DOES LOVE FAIL OR DO WE?

The doorbell rang and she rushed to open it in anticipation. She had a lovely day, she had completed the project before deadline, her appointments were set back-to-back for the next two weeks and having spent an evening with her friend over coffee, she was bubbling to share it with him.

When she threw open the door, her heart sank at the look on his weary face. No, it wasn’t the Mumbai traffic. It looked more than that. She hugged him tight and tried cheering him up. He attempted a weak smile but his lips seemed as though they had been glued and hardened since years. He pushed her away when she clung to him and snapped, “Can you give me some space? I need a bit of silence!” She smiled and responded, “Sure, my love!” but the twinkle in her eyes had faded.
This went on for a few days and each time, she mustered the courage to ask, “Honey, tell me, what’s wrong? Have I done something? Is it work? Is it someone at work?” He would reply, “Give me sometime, I’ll be fine.” His emotions would alter the moment his friends called and that hurt her.
She began this dialogue in her mind, “Has he fallen out of love with me? Is there someone else? Is it REALLY just work?” The next evening, he arrived home, he was exuberant and she was silent. He hugged her tight and she simply lay limp in his arms.

The relationship began dying one day at a time from then.

She turned to me and said, “What else could I have done? He distanced himself and the abyss got deeper.”I suggested, “Wouldn’t that have been the time he needed your unfailing support, to hold on and just be there? Relationships don’t break overnight. They get corroded with every taciturn moment. Where the ego snakes its way into what could have been everlasting if only we had the wisdom to shut up those monsters in our head.” I turned to him and asked, “What made you step back from sharing what was going on in your life? She is your friend, your companion, your lover, your soulmate. You didn’t give her the opportunity to be there for you.”
In his defense, he broke down and sobbed, “I didn’t want to crush her with my problems. Business is bad and I’ve lost almost all that I worked for in 12 years! How could I burden her?”

In the face of a challenge, all of us are quick to jump to conclusions and judge the worst, not giving ourselves the chance based on our own past beliefs of rejection and pain. We experience loss the day we feed the belief that there we have to do it all alone – even in a relationship! The fear that we are less if we display our vulnerability. Does love fail or we do?

Wish you a Merry Christmas and a love that surrounds you in its warmest embrace!
Happiness and joy, always.