Boundaries in Dating: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Relationships

And it is difficult to keep someone out of your heart who has invaded your body.

Are you confusing infatuation with love? Infatuation is a projection of needs and idealized fantasies onto a person that have little to do with who that person really is. Many times people come up with a kind of person who symbolizes a lot of things that they need or idealize and feel that they are falling in love with someone when in reality it is

“Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. . . . But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers” (Psalm 1:1–3).

Boundaries help you be yourself, instead of losing yourself in someone else.

For the very state of “being in love” is a state of idealization, where the other person is not really viewed through the eyes of reality.

Just like a drug addict is not growing when he or she is using drugs, your soul is not growing if you are acting out lust.

You will get what you tolerate. Don’t confront on everything that happens. If you do, you will be quarrelsome and difficult to be around. Do confront on things that are important—issues of dignity, consideration, values, and the like. Maybe let a few things slide once or twice, but do not allow a pattern of disrespect to occur. When you confront, d

Use experienced, spiritually mature people for support. Avoid those who idealize you as the innocent victim and see him as nothing but a creep. These sorts of friends can bolster your confidence, but do little to help you be objective and neutral. They tend to divide relationships and can often instill a sense of entitled arrogance in others which

If you are getting too close, too soon out of loneliness, use it as a signal to get connected with some good, solid, nondat-ing relationships. Deal with loneliness before it backfires on you.