commitment

How difficult is it to make a relationship survive? How much should you give before you decide enough is enough? Do you really become happy by sacrificing your self-respect, your self-worth? How much can you give love, especially if love is not giving back to you?

Lots of questions rose to the surface yesterday- throughout the day I was kind of troubled with these questions, thinking in relation to a friend of mine.

The way I see it, as the cliche goes, all relationships are compromises- or is it? Till date, I have never had to compromise on my life in my relationship. If anything, it has enhanced, and enriched it. It is not as if my life was empty before it, but now it has a greater meaning to it... to the extent where my other half has truly become my better half... where our lives have mingled in such a way, that in certain ways, our individual identities have merged into one. 

It might be difficult to understand for those who get into relationships after a lot of deliberation. There is a lot of calculation behind such deliberation- and not bad ones, at that! After all, if one has to spend one's life with someone, one needs to make sure that his eggs are in an ironcast basket. In my case, my instincts told me that they were, but, as it turned out, it was more in a hypersecure underground vault which only the goblin bankers have access to.

How does one partner tell the other what he expects from him? How much of it should come naturally? I was and still am a good friend to many, and for a long time, treated my partner as a friend, who was more special than the rest, but a friend. I thought just acknowledging him as my partner was good enough... along with a good dose of fidelity, and ever increasing love. It was various events around me which made me realise that while I was busy being a pillar for other people to lean on, the only pillar I leaned on was and is my partner. He was not just being a friend, but he had become my best friend. 

My lover is my best friend... I have no secrets from him, and do not have any qualms about sharing anything with him. We have our fights, we have our making up. However, one thing has changed- I no longer treat him as just a special friend... he is way more, and I not only acknowledge it, but also show him that- through love, respect and understanding... and letting him know that, truly, my life would never be complete without him... and possibly lose its sanity and its meaning. 

Sometimes, it is important to be a little openly appreciative. Often we expect our partners to be privy to our minds- but for God's sake! Clairvoyance is a limited activity, and should NOT be expected constantly.  Yet, seldom do we ourselves try and read our partners' minds. Till we start at least trying, we are not giving our relationship the importance that is due.

Commitment in relationships go beyond staying together, way beyond sharing a home, costs, emotions. It goes into sharing mental space, emotional space and above all, bringing about a closeness, which no amount of distance and no number of outsiders can rid you of. It is not something that rids you of your identity as an individual, but enhances it to the level where you can be a couple as well as an individual.. where you can support dual identities... similar in approach, but different in goals... an amalgamation of two people with different attributes, but where, after a point of time, one individual's attribute is often part of the identity of the other.

Not everyone is created to be committed. Some people lack commitment in all spheres of their life, and most importantly to themselves. Yet, while some are not willing to give, we all want someone to lean on, someone to hug and someone to share our joys and sorrows with. Have we just decided to be selfish on the face of it, till we know for a fact that our emotional investment is going to fetch returns? Do we delay too much before? For some, perhaps, for others they are building blocks...