UNDERSTANDING Relationships
Avoid saying, ‘I just stopped caring’
it quickly rise. Why? Because without care, marriage is By Gary Moore impossible. Three little words – “I don’t care” – are like I recently took my radio audience through a deadly stab in the heart of a marriage. Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott’s book, “Trading When was the last time you took time to consider Places.” Much of this column comes from them. what “taking care” really means? The word “care” Famed anthropologist Margaret Mead was once comes from the Germanic “kar”, which originally asked about the earliest sign of civilization in meant “sad”. It alludes to the idea that a caring person a given culture. Her answer surprised many. It feels sad when you feel sad. In other words, care is a was a healed femur. She went on to explain that kind of compassion that allows someone to enter your a healed femur showed that someone cared. world and feel your pain. Care is directly linked to Someone had to do that injured person’s hunting mutual understanding. It says that whatever happens to and gathering until the leg healed. “The evidence you happens to me. When sadness hits you, it hits me of compassion,” said Mead, “is the first sign of too. It also says that when something terrific happens to civilization.” you, I rejoice. Your life makes a genuine difference to Caring about something or for someone commy own life. pels you to take action. Just think about it for a When we truly care for our spouse – at a deep and minute. What good is it if your spouse knows meaningful level – we involve both our heart and our what is going on with you and feels it deeply but Gary Moore head. We think our spouse’s thoughts and feel our doesn’t do anything about it? And what good spouse’s emotions. When we care for our partner, we would it be for your spouse if you did the same? listen and watch for ways to be helpful. We take notice and attend to What happens in and to a relationship when one party says, “I her world as if it were our own. guess I just stopped caring”? Once a person moves to the point of All of us practice caring instinctively on occasion. We’re careful not caring, the relationship is hanging by a thread and the prospect with things we value – like handling a costly crystal vase. If your of survival is grave. spouse has had to cope with a serious accident or life-threatening When you remove care from any relationship, it’s basically over. illness, you don’t need a book to show you how to care. But the norThere’s nothing left to discuss. Marriage, in any meaningful form, mal humdrum of life, when we tend to take each other for granted, cannot survive without care. Care is so essential to a marriage that it often goes unnoticed. Ask people what matters most in marriage and doesn’t do much to jump start our care quotient – unless you’re consciously practicing empathy and mutual understanding. care won’t make the list. But when you put this quality on a list of Continued on page 7 traits and ask people to rate its importance to a marriage, you’ll see
Honesty • Integrity • Results
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Christian Living | July / August 2020 5
