my post from last week; if we look at marriage, or any relationship, as a consumeristic/transaction based thing. . . it doesn't work, and we won't be satisfied. Compromise is non-negotiable. And, I might add, we all need to compromise some things that we hold dear. No one is without things that need to be moderated, and rough edges that need to be smoothed out.

If we think the highest good is to "love myself", than we will stop loving and sacrificing for our spouse very quickly.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm rigid/cold against folks who are in a tough marriage and that I think it's wrong to say that you have "needs", etc. . that the other person isn't meeting.

Those things may be true, and that's why we have the church/Christian community to help us walk along-side each other to help our relationships through hard times, and help us to communicate well.

I just think there's a fundamental difference in the way we approach other people that we can be full with the love and acceptance of Christ. . . . . or desperately looking to the other person to fulfill needs that only God can fulfill. Those two heart attitudes make a difference in the way we would approach talking about our "needs" and loving and sacrificing for another person. Here's another link to the piece from last week.