After having a rough time arguing with her boyfriend, a friend of mine
called me for a shoulder to cry on. Her eyes were red, her eyelids
swollen like a fresh mourner. As she sobbed we sat in silence for a
while; I was trying to find the right words to say and she was waiting
for me to break the ice. “What happened”? Slipped out of my mouth,
finally.
“R-e-l-a-a-a-a-t-i-o-n-s-h-i-i
How often have you felt or said the same? I guess it depends on how healthy your relationship is and how often you argue and fight with your partner. I am not saying relationships are unhealthy just because there are arguments; arguments are inevitable. However, relationships become unhealthy, in my opinion, when you argue on the same topic over and over, day in and day out.
Can a relationship ‘suck’? Surely a relationship is a reflection of the two people who are in it. If there are problems in your relationship, it is because you (collectively) have problems. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Accordingly, it takes two to make up a relationship. So the problem must be with one of the two of you.
However offensive the above statement may seem to you, it is a bare fact. Yes! I said it and I’ll say it again: if your relationship sucks, without doubt, you suck.
The universal principle of “what you give is what you get” applies to every aspect of our lives. Also, Newton’s law of motion or, in our case, ‘law of emotion’, states that for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. So whatever you knowingly or unknowingly do will eventually come back to you. That’s how life works, that’s how it balances itself. Simply put, what we experience in our life is a routine of our actions and reactions. So the hard times we face in our relationship didn't just arise out of nowhere. We created them, knowingly or unknowingly.
The key lies in your hands- if you alter your input, you’ll get an altered output. If your inputs are positive, you will get positive outputs, and vice versa. So our relationships have issues because we are putting our issues into them.
After finally managing to calm my friend down, I convinced her to pick up her phone and send her boyfriend a positive message. I bet that he would definitely send her back a positive response.
So, as per our bet, she picked up her phone but did otherwise and called him. And to my shock, she was not positive at all! She started arguing with him right in front of me. She asked, in fact, begged him, to talk to her in person for only 30 minutes. He insisted that he couldn't because he had a meeting. Their heated argument went on for almost half an hour over the phone. She finally hung up and started crying all over again.
“You heard what he said, right”? She asked me, sobbing once again.
“Yes, but you didn't listened to what I said! I told you to send him a simple, positive message and instead you let your anger get the better of you and aggravated the situation.”
I suggested a change of scenery and we went to our favorite restaurant. “By the way, when someone advises you, it doesn't mean they’re smarter than you, it’s just that they’re in calmer than you emotionally in a better place than you emotionally. So listen to me carefully: what you guys are doing now is silly. You can’t end an argument but you can abandon it. Both of you are playing the ‘I am right game’, which is a never ending argument. I want you to know that the opposite of an argument isn’t agreement; it’s being smart enough to know how to disagree and still maintain mutual respect and love.”
While we were talking, she received a text message from her boyfriend: “No matter what happens, I will always love you.” I told her to send him a similar response but she was determined to ignore him. I picked up her phone and wrote: “That’s what I would have said if we had met. Sorry for being so hard on you earlier. Have a great evening. I love you”. After a long-winded argument, she agreed to send it.
The reply: “I promise to fix our problem. I love you too, my love.”
“R-e-l-a-a-a-a-t-i-o-n-s-h-i-i
How often have you felt or said the same? I guess it depends on how healthy your relationship is and how often you argue and fight with your partner. I am not saying relationships are unhealthy just because there are arguments; arguments are inevitable. However, relationships become unhealthy, in my opinion, when you argue on the same topic over and over, day in and day out.
Can a relationship ‘suck’? Surely a relationship is a reflection of the two people who are in it. If there are problems in your relationship, it is because you (collectively) have problems. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. Accordingly, it takes two to make up a relationship. So the problem must be with one of the two of you.
However offensive the above statement may seem to you, it is a bare fact. Yes! I said it and I’ll say it again: if your relationship sucks, without doubt, you suck.
The universal principle of “what you give is what you get” applies to every aspect of our lives. Also, Newton’s law of motion or, in our case, ‘law of emotion’, states that for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. So whatever you knowingly or unknowingly do will eventually come back to you. That’s how life works, that’s how it balances itself. Simply put, what we experience in our life is a routine of our actions and reactions. So the hard times we face in our relationship didn't just arise out of nowhere. We created them, knowingly or unknowingly.
The key lies in your hands- if you alter your input, you’ll get an altered output. If your inputs are positive, you will get positive outputs, and vice versa. So our relationships have issues because we are putting our issues into them.
After finally managing to calm my friend down, I convinced her to pick up her phone and send her boyfriend a positive message. I bet that he would definitely send her back a positive response.
So, as per our bet, she picked up her phone but did otherwise and called him. And to my shock, she was not positive at all! She started arguing with him right in front of me. She asked, in fact, begged him, to talk to her in person for only 30 minutes. He insisted that he couldn't because he had a meeting. Their heated argument went on for almost half an hour over the phone. She finally hung up and started crying all over again.
“You heard what he said, right”? She asked me, sobbing once again.
“Yes, but you didn't listened to what I said! I told you to send him a simple, positive message and instead you let your anger get the better of you and aggravated the situation.”
I suggested a change of scenery and we went to our favorite restaurant. “By the way, when someone advises you, it doesn't mean they’re smarter than you, it’s just that they’re in calmer than you emotionally in a better place than you emotionally. So listen to me carefully: what you guys are doing now is silly. You can’t end an argument but you can abandon it. Both of you are playing the ‘I am right game’, which is a never ending argument. I want you to know that the opposite of an argument isn’t agreement; it’s being smart enough to know how to disagree and still maintain mutual respect and love.”
While we were talking, she received a text message from her boyfriend: “No matter what happens, I will always love you.” I told her to send him a similar response but she was determined to ignore him. I picked up her phone and wrote: “That’s what I would have said if we had met. Sorry for being so hard on you earlier. Have a great evening. I love you”. After a long-winded argument, she agreed to send it.
The reply: “I promise to fix our problem. I love you too, my love.”
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