Lasting Relationships

It is our human instinct to want to connect with a mate/partner, so why is the divorce rate 50% or higher?  Why are so many couples in counselling? And why do so many feel stuck in their relationship, or unable to commit?  I have had my own personal experience with couples counselling and I also do work for a group of Psychologists who do relationship counselling and I can tell you the success rate is not very good.  I think it is in part due to the fact that when couples go for counselling it becomes about, I need he/she to do for me, or he/she doesn’t understand me, or worse it becomes a blame game.  It is a bit like Western medicine’s approach to disease, everyone wants a quick fix, give me a pill or a shot and all will be healed.  The same is true in couples counselling, you feel like it is falling apart and that you should go to the therapist and he/she will fix it.  The reality is there is no quick fix.  Maybe we need to take an approach based more on Eastern medicine traditions.  In Eastern medicine you look for the root of the cause, you nourish your body and bring it into balance, and sometimes it requires going through a few “layers” of disease to get there.  This same method can be applied to your relationship, starting with yourself.  If you looked only inside yourself for what you need, inside yourself to heal what is broken and feel compassion for your partner perhaps more relationships could be saved.  If not, you will have a much clearer reason why it didn’t work and will go into the next relationship with a different view.  Perhaps couples counselling should be done individually, each becoming a “whole” instead of two “parts” trying to create a “whole”. This same strategy should apply to anyone in a relationship, not just those having problems or anyone looking for that special someone.  You need to fulfill yourself, live your destiny and your passion, find happiness and contentment within your own life. The secret to a long lasting relationship lies not in how much the other person can do for you or you for them, but what you can do for yourselves. 

 

There is no quicker death to a relationship than when one of the partners becomes “needy”, this can manifest as nagging, blaming, controlling, jealousy, submissiveness, being a victim, etc. My friends and I always say there is nothing less attractive then neediness and nothing more attractive than someone who knows who they are, is comfortable with who they are and wants to share it with the world. So if that is what we admire, then we must do our own work to make sure we are that person as well. Only in doing this will we have lasting happiness either inside or outside of a relationship, we will not be looking for someone to fulfil us or make us happy (which is impossible anyway) as we are already fulfilled and happy. We then have the ultimate gift to offer someone  who is “whole” as well, an EQUAL partner in life and love.