Relationships - Love, Lust and Infatuation?

Last Sunday in church youth class, our teacher, Kevin Thomas discussed with us about cohabitation. Basically cohabitation is living under the same roof before marriage. He even wrote a very interesting short story about cohabitation in his blog. I wanted to link that post straight but somehow I can't, so click here and search for a post written on 17th August 2008. Basically the story is about a boy and a girl, just after SPM, and so happened to be their 1 year anniversary together. So with their parents' approval, they went to Redang for holidays, just the 2 of them, and salty salty..

After that, we discussed about components of good character, which consist of moral knowing, moral feeling and moral action. All these were kinda related to the story as we used the story as the examples. The notes were photostated from a No Apologies book. The last page of notes was about Relationships - Love, Lust or Infatuation. Too bad we didn't have time to cover that as well.

Today during lunch, Vivek, PingSern and I came across this topic too. All because we were trying to 'counsel' PingSern and his salted love life. That article of relationships came into my mind, which kinda made me decide to type it out here to share with all of you. I'll leave it plain, so I won't 'accidentally' highlight wrong points. Lolz. But before I start, it's 100% plagiarised copied from No Apologies book, which I don't have the relevant information to do a full Harvard Referencing.

<Relationships - Love, Lust or Infatuation?, 2002, No Apologies pg33, Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995>

Relationships - Love, Lust or Infatuation?
As we saw in the video No Apologies, many young people confuse love and infatuation. Understanding the difference between these conditions may save teens much pain in relationships. The intimate and powerful nature of sexual intercourse demands commitment, The best context for sexual commitment is marriage. So often premarital sexual relationships are based on physical lust or infatuation, not mature unconditional love.

Definition of Unconditional Love: Devotion based on commitment and unselfish concern for one another. It freely accepts another in loyalty and seeks his or her good. In sexual relationships, a sexual attachment is formed that adds to the commitment.

Definition of Lust: Intense sexual desire or appetite, an overwhelming desire, as in lust for power. A sexual urge or physical impulse

Definition of Infatuation: An unrealistic or extravagant love or admiration appealing to the senses and impulses, sometimes called lust. Infatuation may be the initial attraction that will, with time and commitment, grow into a mature and unconditional love.

The word love is used so loosely in the English language that perhaps the best way to define love is by what it is not. Infatuation is not bad, it is just not good enough to carry a relationship over the rough times. The condition of being "in love" or more accurately, "in infatuation" may be the beginning of a relationship. For romantic or sexual love to last, the general qualities inherent in personal character are needed - patience, respect, consideration, protectiveness, trust and trustworthiness, hope and loyalty.


After reading, what state of relationship are you in now? Select your answer in the poll on the right side >>. Don't be shy, just poll for fun k?