How often have you wondered whether you were right to get into a relationship with the person you are with right now? The mister or miss right seems to have turned into a nightmare, and if you are married to them, it is all the more difficult to get out. Ever wondered why you fell in love with them in the first place? What is it that attracted you to them and what changed along the way?
Firstly, when you first met, you were both a mystery to each other. You put your best foot forward and at least pretended to be a gentleman or a lady, as the case may be. You tried your level best to impress them and were secretive enough to not let all your secrets out in the open at once, yet open enough to make them feel close to you. You took care of each other’s emotions and feelings and wanted to do whatever you could to keep the other person happy.
But now you can’t stand the independent nature of the other half. Or you can’t stand that they are so clingy towards you. You don’t want them to have other friends than you. Or you want them to get a life and give you some space. You either want them to be 100% like you or 100% unlike you. The charm has long gone with the wind and you are now together in this relationship that is more dead than alive.
Today we will learn the key components of a relationship that one craves so that he or she wants to be in it more than out of it:
- Security: A person always wants to feel secure in that he/she wants consistency in the relationship. Suppose a man brings his girlfriend flowers on her birthday. Then when she becomes his wife, she would still want him to continue doing that. When he doesn’t, she feels lost and confused. Similarly, if a woman has kissed a man every day when he leaves for work, he doesn’t want that to change just because a child has come into their world. When it does, he feels angry and bitter. In both cases, the security or consistency has been killed and led to dissatisfaction and loss of affection.
- Excitement: Or inconsistency is another thing we crave. Now, even though this might seem contradictory to what I just said above, it isn’t. It just means that everyone craves a break from the daily routine. If I asked you to eat a pizza for a meal, it would feel good and tasty, but what if we kept ordering the same pizza day in and day out? Or a Gulab Jamun (an Indian sweet dish) for that matter. How many of us can withstand the sweetness of a delicious sweet after consuming two or three of them? So everyone wants to get away from the routine life. Going out on dates or spending time in nature on a holiday are two examples of inconsistency that one craves.
- Importance: if a person feels that he or she is not required or needed by another, it gives them a sense of boredom. Like, why am I really here when they don’t need me? When someone feels that the other person needs them, it is when they feel important enough to be in the relationship. When this need is not fulfilled, one gets the feeling of having been forgotten, like yesterday’s newspaper. The feeling of being needed might just mean that the partner comes home and tells you to make tea for him/her or asks your advice on all the big and small decisions he or she wants to make.
- Love: Everyone has a different way of showing and receiving love. This is also stressed upon in many relationship advice books and YouTube videos. If one partner’s idea of love is to spend quality time together and the other wants to wind up after a long day in front of the TV, it is bound to create a rift after some time. Then someone might want to celebrate all their special days in a huge party style, and the other might just want to cuddle up and eat ice cream together. It is important to understand what the other person wants and at least try to adjust once in a while with each other to make the other person feel loved. Communication becomes a very important factor at this point.
- Growth: Every relationship needs growth. Stagnancy is never welcome. So, if you are friends and one of you wants to be more than that, it will either happen or he or she will start feeling frustrated and angry or rejected. If you are in a relationship but not yet married, and one of you wants to get married and the other doesn’t, it would make the relationship stagnate and feel problematic. And not only that, growth extends to self-development. There is always scope for improvement in each and every one of us.
- Contribution: if one partner is contributing to the household or to the relationship, then the other person feels useless. On top of that, the one who is always contributing ends up feeling used. Even old people want to contribute to the household by doing something, if not by money. When we are unable to contribute, it is difficult to feel important in the relationship, and the fear that the other person will find someone who can contribute more is always gnawing away at our hearts.
Take stock of the situation when you have a fight or want to end the relationship. No relationship will end if the above 6 criteria are met. See what is falling short and try to fulfil it. But without compromising on values, on which we will talk some other day. Till then, I hope your relationship flourishes.
