Your right to feel safe in your relationship

You have every right to feel safe in your relationship. In any relationship. Especially in marriage.

But it’s often a journey to get there — to arrive in this place through work on both sides of the equation. And this is not excusing abuse, for which there is no excuse! But it is the necessary concession we need to make if ongoing repentance and continued growth is evident.

None of us wants to give up on a relationship with potential where we believe the other person is trying from their heart. No; we want and need to believe in their capacity to grow. Until they refuse to grow, refusing to be challenged. And we need to believe fervently that we’re committed to ensuring they feel safe around us and act accordingly.

We still have every right to feel safe, to be free of anxiety pertaining to a person’s presence.

We still have every right to feel safe regarding what we do, what we don’t do, what we say, what we think, with the ability to voice what we think, and carry out what we believe is right.

To have our living and our being rest acceptably within the state of sanctuary.

More is the pity that we don’t always feel safe. And it is tragic when we cannot say it. It’s the saving grace of a relationship that where we don’t feel safe our partner can simply hear us out, and not judge us, or feel accused or unworthy.

A right relationship is about feeling 
right about the relationship.

And marriage is about such right relationship. Where both feel they can communicate and exist in the presence of safety.

For both it will take maturity, the ability to be and remain in the adult space. For both, security, a definitive sense-of-self that acknowledges and accepts personal flaws. For both, faith, which is trust in one another. For both, commitment, to keep serving the other. For both, intimacy, to keep reaching toward the other in closeness and connection. For both, safety, knowing that space for peace is afforded to both by both, and yes, to agree to disagree and have that respected.

Where there is no such assurance for safety, doubts for the rightness of the relationship are exposed.

Feeling safe in your relationship is an incredible blessing where there’s great reason for gratitude.

Here’s the point: if you believe it’s your right to be safe in your relationship, you’ll also afford that safety to your partner, and to other people you’re in relationships with. They have their right to feel safe too.

Photo by Oziel Gómez on Unsplash