I recently was asked, by a very close girl friend, what “opening up” to one another in a relationship looks like. She said to me, its alway easy for me to talk to my friends about anything and everything, but why is opening up to your boyfriend (or girlfriend) different? I find it easier to tell a complete stranger everything about my life, but why can’t I do the same with a boyfriend?
I was taken back by this question, having just come out of a long relationship where I had both experienced significant opening up and utter closing off between one another... I literally stopped talking for five minutes in the car when she asked me this... I had to think long and hard before I could answer her... So what is the difference between opening up to friends and to someone you love?
Here is how I answered her: The difference between opening up to your friends and to a significant other is usually shame. See, friends are suppose to be there no matter what, if you were to open up to them and reveal your past, feelings, baggage etc. they will be there still. You aren’t ashamed (as much anyways) to open up to your friends because you know that they are still going to be there no matter what you reveal to them. If I open up to my best friend and tell him about the mistakes I have made in my past than it is NOT going to change anything between us. But say I find this amazing girl (only hypothetical of course) in my life, we are flirting and having amazing times together, we are slowly getting to know each other... And I see myself slowly caring for the person and seeing a future between the two of us. All of a sudden I am scared to let her see the darker sides of my life. I am ashamed of my past, afraid that if she knew the “actual me” or “my baggage” that she won’t feel the same way about me. And depending on what that baggage, those secrets, and what that dark past may be... Her finding out “more about me” may indeed make her change her opinion of me, it may push her away. I am ashamed to “open up” to her because I am scared to lose her.
Hopefully I have made the difference here clear... We have a hard time opening up to our boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses because essentially we care more about what they will think. The more we love a person the more we are scared to let them down and lose them.
When I explained this to my friend, she said something along the lines of, “Well if my husband has a very dark past, say he has slept with a hundred different girls, than to me I would almost rather not know any of it. I would NOT want him to open up to me, as long as he loved me and treated me amazing I would be better off not knowing and not having to cope with his past.”
This is essentially the “some things are better left unknown” mindset. But in response to this whole notion, I am now going to throw out a word: Intimacy. Intimacy is a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person.
While I would agree that a couple could get by not knowing a few secrets about their past... What needs to be realized is that by opening up to one another and letting each other in, you are growing together in a more intimate relationship. As the definition states, you are becoming more familiar, closer, and more affectionate in your relationship. By “opening up” to one another, you are growing in your relationship, you are becoming more in love and more intimate. You may not want them to know everything about you, but in order to let your two hearts become one (yes i realize how corny that is) than you HAVE to open up. Again, you can get by without opening up to each other, but you are missing out on a certain closeness, a certain intimacy, and a certain melding. You are missing out on an intimate love between one another...
If you have ever had a special someone in your life, than perhaps you know what I am talking about. Its that sigh of relief you can take, that weight off your shoulders that comes with telling them something you are ashamed to admit to... But it is much more than just a conscious clearing act, it is more than lifting a weight off your shoulder. When someone important to you is let into your heart, when you open up to them, you are giving them the opportunity to love you AS YOU ARE. You are letting them see and love the real you, not the person you pretend to be. Accepting each other’s pasts and not letting it affect the way you feel about one another lays a foundation for a strong, intimate, and loving relationship. Hiding things from your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse ultimately creates a distance between one another. It causes fights, it burdens the people that are hiding truths, and it can destroy any relationship. A couple that can’t “open up” to one another is missing out on a certain closeness and unity, and there is no other feeling in the world like this: When someone loves you for you, not for what you have or haven’t done or for what you will become. This is what love really means.
And............... This, is also what the love of God looks like. Having had this talk with my friend made me realize something far greater than the practicality of “opening up” in a boyfriend/girlfriend type relationship. It made me realize that this is also what our relationship with Christ should look like.
When you bring God into the equation though, there is a huge difference. The difference is that we can’t hide anything from God, he knows all and sees all. He knows something is going to happen even before we go out and do it. He knows our sins of the past and the sins we will make in the future. God is never surprised! I think many Christians allow shame to build a wall between them and God. Often times we look in the mirror and think to ourselves “What am I doing with my life?” We look at ourselves as no good, sinning, let downs to God. Sometimes God’s perfection compared to our imperfection causes us to feel distant from God, unworthy if you will.
But, God is never surprised, and we can’t hide anything from God. The making for an intimate relationship with the creator has already been laid down because he knows EVERYTHING about us already. He knows more about us than we even do, can you count the hairs on your own head? No, but God can! He knows us better than we know ourselves, and yet sometimes our relationship with God lacks intimacy. It lacks a feeling of closeness... Sometimes we don’t feel close to God despite how close to us he really is...
I would argue that shame is also what can keep us from having an intimate relationship with God.......
But if we are always going to be imperfect, if we are always going to sin; than how do we close this distance between us and God?????
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