It was heavily raining this morning. As a result, I was not able to go for regular morning exercise and decided to end up here to write something. After all, rainy morning (wasn’t this supposed to be stormy night? Don’t care la. :p) usually makes us feel more emotional and sentimental. So, I guess it is a good timing for me to share something sentimental.
Here, I would like to share about my thought about my 4 years relationship that was finally turned into an invalueable lesson for me. You might find me strange as not much people are willing to share something like this. But in my opinion, this might be something very helpful to many who are still maintaining a love marathon - whether you might or might not be having the same "hidden" problem. Afterall, sharing makes us grow.
Recently, I chatted with a few other friends who also, were once failed to complete a love marathon and ended up the relationship as an invalueable lessons. They were not any regular pairs, they were pairs that had been together for 4 yrs, 5 yrs, 7 yrs or even more. They were pairs that seen by others as sure-engaged-and-married couples. They were pairs that were very close up to the family and relatives level (i.e. each other parents are like friends already). These, of course, include me & my ex. I was always confidently told my friends that I would married my ex in 3 years when we chat about marriage. When I told them I had broke with my ex, they were all showing an unbelievable expression. All people who heard the news - my parents, my siblings, her parents, her siblings, my friends, her friends were all shocked and disappointed.
So, what are all these about? 性格不合? That’s the standard answer that we usually get, but how true is it? I really don’t know. It might be partially true, but how can we be together for years bearing each other "unmatched personality"? Maybe we had been together for so long due to responsibility and habit? Or we have no other choice?
Well, there is no single reason for all these to happen. But interestingly (or rather, uninterestingly), I recently found a common one out of so many factors - we took love and relationship for granted. I guess I must repeat this, "we took love and relationship for granted". We all shared this common problem, at least partially if not entirely. For me, this was my major factor. So, what exactly do I mean by saying this? I will start explaining this by writing about take "things" for granted before explaining take "love" for granted.
We all learned that it is bad and dangerous to take things for granted. We all would like to say, don’t take this for granted, don’t take that for granted. Unfortunately, this is easier to say than do. Take things for granted is a natural human behaviour, which always happen subconsciously. As somethings good happen to us regularly, we ought to think that it naturally should be that way without questioning. Sometimes, we take our family for granted. We thought that busy at work is a reasonable excuse to not taking care of our parents and not visiting them for months until we regret when they are not there. Sometimes, we take close friends relationship for granted. We thought that we are so close that we won’t care for anything we speak until we hurt them. Sometimes, we take our colleagues for granted. We cursed them when they refused to help us. And finally the worst, I take love for granted.
A love marathon will turn into a timed bomb when one side is starting to take the relationship for granted. When we take love for granted, we will start to put less attention and become less caring. We take for granted that our love one will understand what we think. We became less communicate. We thought that our love one will feel secured for such kind of relationship, but in fact, they might not be. And external factor (so called "3rd party"?) will easily trigger the bomb.
Sometimes, it takes a very simple action in communication to maintain the relationship, but we failed to do so. It really make a different to speak something out rather than taking for granted that your love one would understand you. Lets put yourself in a scenario - assume now that you fully understand that your love one is very busy that he/she temporary don’t have time for you. You would be OK even if he/she didn’t contact you for the whole week. Although this is the case, what if you received a message from him/her saying something like: "Dear, I’m quite busy for this week. Sorry for not having my time with you this week. Call you when I’m free", or something like: "I miss you my dear. Good nigh and have a sweet dream." Will you feel totally different compare to no single message from him/her? Do you understand what I mean by simple communication? This is what I failed to do in the past, and I really hope you won’t repeat my mistake. I will always remember now that simple action can make a big difference.
Ok, that’s all that I’m going to share for this time. For those who are still in love marathon (or those who are planning to join the marathon), remember that we need boosters from time to time. The 100 Plus stations are not setup along the route for no reason. Hope you all will remember what I shared above - don’t take love and relationship for granted.
P/S:
Although, you heard this for many times already. I guess I would still like to repeat it, for you, and for myself - "Don’t take things for granted". Lol.
Oh, a last very important thing… Don’t take your health for granted, remember to do some regular exercise and have a good breakfast everyday.