ON ENDURING RELATIONSHIPS

What is the secret formula for preventing a relationship that was once sweet, loving and charming from becoming bitter and hateful and the two parties drift apart and end their once endearing relationship after a few years? The answer is their refusal to recognize that:

To exist is to change
To change is to mature
To mature is to go on
Creatings oneself endlessly.

Having come together once, impressed by the qualities in each other, they expect the other to continue to possess the same qualities always without losing any of those; they get disappointed and become strangers to each other. They forget that each one of them is not frozen in time; their minds have retained a memory of the past and refuse to recognize that change is an inherent and necessary fact of their passage in the river of life. The measure of the strength of their bond is their willingness to accept the change they perceive in each other and recognize that they themselves have to change to enable a mature relationship grow in strength. This process of change continued and nourished endlessly with love and understanding vests the relationship with a long life.

Many philosophers have commented on the element of Change that is an integral part of our existence. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus has made the famous observation:: "You cannot step in the same river twice" - because the flowing river is ever changing and the individual too is similarly changing. The infant child grows in size and its mind continuously changes. “How you have changed, I cannot recognize you, almost” is a constant refrain of friends and acquaintances meeting after an interval. Expecting one’s partner to remain unchanged is contrary to the life-process.

Kahlil Gibran’s advice:

Let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

And stand together yet not too near together;
For the pillars of the temple stand apart.

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.