When Intimate Relationships Don’t Work…
Valentine’s Day was established by papal decree in 496AD as a day to celebrate our intimate relationships with those we love most deeply. At that time it wasn’t connected with romantic love. In the high Middle Ages during the time of development of courtly love as a tradition Geoffrey Chaucer changed that. Since that time we see Valentine’s Day as a shorthand for what an intimate relationship or marriage should look like. Starry-eyed, blissful, sweet, easy, sexual, and everloving might describe our expectations of intimate relationships. But like most things in life, when we truly take a look, we see much more complexity…
This article will give you the opportunity
to examine and learn to improve the critical moods that make or break your intimate relationships. And you will be able to apply the learning to your relationships with lovers, companions, courtesans, etc. In every marriage and intimate relationship there are moods that serve building the relationship and those that have a deleterious effect. Moods are not inherently good or bad, but they either serve or restrict us in a particular situation. Here are some that we can distinguish more clearly in intimate relationships:
Compassion vs. pity
Compassion means being with another person in their pain. To pity is to see another person as needing us to pull them up to our level of understanding. In compassion we place ourselves on the same human level as our partner, while in pity we tend to look down on them and their plight. How many times have you opted for pity rather than compassion in your relationships? How often have you been tempted to believe that it was your job to fix your partner or their situation rather than simply stand with them and trust them to navigate life for themselves?
Service vs. sacrifice
Many of us grow up with the admonishment to help others. Some of us learn that the right way to be a partner is to take care of the other’s every wish and need. What we aren’t often taught is to pa