SUCCESSFUL
Marital Relationships
= Sustaining Love =
We will simplify the success principles of Marital relationship now. And, in more down to earth words, for you.
Why do people love? Love springs from the heart; from the emotions; from the hormonal disturbances. Love is therefore blind to all reasoning. Love at first sight is obviously blind. Love at second, third or fourth sight is also equally blind to all reasoning.
If you find strong reasons for loving, you are actually beginning to LIKE the person you LOVE. Love may come first and may be followed by LIKING, or, LIKING may come first and followed by LOVE.
Marital Relationship – must necessarily be based on LOVE + LIKING.
If either of them is absent, marriage tends to become stale or end up in divorce.
Love makes marital relationship the most intimate relationship; but, Liking makes it the most enduring and enjoyable relationship.
Love springs 100 % from your heart (or emotions) and is devoid of all reasoning. But, Liking springs 50% from your heart and 50% from your Intellect or reasoning. Love with your heart. But, Like with your Intellect. Your marriage will then be a life long success.
Be your marital Partner’s complement – and not competitor. Be to the other, that which you want the other, to be, to you. You must never break this inviolable Law of Human Relationships.
In marital relationship, there is no competition between the two partners. All of today’s marital problems and divorces are due to lack of understanding of this complimentarity and the consequent high incidence of competition between the two partners.
The You and I in this relationship must merge into we. People often ask – does it mean, I should sink my individuality, just because I am getting married?
Yes. You should. Your marital life with your partner gives you both, a new combined Individuality! Both of you together become a single Individual for the rest of the world. Therefore you must sink your separate individuality. This is the unbreakable law in marital relationship.
But, in respect of the social or career life outside your home, both of you can pursue your individuality – without conflict with the marital relationship.
Even Siva, the Indian god, is depicted as Half Male and Half female from head to foot and is called Ardha-nareeswara; the Siva in whom one half is his wife.
The Indian wife is usually called Ardhaangi, meaning, Half of the husband’s body; which half? The better half. We can say – Sakthi, the marital partner of Siva, is half of Siva’s body. We can also say, Siva is half of Sakthi’s body.
When we properly understand the concept of oneness of both, we no more quarrel on which part is me, which part is you. The tradition also says – Siva has no existence without Sakthi, nor does Sakthi exist without Siva. Same is true for man and woman on earth.
Similar concepts prevail in many cultures. This is an absolutely scientific and well-reasoned way of enjoying life on earth, as we can see, as we go forward.
Is this a big Idea, with no practicality? This doubt is bound to come in today’s environment – in which too many marriages are ending in divorce. The very purpose of this series of articles is – to halt this trend, in which, no one is really happy, hopping from one person to another, and not finding any perfect partner any where in the world.
If you think divorcing one partner and hopping to another, may finally land you in the lap of the perfect partner, that is the utopian idea. It will never happen.
If you think your career gives you a lot more satisfaction than your marital relation – you are in a big dream world. One day – you will have to step out of it into this reality.
Being a Sanyasin – does it give your greater satisfaction in life? Look at all Indian Sages. Vasista, the greatest of all sages had hundred sons from his wife Arundhati, whom he did not leave at any time. Even today, they stay together – as stars in the distant sky. Most Indian sages lived in deep forests with wife. It is actually prescribed to adopt sanyasa Dharma after being a married house holder for a long time.
This idea is well reflected in the most ancient Sanskrit mantra – “Dharmecha, arthecha, kaamecha….naathi charaami”, which is a promise that the husband should make to the wife and her father at the time of marriage that in Dharma (good deeds), artha (wealth) and kaama (desires) which are the only three walks of life on earth, he will never go beyond his wife and will go along with her always.
Man and woman have to tread one path and not two different paths. This is the idea of partnership and complimentarity.
Is this a very difficult and tough thing to achieve?
No. This is the easiest thing to do. Going beyond this is the thing that lands the partners in all trouble.
Quarrels, divorces, suicides, courts, lawyers, several times-divorced marriage-counselors – all come into your life – when one of you go beyond this promise; beyond this partnership; beyond this complimentarity.
So, How do you become your partner’s perfect complement?
v Strive to be a reasonably likeable person – one who can be liked and loved for a few real, good reasons by any other normal person.
v Understand that your partner is as human as you are, and, is capable of loving you.
v You must love and Like your partner for real, good reasons in him or her and strive to be his or her good complement (and not a competitor).
v Be willing to inculcate and develop good reasons to love and like each other.
v Understand that the wife is more emotional than logical and the husband is more logical than emotional. Nature has deliberately made you as compliments of each other. Together only – you can derive 100 % happiness and 100% safety in this life on earth.
v Be not a beggar for love- always seeking it from the other, but not being able to give it. Be an emperor for Love – not seeking it, but giving it unreservedly.
v Remember -it is the mutual responsibility to sustain Love and Liking for each other, at all times in life.
v Seize each moment of opportunity to express your love in the way that each moment demands.
v Love expressed – multiplies. Love not expressed, remains a seed; and finally dies.
So, the catch phrase is – Express your love in every moment of opportunity.
Does it mean, you will say – “I love you”, as many times as possible. No. Life needs variety. Love needs variety. Your partner needs varieties of love expression. No moment in life is similar to another. Your Love has to be varied in expression. Finding the present marital partner stale is one of the many reasons, people go for divorce, in current days.
It does not mean, you need to be a continuous inventor of love expression. Not needed. Your love needs some variety and some predictability too. Rest of it is taken care of by nature. As nature changes, as your age and family circumstances change, as life style changes, if you are alive to your love, you will find a life full of love, which always looks some what new.
Your love expression consists of different modes and varieties. Men and women differ in how they express their love and what they expect from their partner. These are biologically based differences and are more or less similar in all continents. Let us look at each method :
WORDS
Volumes have been written about communication skills in an organizational context, and slightly less about marital relationships. Spoken word is one of the chief means of communication of love – in marital relationships.
About words, we must understand that –
Words can please!
but
Words can also hurt!
Pleasing words may be forgotten. But, hurting words, rarely.
They tend to come up again and again between married couples at each quarrel time. Ten thousand pleasing words spoken for last ten years are not equal to ten hurting words spoken ten years before. The pleasing words are forgotten. Hurting words are remembered.
There is a difference in this respect, between men and women. As we have said earlier, woman is more rooted in the past and has great skill in remembering the nitty gritty details of each event of the past. It is therefore very natural for her to recall events of three decades with all hurting words of all such events and hurl them at the man – when a quarreling occasion arises and say, Look, what you did to me!.
Man is bewildered. He doesn’t recall most of these events. He knows, the woman also has uttered many more such things in many such past events – but, even if racks his brain hard, he can’t recall much. The fight is unequally matched, almost always.
The woman’s brain skips all pleasant events of the past and quickly grasps each unpleasant event.
I am sure, every woman knows this. And, every man also knows this too. It does not need much proof. But, if you want proof, you will get it in your own home next time. Or, in your neighbour’s home.
There is a tragedy in all this great remembrance powers of the woman. The man suffers the onslaught, no doubt. But, the woman suffers much more.
Remembering all such hurting words is not a pleasure at all for the woman. She does this rewinding of the past almost automatically, almost with no effort. But, it is much more hurting to herself today – than it was, when it actually happened.
Let us understand that – this is again purely biological. As much as she can enjoy life, that much she also suffers it, because, emotion plays far larger part in her than in man.
Many a man and many a woman can perhaps remember how their life got into tangles because of this one problem.
If you overlook the biological nature of the problem, you, as a woman, will feel perfectly justified to remember last ten years events to castigate the man. But, if you can remain more balanced between logic and emotion, you will also remember that these are of no value today and barring these, the rest of last ten years was pleasant and laced with far more number of happy events.
Remember, man cannot recollect even important dates of birth, dates of marriage etc, and so, how is he going to remember events of last ten years like a woman can do? His mind is more futuristic and there is no event in the future to recall! It is his weakness superficially which makes him lose in every wordy duel with the woman, but it can be the strength for both the husband and wife.
Is this a perennial problem, or, can we, get over it? Specifically, can the woman get over this problem? She can. She can make her and her partner’s life a heaven on earth. And, that and many other things follow in the next Post.
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