In my former blog entry; “10 things that make or break a relationship (Part 1),” I mentioned, “We are often conditioned to believe that temporary relationships are somehow not really worth investing into at all.” In retrospect, I felt that it would be pertinent to write an entire blog entry on the sole topic of temporary relationships: what they mean, their often misunderstood and overlooked value, what we ultimately learn from them and how they play into the bigger collective picture of our love lives.
“Jim, when am I going to meet my soul mate,” a client questions? “I’m tired of not meeting Mr. Right, so where is he?” Often, my clients express complete frustration with where their love lives have been and what they’ve already been through. By the time they ask me the above-mentioned question, they are feeling at the end of their rope. It’s as if they’ve woken up with the house on fire, and need a fire extinguisher ASAP!
So many of us dream of meeting Mr. or Ms. Right when we are teenagers, even younger oftentimes, but most of the time, your permanent partner will not be the first person you love. How many of us fall in love with our high school sweet heart, get married, have kids and ride off into the sunset and stay together till death do us part? Very few of us…
It is obvious that most of us don’t realize that a relationship will be temporary at the time when we enter into it. Hardly anyone would fall in love, all the while thinking that it’s never going to work out in the end. In spite of our best efforts along with all of the emotionalism that comes with a deep relationship, the love that feels so utterly irreplaceable, real and permanent at the time, does not last.
Certain relationships are not spiritually meant to last forever, regardless of how intense we feel at the time. We often equate intensity with permanence, as if they are one and the same – but they are not necessarily so. How often have all of us seem someone who thought they had found THE ONE, only later to be dealing with the shattered emotions that come with a break up? Most, if not all of us. And while many relationships are not going to last, there are those that ARE destined to be forever and are spiritually / karmically agreed to be the final conclusion of our love lives.
However, getting there is often much more complex than we could have ever imagined when we engaged in our first romantic kiss. The important thing is to learn from our temporary relationships. It’s vital to see the value of how each and every partnership, no matter how bad it seemed at the time, taught us very valuable lessons; lessons that may be critical in being able to truly be prepared for when the right person comes into our lives down the road.
Through relationships that don’t work out, we learn to see what we really need, as opposed to what we thought we needed. Someone may initially believe that nothing would mean more to them than just sitting at home in a glow of domestic bliss, side by side with their partner. But as different relationships don’t last, this same person begins to realize that they are more independent than they taught; they still want the partnership, but also, their own sense of space as well. This awareness can only come through the various experiences in relationships that don’t ultimately last, but do teach us.
Some women may possibly need at least one failed relationship, possibly more, before entering into a lifelong commitment. Why? To not be jealous, not be clingy and to love him more and need him less.
If a woman is jealous, that energy can manifest itself is many different ways: over attention he gives to female friends – even male friends for that matter, jealousy over him not wanting to spend every possible moment with her, resentful of other hobbies and activities he may have as well as any close relationships he has with someone other than her; even his own family.
If a woman is clingy, it suffocates the partnership through: needing constant emotional reassurance along with unreasonable and unrealistic feelings of insecurity. Losing herself in the partnership through clinginess makes her have less to contribute to the union and will wear down the person she is involved with.
“To need him less and love him more” elevates the relationship to a higher level. Putting love ahead of need means that it is far less likely for a woman to lean too much on the relationship, but more probable that she will allow him to have a sense of space, (the space I’m referring to here is breathing room and the ability for a partner to have a healthy sense of freedom within a commitment).
On the opposite end of the spectrum, a man may also need one or more failed relationships to be able to commit to a permanent union. If we ask “why” for a woman, then we should also ask the same “why” for a man; To learn communication, consideration, and get past infidelity, if it is an issue.
When two people are newly in love, communication can seem unnecessary, and somehow there is the illusion that it will all simply take care of itself. Men often don’t communicate their feelings: what they need, emotionally feel and what they want. Learning to communicate is not learned over night, of course and through one or more failed partnerships, a man can learn to be more and more verbally expressive and receptive.
Is the concept of men in general being inconsiderate biological or cultural? I certainly feel that it is cultural, but regardless, men are thought of as the privileged gender; and with that privilege comes inconsideration, as if a man is king. When entering a relationship, a man may be inconsiderate: their feelings and needs come first, the woman is there to serve him, what he wants is more important that what she wants and we have sex when he has the desire to do so. But through temporary relationships, a man learns to be considerate; little by little and often, it is a painstaking process, as letting go of selfish habits takes diligence, time and consistency.
If a man has cheating tendencies, he needs to get it out of his system before entering a permanent union. Imagine the regrets if a man ruined his ultimate relationship by cheating on her through his carelessness and immaturity. Hopefully, one can learn from their mistakes, grow in responsibility and move toward fidelity.
Just like in assertiveness training classes, an instructor would tell you to start learning to take charge in your life with very small things; like dealing with receiving the correct amount of change from a clerk at a grocery store as opposed to asking your boss for a raise. In the same way that Rome wasn’t built in a day, it’s important to know that we learn bit by bit through each and every one of our lovers; what they teach us and vice versa. Would you really want to try and learn from scratch with your life partner? That would be virtually impossible to do. The relationships before the final commitment prepare us, as shown above.
Relationships do not come with an instructional or training manual. We learn as we love and as we experience. There are lessons in every relationship that must be taught, than can only be indeed taught by the two people involved. There is that great spiritual phrase “No one is your enemy, no one is your friend, everyone is your teacher.” We learn from every union we will ever be in and from a higher perspective, what we learn sets us up to enter into a permanent relationship. Just like we learn to ad before we do division and divide before taking on algebra, every lover helps us to become who we will ultimately end up being.
Review your past relationships and ask yourself, “What have I learned from everyone I have been with?” The way they look now is most likely much different that the way they looked years or decades ago.
At the time a woman may have thought that Bob was the only person for her; there were no ifs ands or buts about it; Bob was the one! Well, Bob turned out to be a cheater and went so far as to even have had sex with her best friend. Now, Bob doesn’t look so good after all. But what did Bob teach her? Perhaps to not be so myopic and rigid regarding how she views her lovers. It’s better to be open minded, versus proclaiming an attitude that says, “He’s the one – end of story!” She may have also learned to not give her trust so freely and easily, as she only knew Bob for a few weeks before she dove in headfirst.
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard clients as well as friends thank God for not ending up with the person they were once with; and never forget that those endings lead to other options. That old concept of “When one door closes, another door immediately opens,” is very pertinent to these types of commitments that didn’t ultimately last.
Sometimes the intensity of the sexual attraction between new lovers changes everything; it is as if that physical connection becomes like an addictive drug. In that state of mind, it appears as if there will never be, or need to be anyone else. But after the sexual excitement tapers off a bit, and there’s nothing else much more there than the animalistic connection, the relationship is seen for what it is.
And what it IS isn’t bad at all; it is just not permanent. Again, we learn from these types of relationships as we always do. I’ve heard many men state how much they were initially so turned on by the act of making love with a particular woman, but in looking back, realize that there was not much else there: no real communication, no common values and no real spiritual values shared either. The chemistry did the trick, hypnotizing us to think what we’re feeling is so more than it really is.
It reminds me of how certain actors meet on a movie set; film love scenes together and suddenly get married. They experienced this energy; albeit it on camera, but by the mere fact that they shared this experience, it opened the door for them to suddenly have a rush of emotions and get married. Occasionally, one of these relationships works, but for the most part, divorce is usually soon to come.
Don’t take it all too seriously. If you still want someone from the past, look at him or her for who and what they were. Chances are, if you look at it with clear vision, you’ll realize that you’re far better off without them.
However, that doesn’t mean that the pain wasn’t real. What you felt was real. It’s not just as simple for any of us to chalk it all up to the proverbial learning experience and walk away scott free. But we need to attune ourselves to the right perspective and release the pain. Looking at the past in a non-attached, non-emotional way helps us to do just that.
Never forget, though, that a failed marriage or a failed relationship does not spell F-A-I-L-U-R-E! We cannot try to live up to the perfectionist ideals that state every marriage must be forever – meaning no divorce, ever. How does anyone know what was agreed to on a deeper soul level by two individuals? What are they here to teach each other? There are always lessons to learn and often, many people’s first marriage was the “dress rehearsal,” so to speak, to meeting their perfect life partner, the “main performance,” one could say.
Just like life is a river and completely integrates and blends together, every relationship we’ve ever been through becomes a part of the entire collective of our love lives. What we learn from all of our temporary relationships is priceless, positive and necessary for us to move forward to meet the right lifelong partner for us. From hurt, to heartache, to growth, to being humbled, to becoming better people, to learning to make better choices, to learning who we are and what we truly need… as our growth continues… We do ultimately find and unite with the person we are truly supposed to be with – the person who completes us and we complete on a deep and cosmically profound level -- as perfectly designed, created and timed by infinite spirit.
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