Monday, March 22, 2010

Does that “Connected Feeling” Always Fade with Time?

Cherie asks, “Why does it never last, that happy bond?” Many people say that the details of daily life get in the way. But we don’t think it’s “life” that gets between us and the experience of connecting on soul-deep level. “Life” was there when you met, after all! And when you were first dating and realizing that this is something special, you probably imagined that you could feel just as connected even while pursuing other things together—careers, a home, a family.

So if it’s not the details of daily life that begin to cloud the experience . . . what is it?

We believe it’s just two things: expectation and resentment. And the answer is even simpler than that, because these aren’t really two things, but just different manifestations of one thing: a thought that something should be different than it is. An expectation stems from a thought that there’s something someone else should do (or should not do). A resentment stems from a thought that there’s something someone else should have done (or should not have done).

The feeling of being connected does not have to fade with time. In fact, once we learn how to keep our relationship space free of expectations and resentments, we will discover that our experience of feeling connected actually grows stronger with time.