I have always believed that Love and Relationships are different things, often misunderstood to be the same.
If love is a feeling, an emotion, you can love anyone you wish to, and from a distance too. You do not expect anything in return so whatever you receive is a gift, a bonus, a dessert for your meal. Love inherently is unconditional and non-judgmental. Something close to divine and inexplicable. Can you think of how you love your friends and never judge them to be anything less than perfect no matter how they are and how different they are from you or your other friends?
And then comes infatuation. Oh, that feeling when your mind is on Cloud Nine! The start of a heady love-affair. The butterflies in your stomach. How you think of them almost all the time. How all the love songs suddenly make sense. And how, even if it is the umpteenth time you have a crush, you can't help but see your crush as no less than human embodiment of perfection.
Sometimes, we love this feeling of infatuation so much that we end up chasing it one after the other. Think of serial dating on online dating apps these days.
Sometimes, we are so attached to this feeling of infatuation that we forget to see all the red flags and jump into a relationship already with the other person.
And at other times, we take our time through the infatuation, enjoy the so-called "honey moon period", and then get into a relationship and forever miss the period of courtship.
Relationships are hard work. Marriages are hard work. Don't get me wrong, it is easy to find someone you can marry and then marry that person. It is hard to stay married. Or stay happily married.
And this is why so many couples keep complaining about their spouses. A) Some complaints are just benign and pesky like how the guy never hooks the door when he enters the bathroom or how the girl keeps complaining about the food in the restaurant as if the guy cooked it. B) Some complaints are lethal like domestic violence or verbal abuse.
I used to wonder why so many people stayed married while complaining while they could just leave. But they never leave. All they say is - "Please don't get married like we did. You are enjoying your life. We are living in hell, here."
I don't think they are living in hell though. I used to. Not anymore. I think when it is the first kind of pesky complaints, it is mostly that they miss the sweet things that used to feel rewarding during the courtship period, but now feels like they deserve it but they don't get it when they need/want it.
But they still love the other person. Maybe not in a public restaurant or on an IG story. But they love them in a way that involves a lot of care yet is a bit conditional and judgmental in nature. These are arranged marriages, and love marriages where the spark is lost but some love remains.
The landlady at my new apartment, just like the landlady at my previous apartment, said to me - "Don't get married. After you get married, life becomes more about your husband and child than yourself. There is no time for yoga or meditation. I wish I was single."
"I don't think so, or else you would not have stayed married for so long." I said this for the first time to someone, although it was the umpteenth time I had heard this statement.
"You are right, Sanhita. It is nice to have companionship. It is too much work managing a house, but it is nice to have people around." There was the truth she uttered after I gave it a thought.
This reminds me of what my dear friend AM told me a couple of years back. "When someone tells you to not get married but is married themselves, just ask them to get a divorce and see their reaction!" :-D
People choose what they choose and it includes their life styles and relationships too.
If you are in a relationship, and are constantly complaining about your spouse, either seriously or as a joke, the thing is you are choosing to be in it. You are choosing to not leave it either out of the fear that you will not get anyone better or because of the love you have for the other person. Now what remains is another choice for today and tomorrow. Is complaining or getting annoyed over little things working for you?
The second kind (abuse/violence) is more psychological in nature. It becomes like a drug. You are blinded in love but also dipped in toxicity. That is to be kept for another day.
What most people go through is the first kind. The complaints they feel are not enough to get a divorce, and yet not too few to be happy in the relationship.
While when you are in love, all you have is attachment and butterflies. A secure relationship demands that you remain a little detached, that you feel whole yourself as a person, and anything the other person offers become a dessert while you remain the main course, the steak.
But let's face it, detachment sucks sometimes. Being detached and saint-like makes us miss some little joys of silly things sometimes. Having no heady emotions is boring. Sometimes we love to lose our wholeness and become this needy pathetic mess. Sometimes we want to expect all the things in the world. It's more of a stubbornness than anything real or permanent, I promise.
The day before yesterday I was a miserable mess with Mr. B. All I really wanted was probably one decent phone-call or a coffee/dinner date, and because I wanted him to initiate it and he didn't, (Turns out - Lovers can't read minds! Say what? :D) I did throw my share of tantrums over other things and created a mound out of a molehill, instead of simply initiating what I expected. This was a first for me. I don't remember doing anything like this before.
So, I couldn't help but wonder that is this what other people go through too when they complain about their spouses? I used to believe anyone who complains about their spouses should either stop complaining and honour the other person for all the efforts they put in, or just leave through the front door and live with themselves or someone else.
But when I experienced something similar, something that was a first dramatic fight for me instead of an open conversation, I realized I didn't want to walk out the front door. I just was tired and exhausted from all the house work I was doing, and I wanted a little cradle where I could lie down to rest. I just wanted a hug and some words that would sound like, "It's okay. Take some rest. The house can be set tomorrow."
My tantrums were enough to make him meet me, not for a well-dressed dinner date but for a rushed and quick catch-up in-between work. I made him meet me up only to push him further away with my tears and tantrums.
"Do you want me to leave or do you want a hug?" He asked.
"A hug," I responded while wiping my tears.
As soon as we hugged, I was fine. Turns out, that was all I needed - some attention, some support.
Sometimes I call up my friends and ask them directly, "I want to crib. Can I have some of your sympathy?"
"You can crib. But you won't get any sympathy," they would respond.
"Why can't I? Please! I want some sympathy," I would insist.
And they would eventually remind me why I don't need that sympathy, and then we laugh it all off.
Sometimes we need some silly things in life, and it is okay to ask for them. And then remind ourselves, that we don't really need them, but we just want to enjoy some of that. Like an ice cream.
You can't expect anyone else to fulfill you or all your needs. But you can't hug yourself either. You can be your own 7 course meal, but somedays you would like an extra scoop of ice cream.
And how many times we just forget to ask for what we truly need, and create problems instead?
How many times do we hide our real desires and suppress them with trivial ones and then never get satisfied or truly happy?
Even with our family members, when we want to say "I am tired. Can you please cook/clean today?" We end up saying "You don't do anything. You're always on your phone" etc. Not anyone's fault. We are all neurologically programmed to either play the role of the victim, the perpetrator or the rescuer in our social interactions. But we can break out of it.
How many times do we keep complaining about our boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses/siblings/kids over trivial matters, but never figure out the real reason that all we need could be a little appreciation after a long and tiring day?
Of course, therapy and healing from past traumas becomes a continuous practice in everyday life. We work on our triggers and underlying fears continuously. It makes life so much better. But even years of therapy can't make you perfect unless you work on yourself everyday. And then you can love your imperfections too. If it were some 3 years before, I would have shamed myself for having needs. 'How dare I not be perfect and fully independent?' I would have thought. But I am dependent on my maid, on the Ola cab driver, on my phone, on Swiggy, on the farmers who grow the food and so many things in the world. Yes, we can always find alternatives and manage, but we would be dependent on something or the other. The word independence isn't applicable to us humans at all.
But what if we don't need to wait our entire lives to be completely healed, completely whole, completely needless, a full-fledged saint and only then allow ourselves to receive a gentle hug?
I know so many of my friends are waiting to be fully healed. And we think every aspect of life would be perfect after that. But life goes, and that perfection never comes. I jokingly say that I run a single people cohort on IG. If someone is single, I know them. But I would rather love fully and deeply and get my heart broken, get hurt, and move on building my resilience than to never have loved at all.
Even saints get angry. They aren't God. (Looking at the condition of the world, maybe God gets angry too. Who knows?)
Even if you are at your completely fucked-up messed-up worst self, you deserve to be loved, and sometimes, especially then.
What if when we need the hug, we simply ask for it instead of expecting the other person to read our minds?
You don't need to be perfect to allow little perfect things to come to you.
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Sometimes, because you are a strong and independent woman, everyone expects you to remain strong and independent. You can wipe a million tears dropped by others, but dare you shed one. No one can take it. How can that strong woman give up or break down or have a meltdown? Until you realize, real beauty lies in being so vulnerable that your vulnerability is no longer a sign of weakness, that you can be vulnerable because you are so strong. And it's okay to be sad at times, to cry. You don't have to be so hard on yourself to always appear strong. This is an affirmation I tweaked from Dr. Gaurav's affirmation - No matter how I show up, I am loved. It means some days I am going to be messy. It means some days I am going to be confused. And all the other days, I will be as amazing as I can be.
And in all kinds of days, I am going to show myself compassion and love, and I will be willing to receive compassion and love. We would want to push people away on our hard days, on sad days, on difficult days. We think our dark sides and worst sides aren't worth being loved. But healing is all about loving those dark and ugly parts a little extra. Healing is about embracing them and realizing they are not meant to be pushed away. Healing is about knowing you need not be perfect, that perfection isn't a pre-condition to be loved, accepted or appreciated.
A lot of my clients come to me and tell me how they need to be the best to be loved. Let's say, the best at their college exam, or in the office, or in sports. But no one's love is conditioned upon those factors. Life is not your school exam that only the one who comes first wins, and there is only one first position. We think if we can just be the best, better than all the other people they know, they will love us. But do you choose people to love that way? Are your friends the best in class and hence, you love them? Or is it that you love them and that's why they feel like the best the world has to give?
You can never be perfect. There's a silly example I give my friends. You can be Aishwarya Rai but someone's still going to say Angelina Jolie is prettier. So, why not stop this need to be fully perfect? Allow yourself to be seen, to be loved.
You know, how it's easy to chew on those Chicken Wings and Burgers with friends but never on a date? But if you have to truly live with someone, they will see you on your days when your nose is running, and you are coughing, and you don't have any make-up on or your charm on. So, why not bring out your true self instead? And see who leaves, and see who stays?
(While love requires passion, relationships require patience)
Where are you waiting to be chosen so much that you forgot that you have the power to choose?
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