For social ease in the Indian scenario we have been made to believe the above but experiences of many a evolved soul says more than once is not just possible but is often the way it is. We fall into a trap of evaluating love calling it real or unreal. If it turns into marriage it is real or else its not, what a conditioning we are given and that too for generations together. There can be no right or wrong about love. It simply “IS”.
Here, I am not providing justifications for the stray affairs that happen or emerge out of want for just physical intimacy. Love is an ocean, it is like the air that we breathe which keeps us alive and keeps us going. Sometime earlier I have made a mention saying that Love as an element is always present in each of us and it is some external stimuli that makes it overflow from us and touch another soul or even an activity. Other activity could be love for music, for books, photography..it is just anything or just that one thing that makes you feel that you have come Alive.
What interests me is the complexities that we give rise to when this love happens to be for more than one person( read as if between life partners). When a person feels love for another, gets married and settles down, why we knock down the possibility of him being in love with some other individual as well. May be we are unsure of ourselves, may be we do not trust ourselves that we can live with the fact that one may love more than one person at the same time. It for sure requires a rock solid understanding of your self and an eternal openness to accept things as they happen. We possibly feel threatened by our own heart’s calling. Some of my friends who were born years earlier than what I was confess in me saying that there have been instances where after a point of time in their lives, when they discovered themselves more, they approached their then partners to communicate and expected them to understand their process of evolution which in essence is CHANGE. Not very often it has happened that two people in love accept change in their partners and with grace. Somewhere down the line two individuals forget that they are so and that one is exposed to certain experiences that the other is not. For example, a housewife can only imagine what her spouse is experiencing at work which also depends on the amount of sharing done by the other partner. The level of understanding of one is limited to his or her exposure and experiences. In many cases couples experience a disconnect after a period of time, could be 5, 10 , 15 or more years. This so happens because when two decided to unite, they were on a common platform , later one may outgrow the other. The one who has outgrown, does make an attempt to make the other understand what he is going through and how he is evolving each day. He expects his life partner to understand and appreciate the changes(read growth) but may not always find it so.
Whenever we find an individual who appreciates, complements and understands us we begin to love him. This does happen to many couples in marriage. Some separate and live with the other person and some beautifully and subtly manage love and responsibility. This phenomenon can occur many times in one’s life, it is we who have to first understand ourselves and accept that such a thing is possible.
Quite often I question the definition of a successful marriage- is it the number of years that one spends under one roof with another (with due respects to all the couples who do live together, no comments on that). The society has often looked down upon people who divorce and remarry another individual. It is through these rights and wrongs that we let ourselves get influenced and not follow our hearts. I have also come across children who hate their parent for loving some other person than their mother/ father. It is much later or may be never that the child understands and appreciates the choice his parent made.
I have come to understand that we learn through relationships. We are Given souls in different relationships for us to learn different subjects. Physically Close are those from whom we or being with whom we got to learn the most. Also, this happens over many cycles of lifetimes. What is known to your heart, your inner being is not known to anybody else, it cannot be explained in words. When you choose not to listen to your inner voice, you choose fear and not life. And yes, living the path your heart chooses is definitely a matter of courage.
Sum it up by Kahlil Gibran’s quote- Do not try to direct Love, for if it finds you worthy enough, it will direct you into its own course…Have faith!
3 comments:
Happen to land up on to your blog accidentally. I do admit to your views that not everything is life can be termed as right or wrong. There are always shades of gray that exist. Its purely a matter of perceiving incidences based on learning that has occurred through different experiences that one goes through in his/her own life.
However, there is something that I read in your blog that I wasn’t really able to absorb in totality. I am not trying to negate your views, but as I said there are shades of gray, so am trying to get you a glimpse of one of those shades.
I have been married for last 15 years now. I have gone through the experience of what you refer to as "...your partner not being able to connect to you because you have outgrown him/her.... and then you falling in “love” with someone who gets connected to you at such phase of your life...". When you say that both the partners should develop an understanding about occurrences of such incidents in each other’s life and try to accept it, aren’t we letting ourselves free from a potential responsibility?
Let me share with you my personal experience on this. When you get married to someone (whether arranged or love), both the partners own a responsibility of standing up for each other at every phase of your life. How easily we try to excuse ourselves from this responsibility by getting involved in "love" with someone else stating a reason of not finding the same level of connect with your wife/husband anymore (have understood that your definition of love is far wider than what I am trying to portray here, but you have made a passing reference to such a relationship as well). When I went through this experience, I was lucky to have a friend who made me realize that something somewhere is not the way as it should have been. I had not even once put in an effort to understand why are we (me and my wife) losing that connect and is there a way to mend it. I was too busy ensuring that my this new "love" relationship gets better, as I was more comfortable sharing things with her. And the excuse was so simple... "My wife does not understand me and my problems anymore".
My friend left me with a few questions to answer, which really made me think and change my outlook. I gave those questions a serious thought and am happy that I did take this issue a bit more seriously. It has been 5 years to that incident and now I have more friends outside but my love is still at home.... my wife. Let me tell you what were those questions: -
1. “Have you ever spent time with your wife to find out why are you losing that connect?”
2. “Is there something that she is struggling with (which I have never tried to know) and is the reason why she is unable to connect with you? If yes, then am I justified in leaving her with her problems and finding myself another soul mate?”
3. (The woman in whom I was finding my new "love" was quite younger to me and wasn’t married either). My friend asked me.... “No matter whether this new "love" accepts you as what you are and in whatever state of relationships you are in, can you justify yourself that you would never loose that connect with her as you did with your wife. And even if in the farthest possibility you have an answer to this as "I might.... as life is never static and change is inevitable", then you are just creating another problem for yourself and for this new woman in your life. You are not trying to solve a problem but running from one and creating another.”
Trust me those 3 questions made me rethink all that I was doing. I was actually running from a responsibility and a promise that I had made to my wife. Disowning a responsibility is easy but standing up to it is difficult. I was letting my heart rule my head in totality. But as it is said, “anything in excess is dangerous”. Coz nature teaches us…. “Its all about the right balance”. I am happy that I could regain that balance back. No, I don’t suggest to say that we have never lost the connect again with each other. But now I ensure that I am not shying away from the realities and am rather facing it. Today we talk more than what we used and this has helped us ensuring that although in different professional fields and stages in our career, we have never outgrown each other in our personal lives. And that’s what matters…
It’s good to practice empathy, sometimes its important to see the implications of what you do on others life as well.
am glad u worked out your relationship.
there are some other aspects to what I have written...disconnect that I refer to is "Values" disconnect and is much deeper.My basic belief in writing this is that " people do want their relationships to work". My blog nowhere says that one should shirk his responsibility. it is a personal call which is not explainable to anybody like the one you took.
apart from this, there is also an element of Karma, if u so choose to see.You will be in a husband-wife relationship with your wife till the time the completion has not taken place.
Moreover, what is done for better is always a relative question..
Never knew as much about you as I know now after reading your blog!
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