www.sandeepatre.com

All relationships are ‘two-way’ streets.

……….

It is convenient to be in a relationship as long as you are getting something in it – attention… time… love… care. But then comes a phase when the other person is not in a position to ‘give’, and in turn requires all of that.

And that’s the ‘litmus test’ for a relationship – “Will now the getter be able to turn into a giver”?

Well! The most difficult thing in life is to bear the shift of spotlight elsewhere. Yes! ‘Importance’ has a weird way to make a person ‘hungry for more’. However, in lasting relationships, partners have to be ready to alternately hold the torch and let the other person receive the ‘shine’.

And that’s where most relationships fail – because usually, one of the two is too addicted of ‘shining’.

……….

All healthy relationships are about ‘give and take’. The only thing is to realize…‘when to do what’.

“What is happening in our relationships is often a projection of what is going on inside us”

……….

I have known her for long. She is smart…independent…ambitious, and…with relationship status that consistently reads…‘it’s complicated’.

She doesn’t realize but her problem is that ‘she is forever attracted to someone who is hard to get’.

So this is how it goes: She finds that ‘someone’, obsesses, pursues, and makes a chase out of it. And finally, she wins. Congrats!!! She has achieved, conquered, clinched! But…‘now what’? Well! Now something goes missing. After all, when you start from the ‘peak’, the road ahead only goes downhill. Now, with ‘dopamine rush’ gone, things get messed up…it’s all lukewarm…and doesn’t quite feel the way it is supposed to.

And sadly, she doesn’t know that the problem is much bigger than she thinks. The problem is inside her.

The ‘achievement drive’ inside her is finding the wrong outlets. And the realm of relationships isn’t the apt one for a ‘100 meter’ race put on an infinite loop. It is supposed to be a golf game played for leisure, with many small goals, achieved one after another, on changing courses, with casual banters, unplanned laughs, pats on the back, high fives, occasional teasing and ‘never mind, there is always next time’ pronounced with a familiar accent.

Alas! I wish I could tell her…“Dear, you are all the time playing the wrong game on a right turf.

……….

And you know what? There is another thing I feel like whispering to her. And that is: “My girl…let me also tell you a secret…‘No man is actually even half as good as he seems while you are chasing him’”. 🙂

“Can a person be in love with two persons without being disloyal”?

……….

Before I answer it, let me rewind the conversation…

She said… “One of the most unsettling things in life is when…“you love someone…don’t get him…and then go on to live life with someone who loves you equally”.

I said… “I understand. Because then you are left with all the reasons to miss the first one, while the new one gives you no reasons to hate him. And there you are… stuck between your past and present… alternately living in ‘today’ and phasing out in the ‘yesterday’”.

I looked at her, and she nodded, with the relief of being understood.

She said “You know what? I feel like a cheat. Like an impostor”. “It is wrong…unethical…isn’t it?”

I said “Well! You can’t bind emotions with ethics. They have a world of their own, untouched by the notions of ‘right or wrong’. And you can’t just walk out of a relationship and walk into a new one effortlessly. Heart keeps the score”.

I could see a hint of calmness returning to her face.

Then she said “Then what’s the solution?”

I said “There is no solution. Because there is no problem. It is all natural. It is all organic”. “Just stay there and allow heart to deal with ‘the change and the consequent confusion’”. “And trust it. It eventually does get into the right place”.

She said “But why can’t heart listen to the mind?”

I said “Because, to change, heart doesn’t require reasons. It requires…time”

……….

Coming back to our question… “Can one feel love for two persons equally”?

Well! Don’t mind, but it is mind’s question. And heart doesn’t deal in Q&A. If it feels something, it feels it. And it can’t stop feeling it just because you think it shouldn’t feel that way. So, let mind and heart settle this one between themselves…

And you just stand there, without taking sides. 

“Trust is a huge burden! It weighs you down even while lifting you up”.    

……….

She was convinced that they had no future together. And her dear ones were playing the devil’s advocate rather well. Thus, by the end of the discussion, she could see that it was better to move on. After all, for how long can one chase shadows…!

So end it did. And with her better sense prevailing, she chose the safer harbors in life and is quite settled today, with all her fb photos having someone who is holding her, as well as someone she is holding.

And ‘he’ simply disappeared after that. But you know what? I still consider him ‘a winner’! And the reason lies in the content of my last conversation with her about him…

I said “I guess they all are right. You got to move on.”

She said “Yes! I know. But I am simply unable to do that”.

I said “But you cannot get bound by someone like that”.

She said “You don’t get it. He has always set me free, and has never tried to bind me”.

I quizzically said… “Then…?”

……….

She bit her lip in anguish and uttered… “And that’s what binds me”.