Relationships Recap

Before I moved on to talk about the customs in marriage , I thought I should recap a bit and talk about the main influences that have laid down the path of marital relationship so far for me .

Over the last couple of years I got back to reading a lot on spirituality and that led to me Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and Osho . Osho in particular defined my relationship theories ( as I like to call them ) a lot .

Some of the major takeaways for me where -

1) Most relationships fail because of the amount of expectation in them. We always expect the other person to make us feel a certain way and if they make us feel good , we define that as love and if they do not we define that as hate . But is that really love , love is a all encompassing feeling that one feels towards another person .

So my first lesson was - Define your expectations . Are the expectations from the other person or from yourself . The latter is fine , but the former is mostly unrealistic.

2) Don't count on the other person making you happy . Happiness is a instrinsic quality and it is never defined by the other person . A person can only be happy if he/she chooses to be happy.For ex - you have a crappy day at work , but your spouse has just cooked a awesome dinner for you . If you look at it this should have made you happy , but the problem is on your own you are not happy so no matter what happens on the outside nothing can make you happy.

3) Communication with the other person is always about understanding why you feel a certain why in a particular situation and never about what the other person did that you did not like . Any time you focus on the latter , communication will never flow through smoothly. Also once the focus shifts on why you feel a certain way there is a great understanding that happens , you get to learn more about yourself and your prejudices , in turn you become more honest with yourself . Greater the honesty with oneself , greater is your ability to accept other person because knowing your failings you can be more understanding towards others failings.

For ex - you were brought up in a house hold where money was very carefully spent , your spouse on the other hand spends more than you do . There will be a constant conflict if you do not understand the root your discomfort with their spending habits .Once you know why you are uncomfortable automatically you will know how to handle the other's spending habits.

4) And last Love is decision , not just a one time feeling . It is very easy to fall in as well as out of love but only when you decide you are going to sail through it would you continue to put in effort every day to get back the love . Also you need to realize that just like you fall in and out , so does your spouse and if you can both be honest about it , eventually love will become all encompassing.