My approach to relationships is this:
(1) Do I want this person in my life at all?
(2) If so, what kind of things are we going to do
together?
(3) Let's set something up!
This looks disarmingly simple, but it is in fact the
implementation of Step 11: knowledge of God's will for me, and the bit of God's
will for me that is my business consists in the actions that I must take and
therefore plan.
There are all sorts of questions, therefore, which are
largely not my business to answer or resolve, although answers may be disclosed
over time.
(1) What the other person thinks of me or feels for me.
(2) What the other person does when I am not there.
(3) What I will think or feel in the future.
(4) Whether or not I am "good enough".
(5) How the relationship should be "defined".
(6) Where the relationship is "going".
(7) The other person's life before I met them.
(8) Any part of the other person's internal world or life
they do not opt voluntarily to reveal.
(9) The other person's supposed "character
defects".
(10) The rightness or wrongness of the other person's
behaviour.
(11) How the other person runs their own affairs.
(12) What God's will is for the other person.
Everything I give must be for fun and for free, expecting
nothing in return. If demands are made, explicitly or implicitly, especially if
there are mutual demands, we don't have love, we have a material transaction.
Then, I have established what I am; all that remains is to haggle about the
price.
This means, also, I give the other person space to give
of themselves voluntarily. If they give because I have used guilt to coerce
them, I have extracted their love by offering release from guilt. The true
nature of this is hinted at above. The motto is therefore: your turn; my turn.
If you do not take your turn, that is your prerogative and not fodder for my
comment.
There are surely situations that are marginally more
complex than this, but the Traditions and Concepts provide ample guidelines for
solving these.
The result of applying this?
Peace.