Stability and Relationship (Part I)

The nascent of a relationship be described as a period of instability or a period of love delusion. Perhaps the madness of being in love drowns the concrete sound of rationality, where love conquers all and everything else matters little.

This is not a derisive attempt to discount the possibility of what love could do, but rather, after all that mirthful gaiety has faded, what's left is but serious contemplation of practical realism - of compatibility, needs and deep yearnings, which are ironically 'things' that ought to have iron out in a major way during the course of the relationship.

Personally, I do not think that love actually fades like sunset, but rather, the effect of having real people interacting and getting along with one another is the litmus test to decide if this person is someone you will want to spend the rest of your life in a relatively functionable manner. The ingredient of marriage requires components that are distinctively, but not exactly significantly, different from a relationship. For example: stability and security.

These two 'Earthen' elements are prerequisite for any marriage to work out decently. However, one must understand that the stability any relationship enjoys is NOT part of the love that comes with it; it is part of the arduous process of compromising, making adjustment or in a nutshell: mutually agreed way of managing the relationship that first develops the structure for stability. In fact stability is an illusion - all relationship are born out of instability. Even the most perfect, compatiable partners needs to work out a system to seek for an equilibrum in love that are acceptable to both parties. People do not merely 'settle' in like a piece of predestinated puzzle.

One common issue couple faced after dating for a long period of time is that they become accustomised to this security provided by this stability and for some reason, supersede it literally as love, which is ironically not the case during formative stage of their relationship. They are in fact in love with stability that the relationship provides and gradually not being in love with their partner emotionally.

There seemed to be an inverse relationship with stability and romance; for when we are loving to our partner, it creates stability (sometimes false stability) and when our relationship is stable, we often downplay the need to be loving partners and that generate instability. And the cycle continues ad infinitum.

The notion of marriage is losing its meaning in a broad sense; making vague sense of adulthood, marked as a common destination that 'most grown ups' will arrive at. After all the gusts of blessing and grand weddings - ah congrats! The real journey of love truly begins! More of the crazy things, less of the good things - especially when kids started claiming their turf in the couple's marriage; young parents start to focus on their little prince & princess and gradually stop loving each other.

Is your marriage/relationship like that? And what can we do?

I will address it in Part II