Relationships sound nice, right? All the cutesy, romantic things you get to do *heart eyes*. But when the real stuff such as communication, expectations, empathy come into play, many falter. Why? Let’s find out together
Partners often get triggered when the inner work hasn’t been done, when their identities start intertwining, ending up being entangled in each other, blurring boundaries on the way ‘to each other’s hearts’. Surely, nobody wants a confrontation, especially when the world romanticizes love to the point where being unhappy in a relationship means something must not be right with the person only, and this applies even more to women who have had multiple relationships in the past rather than to men because in their case? It’s just what they do and it ‘adds to their experience’, making them better lovers.
For my dear women: intuition is our strength! We are more sensitive to feelings but it’s of no use if we don’t act upon it, so dive in with all the love but don’t forget to lay down the boundaries asap!
Can we love someone too much like one can overwater a plant, killing it? How thin is the line between pure love and obsession?
One of my favourite classics, Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontĂ« delves exactly into the latter question, resulting in various readers and scholars debating it for years. Since the best seller was released in the 19th century, if the lovers in the book aka Heathcliff and Catherine were ‘too deep in a love for the world to understand’ or just toxically obsessed with each other. *Spoiler alert* Heathcliff’s secret meetings with Catherine, even after she was married to someone else, put emotional strain and placed overwhelming conflict in her and after one such impassioned meeting, she died shortly after in childbirth. I wouldn’t say Heathcliff directly killed his lover but such grief leading to no hope to live further is a psychological cause of death, which was pierced unto Catherine by him. Some would call it the piercing from the arrow of Cupid but really, was it?
In Star Wars too, *spoiler alert* Anakin Skywalker, the protagonist, fell for a princess named Padme and married her in secret, which was a bit inconvenient for his duties as he was a Jedi knight and Jedis weren’t permitted to even date anyone. Now, again plot twist! Visions about his dying wife started to haunt him in his nightmares; a dark overlord saw this, saw his weakness, and manipulated him into doing his bidding after he told him that he could teach him about the power of invincibility to save his wife, but only on one condition that he’d have to turn to the dark side
*cue tragic music*
The Chosen One betrayed his master and the Jedi council, only to be consumed by the dark side which blinded him so that even his love turned into violence as his visions turned out to be unfortunately true but ironically due to his own actions, actions which he had started to prevent the very thing from happening as he became the very villain he sought to destroy. His wife eerily dies in the exact same manner as Catherine did (does the portrayal of tragic relationships have some symbolism attached to the woman dying in childbirth?)
Well, why go far? The most classic example that you think of, when love is mentioned, is that of Romeo & Juliet.
Need I say more? Their fate is already well known.
But could that have changed if they had talked it all out at some point?
“Hi, we both come from families who are sworn enemies of each other. But I like you. So, let’s not try to kill each other and somehow persuade them to do the same? That’s the least we can do here”
But oh well.. If such communication happened then I agree it wouldn’t be the king of tragedies which it is today but we don’t want our love story to be one, right?
So, folks if someone says they’d burn down the world for you then turn around and run! Jokes aside, pivotal moments in relationships are key to knowing where the ebb and flow of both of your hearts and perspectives are, revealing the trigger points as well as the love language of the individual. Some prefer being independent and finding their own footing before committing to a relationship, others thrive with people who act as mirrors to them, revealing relational dynamics that dance when they join in as such people tend to understand themselves better, where they belong, when they start looking for that belongingness in social contexts.
Concluding, whichever way you are comfortable in, the goal is to know yourself, embrace your own identity, be harmonious and not let yourself be so enmeshed with another, in any kind of relationship that if there’s a fallout, you come crashing down and don’t know where you are at or who you are, at all.
So, cultivate your own interests, hobbies, go out with your own friends time to time and most importantly, the cliche advice but BE YOURSELF
And find someone who loves all of that, all of you :)
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