Understanding Relationship
What do you think constitutes a relationship? Life is about dealing with relationships. The relationship can make or break you, it all depends on the deposits and withdrawals you make to it.
Let us briefly take a look at some of the elements of the relationship. Often time, people describe their relationship by the term good or bad relationship, such statements as “Oh we have a good relationship. Or “I had a bad relationship with him or her. Actually, the essence of a relationship is harmony, companionship, love, joy, and peace.
This is so important because we are designed to enjoy our relationship(s). I remember the Genesis story about the creation of man. When God looked at Adam, and then He noticed that something was missing. God understood that he wasn’t complete by himself, and God said that “It is not good that the man should be alone…” Genesis 3:18.
The story informed us that Adam was feeling lonely, and incomplete, despite the fact that he was surrounded in the garden by all the amazing animals in that beautiful garden of Eden. Nonetheless, he was lonely without a compactable helper.
Therefore, immediately Adam’s problem of loneliness and lack of companionship was solved by creating Eve a suitable companion for him. From this story, we have our first idea of the importance and beauty of relationships. I know what some of us will be saying or thinking right now. You may say was it not because of Eve that Adam lost his freedom? Well, we will leave that question for a different discussion????
The point I want to stress here is that relationship is very useful for our joy, and fulfillment in this life as human beings. Because Every relationship is meant to fulfill certain conditions for our total wellbeing. So, how enjoyable is your relationship? I hope we remember that it takes two people to make a beautiful relationship. We will do well to avoid the producer and consumer mentality. Instead, let us build our relationship with the distributor or contributor mentality, whereby both of you will contribute positively to each other’s wellbeing.
Relationship Require Trust
Every loving relationship is built on trust; it is a relationship in which both share their trust enough to become vulnerable, and secure that none fears being taken advantage of. A healthy relationship never takes each other’s kindness, love, humility for granted, instead, it takes delight in sharing, communicating or expressing personal feelings whether heavy or light feelings.
Relationship Requires Love to Flourish
When your relationship is healthy, you will be open and honest to each other without any fear of being judged, shamed, or ridiculed. You feel secure knowing that you’re each other’s completion and best friend. You enjoy your relationship when both of you can enjoy your togetherness and your differences, like the use of your uniqueness to also help each other to be his or her best version.
We are not meant to quarrel with each other in our relationship. We quarrel because we are not accepting our differences. Or because we are competing with each other instead of complementing. But we forget that quarreling produces regrettable emotions.
Another reason I have noticed why relationships falter is as a result of greed; the inordinate desire for more acquisition of things, money, power, success, and what we call “moving up.” As a result of the pressure of pursuing success, and maintaining a certain position with a greedy mindset, we begin to sell out our integrity, and neglect each other’s needs for attention, love, comfort, and so forth.
This is how and what a relationship suppose to provide. Sadly, because of man’s self-centeredness, we live below these expectations. Today, what some of us experience in our relationships is a situation of the person who suppose to laugh with us but who now laughs at us, who ought to cry with us, and not to mock our cry.
I hope you understand what I’m saying here? I have been in a very complicated relationship for a very long time to know the hurt, broken hearts, and betrayals involved when the essential attributes are lacking or mismanaged in any relationship. However, there is hope for recovery and restoration for any relationship that has lost its taste.
How to Restore Your First Love
Find out each day something in your partner to praise him or her for. Verbalize your appreciation, do it honestly and regularly. Provide sudden surprises to each other from time to time. Re-kindle the first love for each other.
Give each other what the person wants so that you can get what you need.
Spend intentional time to learn each other. Don’t say what is new about you that I need to know after spending some number of years together. Many people make this mistake and they allow their relationship to suffer as a result.
Avoid the tendency to criticize and share your secrets with any third party. Instead, speak good of each other when the occasion warrants. Mostly, speak and show love and respect to each other before your children or family members.
Relationship Requires Accountability
Relationship fosters acts of kindness and accountability. In any marriage relationship, both parties have to be accountable to each other. Promising to love, honor, and care for each other. In a marriage relationship, we commit to doing the hard work, whatever it takes to ensure a smooth sail during turbulent conditions; by promising to stick it out, in sickness and health, in richness and in poverty as vowed before a priest or parents.
Commitment as it should be means riding out the waves. Unfortunately, this is the condition of so many marriages, fighting for survival, with no fun, no joy, no trust, and no peace. Instead of having a relationship, it has become entanglement.
Conclusion
The relationship is meant to compliment, add and not subtract or divide. The relationship is meant to provide support, comfort, assurance of each other’s care. It is not meant to be an experience of misery, regret, and unforgiveness. Of course, the people involved should not rule out that sometimes the path may be dark because human nature is inevitable.
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This article was really nice and I shared it with my spouse,. The. Highlight here, for me was that relationships should complement and not add or subtract. This was nothing short of a masterpiece, I saved it for a reread. Relationships nowadays are nothing to write home about, I wish many people would get their hands on articles like this. Definitely sharing!.
Oh, Collins, you’re awesome! your kind and honest comment for this article had given me fresh energy. I’m glad that you found it valuable to you, and that you are willing to share it. Please do so with all pleasure.
And let me add here that, friendship is reciprocal, so is our love with our spouse. We should do our best to make out time to nourish our relationships, good relationships don’t just happen they are made or worked on by both. Many relationships today are being starved of real love. And once love and trust are diminished, the relationship will sour! Therefore, we must make the necessary sacrifices to invest in our relationship to keep it healthy.
Let me stop here. Once again, thank you!