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HoldInwardly · 41-45, M
Azuriela, yes, it is really important to build and rebuild confidence with new people who appear to merit our trust. To be well on the inside and to be valued by our community, we need to come out of our shells, carefully, in order to build ever stronger links that with time may become a close network of friends.
Changing a relationship with a partner is often more difficult than finding new friends because of the past we carry with us. At the beginning of the relationship we become love partners for reasons that after a few years often are no longer important or even relevant. Yet these natural changes in interest go paired with habits, physical closeness, children (and their attachments), as well as with common responsibilities. This often leads to frustration and to conflicts.
That is where it becomes important that love partners make a conscious mental effort to go beyond daily necessities. Although time and fatigue always presses on us, it becomes important to develop an interest in what our partners do, think about and pursue. What really concerns him or her? What worries are there? What ambitions are pursued?
In a love partnership, we often don't take the time to ask questions. We know superficially what the Other is concerned with, but we are not interested in the details. Yet the Other is primarily preoccupied with exactly those details -- they form the center of their life. So to continue meriting the love and allegiance of our partners, we would do well to develop a detailed concern with the details of their interests, struggles and ambitions.
All love relationships go through ups and downs. A decision to go "shopping elsewhere" may ultimately bring few benefits, other than subsidizing a whole industry of divorce lawyers. Often a greater interest in what the Other is really up to is a much better investment, in every which way.
It would be easy to leave this message on this positive note. But reality also imposes limits on what can be done to revive mutual interests. When the Other can no longer be met on kind, loving and equitable terms, or when the divergence of interests increasingly blocks one's own human development, one may have to come to that painful decision to split. But that is another chapter and we could talk about that some other time.
Changing a relationship with a partner is often more difficult than finding new friends because of the past we carry with us. At the beginning of the relationship we become love partners for reasons that after a few years often are no longer important or even relevant. Yet these natural changes in interest go paired with habits, physical closeness, children (and their attachments), as well as with common responsibilities. This often leads to frustration and to conflicts.
That is where it becomes important that love partners make a conscious mental effort to go beyond daily necessities. Although time and fatigue always presses on us, it becomes important to develop an interest in what our partners do, think about and pursue. What really concerns him or her? What worries are there? What ambitions are pursued?
In a love partnership, we often don't take the time to ask questions. We know superficially what the Other is concerned with, but we are not interested in the details. Yet the Other is primarily preoccupied with exactly those details -- they form the center of their life. So to continue meriting the love and allegiance of our partners, we would do well to develop a detailed concern with the details of their interests, struggles and ambitions.
All love relationships go through ups and downs. A decision to go "shopping elsewhere" may ultimately bring few benefits, other than subsidizing a whole industry of divorce lawyers. Often a greater interest in what the Other is really up to is a much better investment, in every which way.
It would be easy to leave this message on this positive note. But reality also imposes limits on what can be done to revive mutual interests. When the Other can no longer be met on kind, loving and equitable terms, or when the divergence of interests increasingly blocks one's own human development, one may have to come to that painful decision to split. But that is another chapter and we could talk about that some other time.