We all carry our personal dogs in our most valued relations.
By dogs, I don’t mean fluffy, yapping four-legged creatures, but our bad habits, addictions, obsessions…things we can’t give up. And thrust them on our partner, hoping him/her to welcome it with open arms. Isn’t it too much to ask?
More often than not, these dogs are not the harmless, co-existing ones but ones that dig their teeth into the relation with the purpose of turning it into tatters. This dog might be important, irreplaceable for one but is abominable for the other.
The most common thing I have observed in couples is his habit of smoking which she is not able to get over with. She argues that he give up this wretched dog of his – “It is vile, unhealthy – can bring disease into the house. You lose all your charm when you are with it. It tarnishes your personality, creates a bad statement about you. And it creates an opaque wall between you and me. I can’t make peace with him.”
He gets irascible and says – “This dog was in my life even before I met you. You accepted me with this dog. Don’t try to change things. I am terribly attached to it. You have to accept it.”
She says – “I knew you had this dog but I hoped you would let it go it once I stepped in.I am malleable but somehow I can’t stretch my trampoline enough to cover both, you and your dog. There is not enough space in my heart.”
So this is the bone of discontent between the two of them. It causes the relation to go through a stress test. Who is to blame –him or her?
Such conspicuous or sometimes inconspicuous dogs nurtured by one and despised by the other exist in all homes, I believe. They can turn ugly a perfectly pretty picture. You can’t harp about the other loving you as you are, as you were. Seasons change, feelings change, even iron contracts or expands with temperature. Rocks do cave in with time as water cuts through them, day in and day out.
Change is the key. Change is the fuel which can still keep the flame ignited.One cannot be oblivious to the signs of the weather.
Change for the better.So lets start by showing the exit door to the dog, thus creating some more amiable space.
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