A Lesson In Relationships...

...I’m going to take a little bit of time today and talk about relationships. There are a lot of people out there that have problems in theirs. The complaints range anywhere from he or she is cheating to he’s too clingy and everywhere in between.  One thing we have to keep in mind in this day and age is that nothing lasts forever anymore. No matter how good it is at the beginning. People change and that is a fact. It is not anyone’s fault. It doesn’t mean that one person or the other did anything wrong, people just change. Circumstances change, feelings grow cold, the new becomes the normal. The strong passions that once burned wild in a relationship become nothing but embers smoldering in the soft light of morning. A person begins to look for some type of excitement to cure their boredom with their present relationship. It’s not that the person doesn’t love the other, things have just gotten old. Some people turn to hobbies or favorite pastimes, like fishing, sports, video games, books, whatever keeps them busy. Some people look for companionship, someone new and exciting to get to know. It is not always sexual companionship, but sometimes it is, and sometimes it doesn’t start as such, but turns that way after a time. Whatever the chosen outlet may be, this is where the problem starts. Not that there is anything wrong with taking up hobbies to keep yourself busy, but taking up hobbies to avoid a problem in the relationship is never good. The problem is a lack of communication. Let’s take for this example, a man that is getting bored with his relationship with his wife. She is constantly nagging about the bills and the kids, and they never even do anything fun anymore. He loves his wife, but he has got to do something or he is going to go crazy. So he decides to start fishing. The first mistake made in this situation is that he doesn’t try to talk to his wife about his feelings. So on her end she sees her husband one day, out of the blue, start fishing two or three times a week. At first she thinks it is good for him to be getting out and doing something, so it doesn’t bother her. After a while he starts missing dinner because “time got away from him on the lake.” So the wife starts to get insecure, wondering why he is spending so much time away. She goes through a whole list of possibilities, including that maybe he is cheating, or maybe he doesn’t want to spend time with her anymore. Now here is the second mistake. Instead of trying to talk to her husband about her feelings, she gets angry. She begins to be bitter whenever he is around, snapping at him and nagging about everything. She starts to make dates to go out with her friends. She thinks that if he is cheating she can do it too. She starts seeing a man while her husband is at work. Making a long story short, the husband finds out about the affair, a period of nasty fights and arguments follows until, finally, they get divorced. In this example, love was never a problem. It was the lack of communication that ultimately ended the relationship. If the man had only tried to talk to his wife, or if the wife had only tried to talk to her husband, their problem could have been resolved and they might still be married. They could have come up with ways to set aside time for each other, maybe once a week, to go out to dinner, or go see a movie, or even go fishing together. Instead they kept their problems with each other in silence and it destroyed their relationship. So what is the lesson to be learned here today? Open communication in a relationship is one of the MOST important things. Talk to your significant other. Tell them how you think or feel. Because you never know if they are feeling the same things and it could save your relationship one day...