IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

“I was the only constant thing in her life, I’ve always been” he said. I didn’t know what else to say, so I asked what he meant by the word ‘constant’. Here’s his story.

Well, I’ve been dating for more than four (4) years now, and somehow id always known she’d had series of flings (sometimes she also knew I was aware of them), but then she always knew I was where she belonged and therefore doesn’t indulge in one for long.

While paying my utmost attention to him, I asked in a soft voice “so she was always cheating on you?”. “Not really, I wouldn’t call it cheating”, he answered.

“So what would you call it?” I asked. “Well, em, em.., it’s like test, testing other people”, he stuttered.

In short she was never faithful with you? Besides, what would happen if she tested and tasted someone better than you? I queried. “It’s not ever been faithful but not totally faithful” he answered trying to defend her.

Scoffing I said, what else, anything yet I need to know?

Yeah, most times she complained of me bothering her too much, and I don’t have the right to get angry at her without any consequence. The consequence always had been that I had to apologies for getting angry and not her for doing wrong. The latest and last was that she broke up with me after I caught her with someone else (it was actually the first time I would caught her with someone else red-handed). Imagine, I ought to be the one to break up with her but she did. When I asked why she had to do it she said she feared I would break up with her after what she did and she doesn’t want to experience that. Just imagine, he concluded.

I sighed, wanted to laugh but couldn’t due to his seriousness. I congratulated him, told him I was happy for him. It was a lost battle but he won at last. Looking confused, he reminded me he was not happy yet I was happy for him, he loved her too much to let her go. So I explained.

Relationship is a two way street, while it is inevitable that a partner loves the other more, the feelings must at least be mutual. When you are the only one trying in your relationship or you are the only one doing the loving, then it is what I called bondage. When the other person is not respecting you and is acting/behaving like he/she is doing you a favour, then it is bondage. Love takes two. In this case, I was happy for him because the lady did what he should have done for a long time, freed him from her bondage.

Different bondages exists in a relationship and if you find yourself in one, you have to rethink your situation because you’d eventually be one the losing end and by then the pain would be much. Niccolò Machiavelli once wrote; “You should never let things get out of hand in order to avoid war. You don’t avoid such a war, you merely postpone it, to your own disadvantage.”

If you are counting on changing the other person for better, and you realise the task seem impossible, he/she doesn’t want to change or you keep enduring your abusive partner believing it would stop one day, you need to want out before a major accident happen, worse- death. Remember people only change only if they want to change, my question is, if you don’t like the person he/she is today, why are you with him/her now?

The basis of a good relationship is trust and if one could not even trust his/her partner a bit, what is then the measure of such relationship? On which foundation would the relationship be built?

Now, happiness is the result of any found relationship, if one is not happy then the person should want out. Anything that doesn’t bring happiness should not be done, in fact little or no attention should be given to such things that cause unhappiness, including the other person in a relationship. If one keep enduring thinking it would change one day, it might be shocking it won’t.

It takes two to make relationship work. And in order for a relationship to work, both parties must be willing and interested to work out the relationship. It can never work when only one person cares about it.

A relationship that is going to work needs to have give and take. You can only keep interest in the relationship- and your partner- if you work together to keep the sparks going, just as in the act of tango dancing.

Let go of what you can no longer keep. Protect what's still worth keeping. Believe in love most of all.

CON AMORE.

OLANIYI ADEWALE HEPHZIBAH.