Relationship Trouble

Despite the deep sense of community we had found with others in Virginia, our friendships were not without conflict. In fact, we had a couple of pretty serious fallings out. We were friends with this one young couple with a young son who didn’t go to our church but we had known the guy from back in Hawaii. 

The couple didn’t seem to have many other friends so it started to feel like they were getting overly attached to us. They would stop by on bike rides all the time and would constantly be asking if we wanted to do stuff. We certainly considered them good friends, enjoyed their company and they were very generous and kind to us. But the constancy was starting to feel a little claustrophobic. 

Around this time, we had been asked if we could switch to a different Care Group. From time to time, the dynamics of a Care Group can become stale and it needs a reboot or just needs to disband all together. The one we were being asked to switch to was doing both. They were officially ending but starting anew with some of the newer couples from the old group. As long-term church and Care Group members, they asked us to go help support the leader in the new venture.

The leader of this Care Group and his wife were Chris and Julie Parsons. They were a couple that some mutual friends had been telling us for years that we needed to get to know. They thought we would get along well. They were right. They not only turned into some of our best friends but we became linked in many different ways. Chris is also one of the kindest, most caring people I have ever known.

As one of the longer-term church couples in the new group, Chris asked us to take some ownership in looking out for two of the newer couples. Because of this and just wanting to assimilate well with the new group in general, we decided to have a talk with the couple whom we felt was getting a little too monopolistic with our time. We still wanted to hang out with them but needed them to back off a little.

Also, having found so much help in my years of experience with accountability, I believed it could be of great benefit to anyone. Part of accountability is to point out patterns that you notice in other people’s lives, that you believe are not right. If you talk to them about it and they see the need to change, it can be helpful for their spiritual growth. Oftentimes, it can be something that the other person is totally blind to or they need to hear a different perspective.

In order to do this, it’s generally important to have a good relationship with the person. It’s also important to do this with the purpose of helping. When you join an accountability group, you are saying that you are inviting this type of help. But if you don’t like the person and you’re just trying to make them look or feel bad, it’s probably not going to work.

Personally, with my goal of choosing not to be offended by anything, I try to take any correction anybody gives to me, in any way they give it; consider if there is any truth in it that I need to apply to my life and let the rest go. But most people find it difficult and even insulting to be corrected by others. 

Accountability is a Biblical concept. Galatians 4:15 talks about speaking the truth in love to one another. Galatians 6:1 talks about Christians gently restoring those who are caught in any transgression with a spirit of gentleness, watching out for themselves while they do it.

As accountability had become so much a part of my life, I also saw things in other people, outside of my accountability group that I believed, if pointed out to them, might be helpful. But as these other people had not invited the accountability, it was very important to find the right time and place and to do it gracefully. Maybe what I think I see is not really true. So I have to point out what I think I see with a humble attitude, understanding that I could be wrong.

Over the course of time, I had seen some patterns in our overly attached friends, which I believed they could benefit from by being addressed. Not wanting to do it in the wrong way, I had been biding my time, waiting to see if there would be an opportune moment. As we were going to address the time issue with them, I felt like we had a strong enough relationship to discuss the other issues too. I was wrong.

We began with the over attachment issue. They were shocked and hurt. Then I started into the other issues and they were just downright offended. It ended very awkwardly but we agreed to meet again after some reflection.

In the second meeting, they told us that it felt like to them, because of the other issues I had brought up, we were saying that since they didn’t measure up to our standard, we didn’t want to associate with them anymore. Also, in the time between the meetings, they had talked to some other mutual friends who used to go to our church and they had given them the impression that our church could be a bit cultish in that way.

I assured them that that was, in no way, my intention. The two issues were completely unrelated. I just thought it would be a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Unfortunately, we killed more than birds. After that, it seemed like they didn’t want anything to do with us. Every once in a great while we’d run into them and invite them over. They’d come but it never went anywhere from there. There was no reciprocity like before.

As you look back on things like that, you try to figure out what you could and perhaps should have done differently. In hindsight, I still believe it was right to address the over attachment issue but it would have been better if I hadn’t brought up the other stuff. Maybe they would still have been offended but perhaps they would have taken it better. We will never know.