A Doll's House By IBSEN - A play that can save marriages

Marriage Counseling in Literature 

Torvald and Nora are husband and wife. They have three children. Nora is a housewife and Torvald is making a career in banking. They are apparently a happy couple. They face ups and down slowly and their relationship disintegrates without any obvious major flaw.

We read the play and trace the events that caused a loving, lovely wife to abandon her caring and careerist husband. It may help in saving a marital relationship.

1. Secrecy and Suspense

If either of the spouses is fond of keeping secrets to give a surprise, it definitely is going to hurt sooner or later.

Opening line of the act

Nora: Hide that Christmas tree away, Helen. The children mustn't see it before I've decorated it this evening.

The opening dialogue reveals the character of Nora. The Nora is in the habit of hiding the things. She is prone to keep the things secret. Since it is a trait of her character she is not only hiding the things from children but also from the husband.

Symbolically, she herself is a Christmas tree and she hides her character from her husband, children and friends.

Surprises are good, lest you don't have to pay for it.

It reminds us a story by O. Henry "The gift of the Magi". Magi sells her long lustrous hair to buy a chain of a golden watch for Jim, while Jim sales his watch to buy a set of combs for his beloved Magi. To surprise each other they sold the only two precious things in their house.

Some people are not apt to handle a surprise, suspense or secret. The spouse should avoid to keep anything secret between them. This relationship needs absolute transparency. May be both of them would undergo a turmoil, but it might save their marriage.

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2. Avoid to call pet names

Helmer, the husband of Nora arrives home from the office and found his wife busy in opening parcels of the gifts she has bought from shops.

Despite the fact that Helmer does not like the overspending habits of his wife, he calls her by lot of pet names like skylark, squirrel and squander-bird.

A lot of pet names should ring a danger bell in your ears.

Quinine is always sugar- coated.

Excessive polite persons are dangerous.

They are not newlywed couple. Nora is already mother of two children. Any wife should be proud of being called by so many pet names by her husband. A wise wife would be suspicious.

3. Debts may ruin a relationship:

Helmer believes "a home that is founded on debts and borrowings can never be a place of freedom and beauty".

Wrong act for a right cause does not justify the action. Nora borrowed money for the treatment of her husband. Helmer needed a change of weather  to recover from an ailment. Nora borrowed the money from a crook Krogstad by forging documents.

Nora has acted just against the philosophy of her husband. She knew very well how much her husband hated borrowing money.

If we know Nora we cannot overrule the possibility that she herself was interested in a tour to Italy. It was her long awaited cherished dream.

Even if she went with the pious objective to save the life of Helmer, she did the folly of hiding the fact from the husband.

Her husband remained under the impression that she has inherited money from deceased father.

Helmer was a lawyer and a banker. He could have arranged financing. What tempted Nora to manage finances on her own. It is illegal for a wife to borrow money without the knowledge of her husband.

4. One lie leads to another

Nora accepts that she wants money in the gift. She always needs money to pay the installments to Krogstad.

Later, Helmer, while returning home saw Krogstad  depart. He asks Nora if there was any visitor and she declines. Helmer says ""A songbird must have a clean beak to sing with, otherwise she will start twittering out of tune."

Helmer is of the view ''an atmosphere of lies contaminates and poisons every corner of the home. Every breath that the children draw in such a house contains the germ of the evil."

5. Fruitless Efforts

Helmer reminds her how Nora tried to surprise him on Christmas by making flowers which were later ruined by a cat, before she could gift them on Christmas.

Helmer says those were the most boring three weeks of his life when Nora shut her up in a room to prepare surprise gift for him. But Nora did not find it boring, despite the fact all her efforts remained fruitless.

Nora has her obsessions and she is self centered also. She does not care if her husband suffers a boredom so far as she enjoys making flowers. For her, making flowers is more important than providing a company to her husband.

Helmer says "You simply wanted to make us happy , and that's all that matters".

But that's not all that matters, obviously. Fruitless efforts to make marriage work does more harm than good.

6. Female friends of wife

They are a potential threat to marriage. Mrs.Linde, who is a childhood friend of Nora is frequently visiting Nora's home. She becomes jealous of her happy life. She is also an ex lover of Krogstad, and now has a plan to rejuvenate her relationship. Helmer hates Krogstad and has removed him from bank job. Nora, innocently or foolishly shares her secret with her best friend. Later, when Krogstad writes a letter to Helmer, disclosing the secret of Nora, Mrs. Linde stops him from withdrawing the letter, though she knew it would destroy the marriage of her best friend.

Shakespeare says " Frailty, thy name is woman", That frailty might be jealousy also.

When Nora suggests her to take a break, Mrs. Linde retorts "I have no papa to pay for my holidays, Nora". The spite is evident.

7. Money matters

Most of the girls would prefer a rich husband. Ideally, they would circumvent the truth to sound as if of high morale.

Mrs. Linde ditched penniless Krogstad to marry a man who was well off, so that he would take care of her aged mother and two minor brothers.

8. We owe each other

Nora has an argument "he is so proud of being a man-it'd so painful and humiliating for him to know that he owed anything to me. It'd completely wreck our relationship."

Nora does not cut on luxuries of her husband or needs of her children, but cut expenses on her cloth to pay installments. She also earns money by copying.

"It was almost like being a man"- she says.

She is not satisfied with her role of wife and mother. It gives her pleasure to act like man, to earn money. It serves her egocentric need of an identity.

9. Guilt destroys the fun

The whole story is fabricated on the lie told by Nora. Nora is constantly suffering from a guilty conscience.

10. Jealous husbands are not necessarily loving husband.

In Act 2 Nora says to her friend "Torvald is so hopelessly in love with me that he wants to have me all to himself".

A possessive husband is no guarantee of true love.

Nora represents the entire generation of women who are sick of being possessed. The protection or security promised by husband doesn't come cheap. Women feel a loss of identity in their traditional role model. A husband as a companion should help in her search. Only a insecure husband would say what Helmer says "I shall watch over like a hunted dove which I  have snatched unharmed from the claws of falcon."

Helmer had conditioned the mind of Nora by constantly comparing her with bird and squirrel. In his opinion, no woman was more than that.

When he reads the letter of Krogstad his true character is revealed. It is an eye opener for Nora. Helmer loves his own reputation more than he loves Nora. Nora was crestfallen, she imagined that her loving and caring husband would take the blame of forgery to save her.  

When this realisation precipitates, she takes her decision."I must stand on my own feet if I am to find out truth about myself and about life."

Nora walks out from stage and also from the life of Helmer.

Related Topics

1.Games Spouse Play

2.Charms of Domestic Violence

3.Marital Rape

4.The Hybrid Women

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India 

Games Spouse Play

                  Ten things to do when you feel ignored

In ‘Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf’’ By Edward Albee, the author has shown the hollowness of the society. Two couples play many different games in one night. That is one of the best American dramas. In actual life this drama is always going on. The games are different for each couple.

In ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ By D. H. Lawrence, Constance and her crippled husband Clifford Chatterley play games with each other. The emotional neglect by husband inflames physical desires of Connie and she is hurt because her husband is more aristocrat than her.

The Judiciary is unanimous that 'emotional neglect' of a wife or husband is a sort of mental cruelty. Some examples can be quoted,

1. If the wife does not serve food on dinner table, she is considered to be neglecting domestic duties

2. If the husband while going to office does not bid farewell (no hug, no kiss not even smile) to his wife, he is guilty of emotional neglect.

What is there between husband and wife, which cannot be classified as mental cruelty, if seen from a certain angle.

Look at Anna Karenina in the great novel by Leo Tolstoy. She could neither ignore the cold behaviour of her husband nor the advances made by flamboyant Count Vronsky. The main plot and sub plot of the novel are an excellent example of the games spouse play.

Whether it is ‘no-fault’ divorce law of US or section 13 (B) of Hindu Marriage Act that permits divorce by mutual consent, the society is unable to sustain the institution of marriage and has made it convenient for couples to walk out of wedlock even without any paltry ground.

Just because they did not learn the tact to ignore the things without tentamounting to emotional neglect.

It is best to ignore the trifle, but it is not good to emotionally neglect the spouse. They have a moral obligation to pamper the Ego of each other once a while.

Ten things to do when you feel ignored:

1. Go by Old Testament law of ‘Tooth for Tooth’. Ignore 'being ignored'.

2.  Act normal, even if your mind is storming. After all world is stage and we all are actors (William Shakespeare).

3. Be more aggressive while talking on the phone or with vendors. Rebuke anyone on a fake call. It is not only catharsis for your own self, but also puts your spouse under psychological pressure.

4. Wear your best dresses or change your wardrobe (ignore your credit crunch). A well dressed woman has more self confidence, more self-esteem and makes spouse jealous of her. Love me or hate me, but you can’t ignore me. Right?

5.  Be extra cordial to the friends of your spouse.

6. Pretend to pray even if you don’t believe in God, like in Tall man Small Shadow. It puts off even hard nuts and they crack.

7. Bed is the best place for reconciliation.

8. Only insecure persons emotionally neglect. Search for the cause of that insecurity and mend it.

9. Do not involve your friends in the game you are playing with your spouse. You will only worsen the situation.

10. Some mental cruelty may strengthen the nuptial bond when reconciled.

Finally, remember ‘Gone With the Wind’. How tactfully Rhett Butler ignored Scarlet by mocking her and eventually  tries to win her by indifference and cruelty. Scarlet obsessed by Ashley scorns the men and wins them.

Miracles of emotional neglect are yet to be explored.

© Vipin Behari Goyal
Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India

The Charms of Domestic Violence

                                  He Hit Me (and It Felt like a Kiss)

                                                                                 [Image Courtsey: Wikipedia]

Ten sentences that are prelude to Domestic Violence

It starts like this at a  point of time in the marital relationship

1. I am fed up with you
2. Leave me alone
3. Get lost and never show me your face again.
4.  I think we are not made for each other
5. You are no more same to whom I loved
6. Better to be stranger than enemy
7. I curse the moment I fell in love with you.
8. I hate you. /I hate everything about you.
9. I want to walk out of marriage
10. Our marriage is a blunder

These dialogues are obviously followed by satires, quarrels, mud-slinging, blame game, manhandling and what we call as domestic violence.

Then we need more counseling sessions with a Psychiatrist to reconcile the situation and to heal the bruised ego.

Domestic violence is one of the most ignored crimes all over the world. The rate of domestic violence should determine the Happiness Index of any country.

Very surprisingly, it is equally popular (?) in rural and urban areas, but the number of cases reported are more in Urban areas.

We have some other issues to ponder than compare forms and types of Domestic Violence,

James Hartford, Jr. Who was charged for beating his wife in Detroit was wearing dirty white tank

top  with baked bean stains on it set the trend for "wife beaters" shirt and gave new dimension to

 the age old hobby of showing off vulgar proud in masculinity as macho man.

Ten options woman has:

1. To hit him back only once to make him realize that she too can do it

2. To hit him back equal or more to settle the issue once for all, Tooth for tooth.

3. To apologize even if it is his mistake and accept his dominance

4. To walk out temporarily and stay with friends or walk in Public Park.

5. To walk out of relationship permanently.

6. Call the Police and file a suit

7. Shut herself in a room and have a shot

8. Break crockery and create tantrums

9. Wait till he is sober and then discuss with patience

10. Last but not the least, which you might be doing often is, forgive and forget

All above solutions are for so called Normal people, exceptionally if you are sadomasochist or a 

lover of  book "Fifty shades of Grey", you have to search for reasons why did you enjoy reading

 that book which normal people discard as  disgusting. If you really felt like being kissed when 

you were hit, the secret lies in the deeper layers of your psyche. May be

1. That is how your mother or elder sister who was your childhood idol behaved

2. You were exposed to  media which glamorized this kind of behavior

3. You suffer from a guilt-conscious and like to be punished

4. Your relationship is Love- Hate type and you hate your weakness (love) for him.

5. You were victim of child abuse.

Celebrities like Kim Kardashian have been used by artist to highlight the domestic violence against women.

When a matter pertains to human psyche the list is always endless since every individual has a 

different perception and reacts differently. Every case is different from other and some 

generalization is possible only after research.

Literature helps in developing insight.

The frequency, intensity and duration of domestic violence has some statistical correlation with 

conjugal activities of the couple which needs to be explored. Havelock Ellis claims that for women pain and sexual pleasure were sometime indistinguishable; the normal manifestation of women's sexual pleasure are exceedingly like pain.

George Bernard Shaw's play 'Pygmalion' is based on social realism. Higgins in last Act says to Eliza " be off with you to the sort of people you like. Marry some sentimental hog or other with lots of money, and a thick pair of lips to kiss you and a thick pair of boots to kiss you with."

However literature,  traces romanticism in domestic violence and accepts it as an expression of love since the Middle Ages.

 © Vipin Behari Goyal

Advocate,Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Make -Up Your Break-Up

The worst is Over: Make-Up your Break-Up©

Pexels

Makeup is multidimensional phenomenon and you have to exhaust all possible aspects of it to get rid of the hangover of break up.

Easier said than done. So far there was a hope "Everything is going to turn out fine", "It is a temporary phase, we would come out of it", "We will forgive and forget", "Happy days are just around the corner", "It's a nightmare. It's not real" was the game you were playing with your mind.

Here are few remedies:

1. Allow Precipitation:

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It takes time to precipitate. The more you were caught in the whirlwind the more time it is likely to take. The world was not spinning, you just imagined it. When precipitation is over you can see the things clearly. You may exclaim "Oh, My God, was I blind not to see it before. No you were not! You were just caught in the spell of a Magician.

Learn to play tricks of Magician here.

2. Travel Far and Wide:

The farther you go, better you would feel. Antarctica is not a great destination. Choose a country which is rich in history, culture and social values. A poor country would change your perspective. You will be amazed how people are coping with the failures of life. Travel like a traveler and not like a tourist. Even if you are rich travel by ordinary means of transport, stay in cheaper lodges and mingle with local people.

If the country has spiritual heritage, it could change you dramatically and drastically.

Read one story here

3. Pull or Push:

To come out of the situation you are strangled in, either you have to Push or Pull. It is not an ordinary dilemma, but a Metaphysical one. The option is to choose between "Free Will" and "Determinism". Either take the responsibility for the situation you are in or accept it as your destiny.

You can read how it affects your life here.

4. Paper has more patience than People:

Pen it down ! Whatever, and of course whatever is your exact feelings, pen them down. Do not relive those moments, you are already over them. Be a spectator and see what happened as a third person. It is Catharsis and it is going to calm down your nerves.

5. Read Best Literature:

 Read the best literature of the World. Ultimately a book will land in your hands that would give you more solace than anything you have tried so far.

Some of the best books are "The end of affair " by Graham Green "Licks of Love" by John Updike and "The company she keeps" by Mary McCarthy. Read some Philosophical books like "Why bad things happen to good people" by Harold Kushner and "Notes from the underground" by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

What else Make-Up means:

The most simple meaning is to apply Cosmetics especially to the face. So do that. It is strange. You are melancholic but a light make up would enhance your beauty. Otherwise also, human look more glamorous when desolate. Gloom is aesthetic emotion. You have a chance to test the aesthetics of the people around you.

Second, Make-Up means  'be reconciled after a quarrel'. Though you have already ruled out this possibility and have made up your mind that you can not be together even if you are the only Homo  Sapiens left on Earth. Despite our all despise the chance exists.

Third, Make Up for lost time. It's ages since you lost contact with your real world. You have ignored your friends and  relatives who really cared for you, for a stranger. Its high time you patch up with them. They would understand, or maybe they would care more. Also make up for lost time with your hobbies. Read the half finished book with a mark, waiting eagerly to be touched by you. Take care of your garden that once you reared so carefully. Mow the lawn, weed out as you have weeded out memories, water the plants and talk to your favorite trees. Say sorry that you ignored them all the while.

Most important meaning of Make-Up is 'the physical, mental, and moral character of a person'. So this is the Acid Test of your character.

Its high time you prove yourself.

Part I here 

Wish You A Happy Break-Up :You Deserve Better

Part II here

Wish you happy Break-Up: Real Life -Style

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his Book "The Worst is Over"

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/

Wish You A Happy Break-Up :You Deserve Better

                            Myth of Made for Each Other

In many Tribal Communities and now advance communities Polyamory or Polyfidelitous, where more than two persons consent for Group Marriage depending upon their sexual orientation, would lead to an alternate society. It could be a Line Marriage if both partners agree to invite any third person of either gender to be a part of the family to save their stale marriage life.

Two great Indian Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have many examples of such group marriages. In Ramayana Bali and Sugriva who were twin tribal brothers had Tara as their wife, father of Rama had three wives and in Mahabharata Five brothers had one wife and Krishna had innumerable wives.

Materialism has made human egocentric and possessive. He has become bundles of the negative qualities of other animals. Made for each other is a myth which suits aristocratic apologists who were anti feminist and were always scared of powerful women. In other words, the authority of church or any religious institution to provide a certificate of approval and declare loving couple as 'man and wife' till death do them apart, was a conspiracy of the society.

This complementary relationship with ' The other half ' or ' Better half ' is Utopian which is fictional in origin. Art and literature, especially poetry was invented by Man to appease women for ulterior motives. Woman at a point of time acts naive and is flattered to the advantage of man.

From Buddha (Unfathomably deep, deep like a fish course in the water is the character of a woman)  to Freud ('The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?" - Sigmund Freud: Life and Work)  women were proclaimed to be mysterious, not because they are, but because it helps  promoting chauvinism and gender-superiority.

Acknowledge these Five types of relationship which always exists when Dynamics of any Relationship are explored (explained in detail in the book "Worst is Over")

1. Sustainable Relationship: Are those relationships which 'takes less and gives more'. They lead to enrichment and nourishment of relationship.

2. Love-Hate Relationship: More you love, more likely you would hate. They go together. Some exercises may help you identify the proportion of each in your relationship.

3. Vacuumised Relationship: Why do you prefer to buy vacuumised packs of eatables. They keep the things fresh. That is how a vacuumised relationship always remains fresh.

4. Oedipus-Electra Relationship: Woman searches the quality of her father and Man searches for the qualities of his mother in their  relationship. It leads them to disappointment in each other.

5. Naturalistic Relationship: Relationship would grow only if it is naturalistic and leads to emptiness or quiescence. When the pendulum is going on one side, it is gaining energy to reach on the other side.

Dynamics of Organizational behavior are easy to handle, but the dynamics of the relationship between two individuals has more dimensions than one can imagine.

As it is said  "Better Luck Next Time"

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his Book "The Worst is Over"

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/

Wish you happy Break-Up: Real Life -Style

                       Dynamics of Healthy and Sick Relationship

Pixabay

Graphs are great instruments to understand the phenomenon of life. Just like Yantra in Hinduism is a geometrical representation of  Mantra, embodiment of power house to recharge the battery of life, similarly  graph also help  in understanding  the contours of life.

The journey at Plateau from Point B to Point D is very important. It is not necessary, you would have only one dip at Point C, on the contrary the road is quite bumpy and it is more important that after every dip both the individuals feel a growth as a human being, which is the ultimate object of any relationship.

As we have seen earlier all relationships have different equation, so they have different remedies to rectify the imbalance. As our body yearns for harmony so does all relationship tends to be harmonious. We can only generalize some of the most common factors causing imbalance:

1. Boredom: One of the most common cause is boredom. If both the partners are creative and innovative, they soon find out a way to kill the boredom and head ahead.. If both are non creative, they may not feel that boredom has crept in and would be killed by it unknowingly. If either of them is creative he/she has a greater amount of trouble than the first two types. The non creative partner acts as dead weight and all the efforts made by creative one are laughed at and ridiculed.

2. Aggression: Second deadly emotion is aggression. It does not mean being aggressive towards your partner. It means 'Aggressive Life Style'. It means 'snatching by walking into the other's territory'. If either of the partners has aggressive life style and other is not extraordinarily meek, they would quarrel in public like two crazy people and if another partner is meek he /she would slip out of bed one fine night and walk away.

3. Satirical: Being satirical is worse than domestic violence victimization. Domestic violence has lots of support from society and law, but you can't call the Police if your partner has just passed a satirical comment leaving you speechless and battered. The quality of satires may vary depending upon the intellectual level of couple. A single satire in appropriate situation may lead to the breakup. The idea is to control the desire to pass a satire or revert back with a satire. It could save a relationship.

4. Consensual:  Consensual couple is likely to break up earlier. Being always consensual starts sending red signals and if the other partner is not an asshole he would know that their relationship is now terminable at any moment. Nagging is not the remedy or could be worse. The idea is to suggest something better or to come out with a better alternative to the proposal of your partner, not to make him feel inferior, but to show that there is application of mind on your part also. If done tactfully it could lead to a magical relationship.

5. Timidity: The moment your partner realizes that you are very  timid, he/she  would emotionally blackmail you, till you collapse in self pity. If you are not brave, you can't pretend to be brave all the time. But you have to take a stand once a while and stick to it with firmness. Your partner would be agitated by such unpredictable behavior, but it would leave him amazed and you could see a new respect in his/her eyes for you.

Past, howsoever bitter it may be has sweet memories. So, cherish the memories of all that happened between you, when the graph after Point D would take up an upward turn and take your relationship to a new height.

Other related Post
Make-Up Your Break Up 
Myth of Made for Each Other                                                                                                                            

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his Book "The Worst is Over"

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/

Wish you a Happy Break-Up: In Literary Style

                Ten Rules Related to Breakups

"Nothing would have delighted me more than to hear that she was sick, unhappy, dying."-The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

If you think your relationship is heading towards a breakup, you have already reached there.

Now it's only the matter of Time.

Thumb Rule is 'The Earlier the Better"

It may sound callous, but it's a hard fact that early acknowledgement saves your self esteem and hurt does not bleed excessively. Here are the Ten Commandments that effect Adam-Eve Relationship.

1. Arithmetic of Relationship:  

Howsoever we may despise to admit the fact this age old institution of "relationship between opposite sex" is governed by certain Theories of Arithmetic". The Basic principle of  2+2=4 applies to this relationship also. When in love or possessed by love the couple starts believing that 1+1=1. This is an undeniable eternal truth that  two different entities if merge to become one, they have to lose all the earlier attributes attached to the identity created consciously or subconsciously to project a self-image.  

Ultimately, any effort  to violate the Rules of Arithmetic is futile and the temporary Unification leads to permanent Diversification.

Avoid  'I is you' and 'You is me'  feeling at any cost. Remain two islands connected by a bridge of Love, if you want your relationship to be eternal.

2. Search for the Philosophy of relationship:

 As no two individuals are alike, so are no two relationships alike in the whole world. 'Every couple in Love' is governed by a different and unique philosophy that defines their relationship. 

Never imitate a character of a novel you liked most, any actor or actress you are influenced with in real or on screen life, your friends or foes.

It is one of the most difficult parts. Because our logical part of the mind is diagonally  opposite to emotional mind and it needs two minds to draw an understanding of a Philosophy, to which both of them agree. If it is achieved, you are glued forever.

3. Possessiveness versus Permissiveness: 

The root cause of all evils is 'Me' and 'Mine'. The attachment can best be enjoyed by a detached outlook on life. Like a drop of water on a lotus leaf. It is there without soaking leaf. It is easier said than done. It is a mental state or 'Conditioning of mind to be Unconditioned.' 

Like all great things come from perseverance, this mental state also comes by hard toil.

All attachments are like wound on a dog. He loves to lick them. Don't lick your wounds. Do not draw any sadistic pleasure out of it. It is pettiest to have a self pity. You simply didn't own what you have lost. How can you regret losing something that was not yours.

The first moment when one realizes being possessive should act immediately to overcome it. The cure usually lies in the ailment itself. The act of your partner that made you jealous, gave a pang in your heart or made you melancholic, grant him permission to act like that. Initially, it may look hard, but gradually you would feel that you are more in control of the situation than your partner is.

Chances are that your partner would feel guilty and would come back to you.

Do not cry in either of the situation. If at all you need to, do it privately with lot of Tissue Paper around, but never search for a shoulder when you want to cry, and at least never on the shoulder of your partner.

4. Life is Journey, Relationships are Conveyance:

Look at it like this. Life is long beautiful journey and it passes through different terrains, which makes the whole journey an interesting adventure.

Some conveyances are God gifted and others you can choose. Those we are born with are most easy to handle. Since we have no alternatives for those relations, we learn to accept them by birth. Even if there is some superficial change like Break-Up of parents the relation by blood never ends.

One must own the responsibility of having chosen a relationship. Usually the defense-mechanism of the mind does not permit us to take the responsibility and a blame game ensues.

5. Stretch your Plateau: 

See the chart. The intensity of the relationship decreases with the passage of time. You have to expand the plateau that is the span, when you have maximum intensity for each other. Most of the relationship recedes to E after the first depression at C. If both are wise, they work out the cause and mend the relationship which makes it more sound.

Read Part 2: Myth of Made for Each Other

Read Part 3: Dynamics of Relationship

                                                                     

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Excerpts from his Book "The Worst is Over"

Author is also Advocate at Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur

Read more at: http://vipinbeharigoyal.blogspot.in/