Familiarity
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| | The old chestnut of familiarity can be very destructive in a relationship. It is all too easy to start taking your partner for granted, as memories of the initial freshness fade.
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| | In these situations, you often have to use an intellectual process to try rebalance your opinions of your lover, and these are never a substitute for the original feelings.
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| | It is a difficult fact of life that the often humdrum flavour of a long term relationship is overly weak and mild when compared to transition feelings. By transition, I mean the early stages of your relationship, or when there is a potential loss of the relationship. That plummeting, vacuous feeling when you fear you have lost your partner. Or even an affair - its excitement often amplified by its illegitimacy.
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| | Part of the reason that we enter this humdrum state is genetic - our very makeup is fine tuned to change - we are programmed to respond most to change, and take regularility in our stride. Historically speaking, a response to change is the part of our lives that needs the most attention.
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| | The old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder is probably because the regularity has been broken. So maybe in some relationships, where one or both partners are apt to take the other for granted can benefit from some interruptions to normal activities.
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Seeing their point of view
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| | From time to time you feel aggrieved by your partner or friend, or a member of your family. You are likely to mull over why they behaved how they did, your mind often repeating aspects of the situation. But most often, this process merely serves to reinforce your unhappiness and generally disgruntled state.
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| | It is possible, or maybe even probable that you are stuck in a mindest (see the Mindsets areticle), where you are trapped in essentially one, limited perspective. You may claim that you are trying to see things from their point of view, and this may well be very correct - but only in the context of the perspective of your mindset.
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| | For example, if I have a particularly bad headache, as is apt to happen, then I am somewhat delicate, and feel that I need or deserve at least some respect for the condition, and hopefully some sympathy. If neither are forthcoming, then I will feel aggrieved, and hostile thoughts will crowd my mind. I will be proud of myself if in this self-pitying state if I can be thoughtful about the person I am with.
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| | But I will be trapped in the sympath mindset, not really able to step out of it and see that the other person may have their own needs and agenda that is entirely reasonable, even in the context of my condition.
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| | Admittedly, this is a slightly extreme example of failing to see an other's point of view. We are all capable of missing even simple things, making judgements almost entirely on the visible things of the moment. No-one can see my headaches, so unless I mention them, they will rarely think, or have reason to think of enquiring about them. This is entirely reasonable, yet by the same token that they fail to pay heed to them, I fail to understand that this may happen.
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| | Often, your understanding about something will take into account your own viewpoint, and potential other viewpoints along a scale either side of yours. But often, other people have views that are on an entirely different axis, so no amount of adjustment along your scale will accomodate their viewpoint. Except that an example elludes me at this moment in time.
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Have I found the right person?
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| | This is a question that confounds all and sundry, principally because you will seldom ever know enough to answer it. You can have no idea about the people that you will meet in the rest of your life.
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| | Yet we frequently torture ourselves with nagging doubts that things are not as good as maybe we deserve. And we do this with a biassed view, having become so used to the good points that drew you the person in the first place that they are taken for granted. As if somehow, they are a base line by which we judge other possible partners.
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| | But just think about all of the things that may be right or wrong with your relationship, and you will see that it is virtually impossible statistically to find the perfect match. I'll list some very important aspects of a relationship that many deem as critical :
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| | 1. You have a good 'chemistry', where you are mostly in harmony and natural with your partner, difficult though this is to define.
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| | 2. You love your partner.
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| | 3. You have a good or potentially good sexual relationship with them.
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| | 4. You respect each other.
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| | 5. You trust each other.
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| | 6. They look nice.
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| | 7. Their figure is good.
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| | 8. They are loyal.
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| | 9. They are honest.
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| | 10. You match in religious terms.
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| | 11. You have common interests.
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| | 12. You have similar sleeping patterns.
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| | 13. You have similar ethics and morals.
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| | 14. You have similar priorities in life.
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| | 15. You both want or don't want babies.
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| | And so on.
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| | You will certainly be able to add to this figure. With so many potential differences, which constantly evlove over time, the relationships that survive are those where both parties are flexible and accommodating.
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