The Essential Nature of Relationships

Never let resentment settle. Resentment is like water; the more you let it freeze, the more you will watch it harden, freeze upon freeze, until that soft ice becomes as rigid as stone.

Soft dust that lies undisturbed for years hardens into stone particles.
Look at the water droplet resting on a leaf; nudge it once and that droplet falls, scattering away. Resentment in a human life works much the same. Pay attention to the small, ordinary details that matter to your beloved. How can there be love in a heart that does not notice?

What comes of argument? Friendship is destroyed, time is wasted, distance grows. Better to accept defeat quietly, and there is peace in that. We have learned only how to win, and so we lose everything again and again. When do we quarrel? When we try to judge someone. How much do we truly know of them before we judge? Is it right to proceed so far on mere assumption? It is far better to lose an argument than to win it and turn your mind to other things. The relationship matters more than victory.

If your behavior has hurt your beloved, go to them and say sorry. Hold them from behind and say, "You look so beautiful when you're annoyed." Or do something—anything—to dissolve their hurt.

Indulge their follies, cherish the playful teasing they share with you, and fulfill their small requests and desires even when they don't ask out loud. You will see—the relationship becomes clear as glass. When a mirror clouds over, you must wipe it clean; a relationship is the same. With patience, love endures.

On an ordinary day, with no occasion at all, place a flower on their dressing table; on some exhausting afternoon, buy a sari or a small bindi and slip it into their hands; touch their face broken out with pimples, their hair unbrushed, and tell them: you are so beautiful.
That is all. Just this much can leave the warmth of joy lingering in a person's heart for thirty days.

Cook your beloved's favorite dish for them after they return from the office.
Try to understand why the person who carries the harshness of office troubles in their head, who comes home irritable—try to understand why. Hold their hands firmly and say, "How would you ever grow, how would you ever learn anything new, if there were no struggles to overcome?"

The deeply sorrowful one—hold their head to your chest and whisper once: "You are becoming more mature, day by day."

A relationship is not just a relationship; it is the life of two people.

A relationship is like two oars pulling a boat together, two becoming one. A relationship means your half and my half joining into wholeness. There will be storms here, there will be tempests. Sometimes the rains will flood the home, sometimes the fierce sun will burn the roof. Yet when evening comes, the storm will pass; when dusk falls, the heat will relent. On either side, like two sturdy posts, stands a house built by the union of two—a house called relationship or love; sometimes it is called home.

The essence of a relationship is simple: Come, let us bear with each other.