Most of us are suffering from a crisis in relationships. There are so many reasons for this crisis such as the pulls and pressures of the busy life, office stress, lack of me time, social media, increased screen time, and so on. However, the most crucial factor responsible for the crisis in relationships is the obsession with self. When a person gets disconnected from the divine inside, he becomes quite insecure and fearful. He feels as if he lacks something and he tries to become complete by acquiring the external objects. He seeks pleasure from different things in the material world such as eating a variety of foods, watching movies, roaming around, going to different places, shopping, buying expensive clothes, and so on. All these things give small doses of pleasure that make such a person feel happy for the time being. However, such pleasure fades away very fast leaving such a person more discontented and dissatisfied.
In a state of utter dissatisfaction and discontentment, such people start using the relationships as well for their selfish interests to get that little amount of pleasure. Such as pleasure may come from relationships in different forms. Either the relationships may be the source of making the means available such as money or power. Or the relationships may be a source of entertainment like playing games together or having chit-chat together to pass the time.
Such selfish interests generally last because both the partners in the relationships have similar interests. Both provide some pleasure to each other or both are the source of entertainment to each other. However, we often see crises in such relationships. There may be multiple reasons for such a crisis. Firstly, the crisis may be driven by greed. Both partners may get fixated on their desires quite strongly raising their expectations high making it difficult for the other partner to fulfill the same. This happens quite often in the world. The more we run seek pleasures and run after them, the more we feel discontented and dissatisfied. Neurologically, there is no difference between seeking pleasure and taking drugs. They both make us addicted and the next desire is stronger than the earlier. When both partners are addicted to such pleasures, there are high expectations and continuous demand making these relationships quite difficult. Most of these discords remain under the carpet because of the social taboos and people keep suffering their entire lives in such painful relationships.
Secondly, the crisis may be driven by the circumstances. They may face testing circumstances where for example one of the partners falls critically ill or gets certain responsibility that takes away his time and attention and the other partner is unable to adjust to the same. The other partner wants the time and attention as was required earlier.
Thirdly, the crisis may be driven by life choices. Both partners may develop different tastes and preferences. What one likes may not look attractive to the other and slowly they may drift apart since their intersection keeps shrinking and reaches a point when they have very little things in common to sustain them together.
Fourthly, the crisis may be driven by the fundamental flaws at the core of such relationships. Since the relationship is based on seeking and the seeking is never going to satiate us until we connect to our soul, slowly this feeling of dissatisfaction sinks into the relationships. Two unhappy souls can not make each other happy. They keep pretending that they are enjoying the relationships, but back in the bedroom, there are perpetual fights and discords.
I feel that unless we connect to ourselves, we can never connect to others. Till we connect to ourselves, we are just taking an escape to find pleasures and the more we try to find pleasures the more we run away from the natural state of happiness. If we join others in that state of confusion, the very foundation of the relationship is faulty and that is never going to make us happy. That is why whenever we feel a crisis in the relationship, we need to realize that there is an urgency to look inside rather than at the partner. Otherwise, we will just end up wasting our lives by blaming others without realizing that nobody can make us happy because we ourselves are running away from that natural state of happiness. The moment we connect to the inner self, we do not seek anything in the relationships. Rather we just like to share that place and joy with others and if both partners connect to their souls, that turns the relationship into a reflection of the divine bliss.
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