How to Live a Great Love Story | by Donald Miller
Volume 1 (For the Girls)
Today I’ll talk to the girls; tomorrow I’ll talk to the guys.
Living a great love story doesn’t look like winning the lottery; it looks like training for a marathon. It’s hard work
and you have to do the work long before you ever meet Mr. Right, otherwise you’ll be the girl who shows up for
the marathon having eaten a gallon of ice cream every night, listening to Taylor Swift songs and watching love
stories about vampires. No good man can run with that girl, not for much longer than a mile.
In movies and books, there are formulas for great love stories. Not all movies follow them, but we can depend on a
variation of certain themes. They go something like this:
1. Boy meets girl.
2. Boy falls in love with girl.
3. Girl is a bit hesitant knowing her heart is tender and could get hurt.
4. Boy proves himself strong enough to handle and defend her heart.
5. Girl trusts boy and they live happily ever after.
All love stories are different, of course, but these are central themes that weave in and out of the good ones. And
if they don’t, the stories are normally tragedies.
Juliet does not trust Romeo right away, for instance, but he pursues her and he wins her love. The same goes with
the characters in The Notebook and Twilight (I confess I labored through both) and in the great romantic novels of
Emily Bronte’ (Jane Eyre) and Charles Dickens and so on and so on.
So, if these are the principles of a great love story, how do we play them out in our lives? How do we live a great
love story? Here are some suggestions:
1. Don’t hook up:
Girls shouldn’t make it too easy on the guy. Don’t hook up, in other words. A recent article in Scientific American
revealed when a girl hooks up with a guy, she esteems him very highly. She may think of him as powerful or
famous, somebody who is strong. But the opposite is actually true from the guys’ perspective. Guys hook up with
girls they find less attractive and sexually easy. All they want is sex, and so if they perceive she will give them sex
and then get out of their lives, they are going to jump at the chance. The girl may feel very wanted and beautiful
but the truth is he’s insulting her. If he thought of her with respect, he’d sit and ask questions about her life and
her family. He’d try to get to know her because he wants to develop a friendship and perhaps a romantic
relationship. In other words, guys don’t hook up with girls they would marry. They marry the girls they get nervous
around and are made to pursue. So, if you become a “hook up” girl you get labeled, in the minds of guys as a girl
you really don’t have to fight for. And when your husband finds out you were the “hook up” girl he’s going to have
to have a lot of grace, which is fine, it just puts you in the category of “charity” in his mind and not “equal” or
“partner”. He may still love you, but he will have serious questions about whether you’re in the kind of shape it
takes to run a marathon. Unless you get over it and move on and do a period of time where you put it all behind
you, he will and honestly should lose respect for you. Respect is not free. Respect is earned. Grace is free, but
grace and respect are different.
2. Make him work for it:
When a guy is made to fight for a girl, he esteems her much more highly. She becomes more attractive in his eyes,
and for that matter she becomes more attractive to other men, too. That said, most of the time this will backfire
because lots of guys are just looking for cheap and slutty sex and for her to get lost afterward. Still, it’s your chance
to weed them out. And believe me, girls, there are a lot of weeds.
3. Weed them out:
Guys who are just looking for a hook up need to hit the road. By weeding those guys out you definitely end up with
a smaller pool of guys to choose from. It’s unfortunate and that is truly bad news. But there’s good news too.
There are fewer girls with the strength to not have one night stands, and those girls become much more attractive
to men. Those are the girls who present a challenge, and who are esteemed more highly. These are the girls guys
recognize as the kind of women they want to partner with in raising a family. In other words, it’s a great strategy to
be more attractive to a smaller group than cheap and easy to a larger group. Plus, the stronger guys are up for the
work while the weaker guys are just trying to get laid.
4. Be willing to suffer:
What this means for you is that your love story needs to have a lot of lonely crying in it. Believe it or not, there will
come a day when a man will fall madly in love with you and you will have the honor of sitting down with him one
special night to explain that, while you weren’t perfect, you turned down plenty of guys and cried yourself to sleep
hoping somebody would come around and treat you with respect. He will be honored by this, and he will love you
and feel humbled. If he doesn’t have the same story, he will feel intensely convicted and unworthy. You’ll really be
giving him the foundation he needs to love your heart.
5. Have some faith:
I’ve noticed that most women who complain a good man won’t come along are actually interested in the wrong
guys. They make lists of their perfect gentleman coming to rescue them; meanwhile they’re hooking up with guys
who have a track record of just having sex with random women. Really? Your husband won’t really care what you
say; he will care what you do. We tell our love stories with our actions, not our words. Life isn’t a Taylor Swift song,
with all the hardship left out. It works more like a Normal Mailer novel, with all the gritty garbage left in. Stop
falling for the romantic version of life, and start realizing that a romantic story is told with an enormous amount of
pain, sacrifice, suffering and patience.
6. Don’t be thirteen:
Unless you’re thirteen, ladies, grow up. Many women claim that men just won’t grow up, but then you sit and talk
to them and realize they haven’t grown up either. They aren’t strong enough to demand something more from
their men. They aren’t strong enough to say no to a guy who just wants to use them. These are all elements of
immaturity. And it’s the stuff of a bad love story. A good man will attract a good woman. And a victim will attract a
predator. Stop acting like a victim. If you want a strong man who can protect you and your children, stop trolling
for predators by crying all the time. Act like a dignified woman who believes her company is valuable and should
come at a price.
So, if you want a great love story, start training for it today. Start suffering, like somebody training for a marathon.
Do the pain, suffer through the nights where you cry in your pillow, have some faith and stop cheapening your love
story with scenes you’ll never be able to edit out.
You’re love story may not work, it’s true. Plenty of them don’t. But the chances of your love story succeeding are
greatly increased when, on race day, you can actually run.
So, what do you do if you’ve completely screwed this up:
1. Be honest. Don’t hide it. If you went through a slutty season, don’t act like you were a helpless victim, a sweet
girl who got caught up. You probably weren’t. A confession and an excuse are entirely different. Excuses talk about
being hurt or drunk or being lied to. Confessions start with a radical and real understanding of how bad your
human nature actually is and how you were caught up in a selfish search for validation and pleasure. Don’t lie to
yourself and don’t lie to him; don’t act like the sweet girl who accidentally made twenty-five mistakes. He won’t
trust you because what you say and what you’ve done are different.
No good man is going to marry a woman with multiple personalities. And besides that, you’d be surprised at how
much unbelievable trust you can build by being brutally honest. You shouldn’t share a bunch of details, but you
should definitely share you went through a slutty season and have very few, if any, excuses. But now you want
more. Now you want to put that behind you and build a love story. Honesty is very rare, and an honest girl is a girl
you can build a family with, regardless of her past. I really mean this, too. If you’re brutally honest about your
motives (keep the details vague, ladies. I’m serious about this. He doesn’t need visual images) then you ARE
BUILDING TRUST and he can love you. If you play the victim, he’s going to walk away. And he should. A victim is
great material for a counselor, but not for a husband.
2. Find out why you did what you did. Why are you capable of having sex without love or commitment? What are
you using sex to accomplish? When those questions are a mystery to you, you aren’t healthy enough to get
married and no good man should marry you. Those questions need to be answered and understood in a way that
the two of you can build on as a foundation.
3. Start training for the freaking marathon. Marriage is the hardest job you’ll ever have. It works nothing like a
hook up. The sex is more sloppy and vulnerable and affected by all kinds of emotional contexts. If you’re used to
one off sex acts where you’re having crazy experiences, you’re husband is never going to be able to match up
because, well, he’s got to stick around and do the laundry and argue with you about the electricity bill. That’s not
sexy stuff, that’s the stuff of real love stories. It feels boring in the moment, but twenty years in you’ll be crying
your eyes out over this man who stuck with you through the thick and thin and who honestly didn’t care that you
got fat! Why not give yourself to the one who didn’t care whether you got fat than give yourself to the one who
makes you feel like you’ve got to throw up after eating a lollipop? That kind of love story sucks so stop living it!
4. Work through your need to be validated by men. You’re going to marry a man, not men. So cut the slutty
dresses and Facebook photos. Start acting like a woman a man can partner with to build a family, not a woman
who would make a great romp on a drunk and emotionally foggy Friday night. And stop using alcohol as an excuse.
Nobody gets drunk and accidentally sleeps with a hamster. You know what you’re doing, drunk or not, so cut it
out. In other words, become the woman who fits the character in the love story you want to live.
5. Don’t act. Don’t pretend. Don’t pretend to be a wholesome girl who is starting over when you’re secretly, still
wanting to hook up. These changes need to be internal and they need to be real. You are going to have to go
through the withdrawal of using guys for validation. If it helps, just know you’ll stand before God one day and you
want him to be proud of you. That’s the only thing that helped me stop validating myself with women. I couldn’t
do it for Paige, but I could do it for God. Turns out God loves Paige more than I do. Go figure. Anyway, get over the
acting part and start doing the real living part. Every great story demands enormous sacrifice; start sacrificing your
validation, with other men, to make a real love story happen.
Tell a great love story and you’ll dazzle the world. Do the work and enjoy the benefits. The world needs some great
love stories, but few people are willing to do what it takes to tell them. No wonder we all love them so much.
Do you want a great love story? Do you want to run the marathon it takes to be married to the same man after
fifty years? Do you want him to look you in the eyes with so much respect it bring tears to his. If you do, start
training for the marathon. No good story comes easy. A great love story is still possible. Go for it!
* Will you do me a favor? Print this blog and read it with the women in your life who you love, especially the young
women who are dating? I think you’ll be shocked at what a great conversation you’ll have when we talk openly
about what it takes to live a real love story.
How to Live a Great Love Story | by Donald Miller
Volume 2 (For the Guys)
Any great story contains the following elements:
1. A person (or group of people)
2. That wants something
3. And are willing to overcome conflict
4. To get it
A great love story is no different. In a love story, a guy, wants a girl, and is willing to fight the dragon, to
get her, or at least some variation on this theme.
If you’re like me, you don’t like to sit and watch romantic movies. If it’s a comedy, I can bear it, but I’m
the guy who fast-forwards all romantic dialogue they throw in to endear a female audience. I could care less.
That said, though, men were designed by God to live a great love story.
But there’s a difference between men and women, here. Men were not designed to have love stories
“happen to them” as much as they were designed to “make a love story happen to a woman.” Do you
understand? You’re the writer of the story. You’re the guy who initiates and has the character to follow
through. You’re the one responsible for how the love story turns out.
I think we can all agree we live in a culture of guys who couldn’t write a love story to save their lives.
Honestly, American love stories suck. If you want a girl to be crazy about you, you’ve got so little
competition that it’s easier than ever.
The only thing, it looks nothing like the sappy stuff Hollywood is selling to our current culture of women
who are, perhaps, lost in fantasy. Those kinds of stories have men stuttering about feeding women’s
egos by falling all over themselves and practically peeing their pants. In real life, women think those guys
are losers. A woman wants a man who is confident, who knows where he is going, and knows exactly
where she fits into his life. Her preference, of course, is that she fits into his life as a best friend, lover,
wife, and the mother of their children. At least that’s the case in the love stories I want to talk about in
this blog.
Women do like bad guys for a period of time. Usually, this lasts between the ages of 18 to about 24. The
reason is simple, their bodies are looking for somebody who is strong enough to defend their offspring,
and they mistake strength for, well, the general characteristics of a jerk.
But, as she gets a little older, a woman’s chemistry begins to change and she enters into a more mature
understanding of strength. As a woman matures, she literally loses interest in the bad guys and looks for
somebody more dependable. She loses interest in guys who can’t be faithful and, well, can’t seem to
stop smoking pot. After that, women become interested in stable, well adjusted men headed
somewhere that involves safety, security and emotional stability. That’s where you come in because the
real love stories, the ones that don’t end with her bailing her loser boyfriend out of jail, or worse,
catching him with another woman, happen when two healthy people finally find each other. If you’re
reading this and you’re young, you might have to put up with a few years of girls chasing guys with
tattoos on motorcycles, but don’t worry about that. You start down a solid career path and girls will be
knocking down your door in a few years. I promise.
Most people think love stories only benefit women. But don’t be fooled. There’s a lot in this for you. A
man can have sex with a thousand women and he’ll never feel as masculine as he will be leading a
woman through a good love story. God designed it so a man feels most powerful while guiding a woman
through an amazing love story.
Love stories, though, are told through sacrifice, patience and pain. It may take you five years or more to
get your act together, but when you do, every woman around you will recognize a potential leading man
in the love story they are dreaming about.
Here are some things to work on to lead a woman through a great love story.
Want something. Every story involves a person who wants something, and you’re love story can’t be any
different. First of all, you should want some kind of career or impact. You should want make the world a
better place and you should be very focused and dedicated to making this happen. This means going to
college, starting a company, coaching a team or teaching a class. If you want to make a woman’s dreams
come true, pick up your X-box and throw it in the trash and start doing something with your life. Have
you ever noticed that ancient paintings of women always have them draped over a bed or a couch, arms
outstretched in rest? And yet the guys are yielding a sword or riding a horse or captaining a ship. That’s
because men were designed to work. Want something. Work hard to become good at a craft. Get off
your couch and move. My friend Henry Cloud actually recommends that when a father is approached by
a young man asking for is daughters hand in marriage; he withholds his blessing until the man presents
his last few years’ worth of tax records. No kidding, it’s true. It’s not because Henry believes the man
should make a lot of money, it’s because the young man should be responsible enough to file taxes and
have a job. How else is he going to provide for a family? All that to say, part of being a leading man in a
love story is being a dependable, action-oriented worker.
Choose the right women to date. The book of Proverbs was primarily written to men, and while there is
a great deal of advice in the book about work ethic and finances, a significant percentage of the book is
spent warning men to stay away from certain women. Is she seductive? Stay away. Is she nagging? Stay
away. Is she sexually promiscuous? Stay away. In my dating history, I’ve dated some amazing women.
But on two occasions, I dated girls who were pretty seductive in nature, and I paid dearly. I lost sleep
and nearly lost my sanity. I’ll never forget taking a flight to Vancouver BC one night, reading through the
book of Proverbs and realizing what the source of my problems was, I was dating a girl the book told me
not to date. I broke up with her immediately and sanity returned.
Now this does not mean you shouldn’t date a girl with a past. One of my all-time favorite girlfriends, a
girl I consider amazing and will make a terrific wife to somebody some day, actually spent years living
with a guy and has a fairly liberal standard regarding sexuality. That said, though, she’s not seductive,
and she’s completely honest about her philosophy. In other words, we may not agree about everything
regarding sex, but the woman has integrity. I’d take a non-Christian woman with integrity over a
Christian seductress any day, and I’d be a happier man for making that decision. You want a woman who
is looking for a man, not a woman who is looking for men. Seriously, guys, just stay away from the
woman who leads with her seductive side.
Have a plan. Did you know John Wooden, who won 10 National Championships with UCLA actually
never won the championships the first 16 years he coached? It’s true. It wasn’t until he sat down one off
season and created a plan that he began to succeed, and he’s one of the most successful coaches in all
of sports. My question to you, do you have a plan? Do you know what kind of father you want to be? Do
you know what kind of wife will be required to make your vision come true? If you don’t have a plan,
you’re leaving your success up to luck.
Be honorable with the women you date. I made a rule a long time ago and it’s served me well. I told
myself I’d never kiss a girl unless I cared deeply about her. For the most part, if not completely, I’ve
never kissed a girl I wasn’t dating. Though looking back I think there were a few in there that weren’t
quite defined. That said, though, I’ve never used a girl just for sex or just to hook up. I am so grateful for
this, because I don’t want my conscious entangled in all that mess. While there are a few girls I’ve dated
who may not like me, I think most of them think I’m pretty okay. At least that’s what they’ve told me. So
here’s the thing. You can either wreck a girl’s heart, or build it up. You can either help her understand
that she’s beautiful by protecting her heart and her body, or teach her she’s just a girl worth using for
sex. To be sure, there are plenty of girls who actually just want to be used for sex, but remember,
Proverbs says stay away from these women. Seriously, I’ve taken the bait a couple times and it’s a living
nightmare.
Stop validating yourself with women. This is a pretty serious problem for many men, especially men who
grew up with womanizing fathers or no fathers at all. Men who do not believe they have what it takes to
live life well and with strength will validate themselves with women. They just aren’t sure they’re manly,
so they have to test themselves all the time by trying to knock down girl after girl. Even if it’s not sexual,
it can be emotional. A guy can get hooked on that feeling of having a girl like him. If you are going to tell
a great love story, you are going to have to figure out how to let go of this tendency. Stop validating
yourself with women. Stay focused on the one girl you’ve chosen and make it happen with her and her
alone.
Stop having sex and learn to make love. I’m amazed at how many women hook up with guys and talk
about how terrible the sex was. Seriously, I hear them talk about this all the time. But why? Why would
a man who has slept with hundreds of women not be very good in bed? Well, the main reason is a
woman wants to connect in ways beyond just a physical connection. Most “players” have no idea how
to make love to a woman, precisely because they don’t even care about the woman they are sleeping
with on a given night. They are so busy trying to get laid; they take no time to actually find out who she
is. Essentially, sex to them is just mutual masturbation. It usually leaves the woman feeling dissatisfied
and, well, disgusted and if she’s honest, a little used.
I mean sure she wanted to have sex, but she may have wanted something else, too. A woman often
wants a deep, soul connection. Even though she hooked up with a stranger, she was just going through
the motions of something else she really wants. She wants words of affirmation, eye contact and playful
fun that only happens in intimacy. Why was the sex no good in the hook up? Because the relationship
was no good.
That said, start being a man who knows how to connect with women. I’m not suggesting becoming a
player. I really think you should only be connecting with a woman who is worthy of becoming your wife.
But when she is your wife, make love to her heart, not just her body. As ferociously as possible, find that
woman’s heart and connect with it. Learn everything about her and connect with her in as many ways as
possible. Understand her story and care about her past. In fact, for the first several months, I wouldn’t
even try to make a move. Just get to know her, become her friend, do things with her that she enjoys,
take the relationship to the place where you smile when you hear her name. Once you get there, the sex
will be great. Once you have earned the respect only a husband deserves, her body will respond in ways
she never thought humanly possible, and, for that matter, so will yours.
Bring peace into chaos: I firmly believe that the job of a man is to bring peace into chaos. A man (and a
woman too for that matter) can look into an empty field and see a house. He can look into a woman’s
lonely heart and see how easily it could be loved. He can walk into a room and settle a group of wild
children. Look at your life and ask yourself this question: Wherever I go, do I leave a trail of peace
behind me? If not, then start practicing the art of ordering chaos right now. Is there chaos in your
personal life? Clean it up. Is there chaos in your relationships? Clean them up. A man brings peace and
order into chaos. You have what it takes to do this, I believe it firmly. You were designed to leave a wake
of peace everywhere you go.
Surround yourself with good men. Years ago I asked about five guys who didn’t know each other to
meet me for breakfast. I hand chose these guys. Each of them was intelligent, driven, successful and
emotionally stable. We got together early one morning and I introduced them to each other. Then I did
something very strange. I told them we all needed to be friends. I told them the world was in need of
good leaders, and good leaders only become good leaders if they affect each other. As odd as it was,
that group continued to meet for two years, and now we are all deeply imbedded in each other’s lives.
Lose your loser friends. This brings me to something hard. If you have some friends who are dragging
you down, that is they are knocking down chicks and not applying themselves to a career, it’s time for
you to invite them into something better, and then if they don’t want to come, cut them completely out
of your life. I’m sorry to say it so bluntly, but it’s time for them to go.
Develop strength. A woman loves a man who can be tender with her, but believe me, while you’re
holding her in your arms and she’s being comforted about her hard day; you’d better have a baseball bat
behind your back, ready to obliterate anybody who tries to hurt her. Be tender to her, but be absolutely
ferocious with anybody who takes advantage of her. If you aren’t a strong man, practice. Take stands,
don’t be a pushover, protect the ones you love, and be willing to make a few enemies.
Okay, so what does this have to do with telling a good love story? Well, it has everything to do with
telling a good love story. Women don’t just fall in love with flowers and chocolate. All that crap is fine.
But what they fall in love with is dependability, strength, kindness, community, structure, strength and
character. Being the leading man in a love story is, basically, about being just that, a man that leads.
Be a good man, a man with character. Have a vision, lead the story, and be the man she’s been
dreaming about.