Ever experienced how does it feel to lose a relationship with someone veryyyyyy close? Doesn’t it feel like a crucial part of your soul being amputated? The whole experience of life changes – everything around us that once felt joyful, now hurts to the core. And we are left with a feeling of ache in the heart, blames, complaints & despair. And these feelings don’t let you truly identify the root of what went wrong. Our focus remains on transactional behaviours that led to separation and suck our energy & sanity to understand and courage to un-do the damage. Time passes but there remains a vacuum that never really fills.
When we are in a relationship, we tend to take it for granted. We miss out on a fact that like everything else, relationships too need to be nurtured and maintained all the time. There are people who don’t like the fact that it needs to be done as that makes it feel like a task but what is important is to understand is that a task is something that you are compelled to do, something that’s not your wish to do but are made to do. But when you do something because you want to do and something that’s important for you, it becomes your passion and your choice. And that’s where people tend to fail.
Look around you – your home, your plants, your body, your health, your work, your money, your car, your relationship with your boss, your children – everything you see needs maintenance. You need to continuously work on it to keep it live. Then what happens when it is about our most important relationship that contributes to completing you? Why do we expect particularly this relationship to work when we least care to nurture it? What does it require?
Ever relished the memories of good times with people? What does these ‘good’ memories comprise of? Isn’t it the quality time that you spent with someone, even if it was for a short span? A moment when you felt significant, cared, loved, appreciated, even if it was without a word said. And these moments need not necessarily be in person – a connect one feels over a phone call, despite of a long distance between 2 people, is worth a great memory, because of how it made you feel.
Does the same feeling or memory ever arise for someone who spent money to get you what you wanted? You may think of them when you have certain needs that they can fulfil but their memories don’t fill you with the sense of bliss and completeness. Think about it!
It is the quality time that someone gives you makes you feel good about yourself & about your relationship. Because when someone chooses to gives you their time, even a small moment, they are giving part of their life and that means you are important. What differentiates the experience of that time for the other is your choice of giving or your sense of compulsion to give. And the choice happens when one understand that it is needed and the quality time is the only core nutrient that keeps life in a relationship. That is what will create a part of the memory that can be cherished for life. Because anything else that you give in a relationship, has no meaning without being complimented with quality time. Anything else than quality time given to someone will have an expiry date, but the time spent will last for life.
People mistake of giving someone quality time with only being physically present.
Imagine a couple sitting together at a café with one of them busy with the phone but claiming to have take time out to spend with the other. On the other hand, a busy partner, sending a text during the day to say how busy the day is going and how he/she is looking forward to sit together for a coffee late night or a walk after dinner. The desire plus making that small moment happen is all what matters. The moment to not just talk but also listen, to share and to care. You will realise that even the silence will speak if two people are truly present with each other.
Especially for those who are really not great at expressing their love in words, this is the hack – have a true desire and ensure quality time with their loved one. That will do the magic.
Thinking that your relationship doesn’t need and shouldn’t have a need to be nurtured regularly is not a mistake, it’s a sin. It’s a blunder that you may be doing for yourself for you may not realise the cost of losing that relationship now, but don’t make it late to realise. An experience of losing someone very important in your life is not worth experiencing….its an ache that will damage the soul. So its better to learn from an experience of those who may have suffered than to learn it from your own experience….it will be too big a cost.
People who complain they don’t have time – must know that if something is important for you, you will find a way. And if its not, you will find an excuse. So stop fooling yourself and the other. Stop taking your most important relationship for granted! It may die a natural death if not nourished well with quality time & attention – even if it is small but consistent.
Are you making that mistake? You still have time…Don’t let anything come in the way to take the right action.
Great content, Reetu! I am in love with your writings now.
Thankyou Ashish. I am glad you liked it.