“When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.” -John Gray

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Recently I have a friend sharing her story to me about the relationship she had, and how she managed to finally end her not-working relationship. Her story intrigued me to dig deeper about love, relationship, and marriage. You may have know that I read lots of self help and psychology books, and I hope to give you a new perspective in embracing the relationship you have now or the one you will have someday. As an opening question, I would like us to reflect a bit about the question below:

– Do you think you are worthy and contribute to the world in a meaningful way? Why?
– Do you think other people time is as valuable as yours?
– What do you think about agreeing with an unimportant choice other people made just to avoid confrontation, when you actually disagree?
– If you have to choose only one, which one is more important to you, your career or family? Do you allocate more time with the thing you choose?
– Do you think in world average a single person happier than couple?
– Is it better for you to avoid marriage, its trouble, and the benefit it brings
OR
Get married, face the trouble, and also enjoy the happiness it brings?

A man who find himself unworthy will never be satisfied with his relationship, whether it’s with his family, spouse, girlfriend, or even friends. They are usually afraid that people around him will someday leave him because of his weakness, then he started to ramble and do irrational things to maintain his relationship that annoys people. In turn, their prediction come true. To build a healthy relationship, both people have to be able to live on their own without any dependence on the other, so that when they live together it’s because they choose to be together, not because they must live together. This is very important and fundamental belief that have to be the foundation of any relationship. Of course I’m not talking about a baby and mother relationship here, but rather focused on adults relationship although it spoke some truth as well.

Contribution is also the key to a satisfied life, which then impact the way we relate with people around us. When we know we are contributing to the world, something bigger than ourselves somehow we felt important and live not only to complete our personal needs, but the world’s and other’s as well. With that beliefs in mind we will treat our friends with heart and our spouse with a heart a lover should based on. And once we realized that the world doesn’t revolve around us, but every person had their own thoughts and wants, we soon realized that other people wants what you want as well: goodness and benefit for themselves. We are united in this world, together with our unique needs and wants, completing each other’s by interacting in social life.

We need to tolerate that other people needs differ with ours and we can’t expect them to treat us the way we treat them, but we should act based on the best rational and ethical reasoning accepted by society. Personally I prefer being at peace rather than be right most of the time, so that when my friends start to argue what I was saying, I tend to listen and nod at the time. That doesn’t mean I don’t have principle, I continue to do what I think is right, and usually they are okay with it. Simply said, I value my friends more than defending my ego. This concept is very crucial in marriage where two people have to live on a prolonged period of time and deal with each other beliefs daily, they quarrel and fight, but it actually strengthen the relationship as long it is done in the right way!

Next week I’m going to write about “How to fight in a healthy way”, which prove as crucial in our life to have a healthy relation with others. Stay tuned!

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