Commitment - What’s the Secret?
I don’t how many times I’ve met couples who looked like they had it all together. Role models, even, who seemed focused and united and in love. And then a year, or a month later, they’re separated, or worse, having affairs. When couples like these self-destruct -seemingly out of nowhere- my faith in commitment and strong unions is shaken the most.
Couples like these who come undone seem to tell us that there are no clear-cut models to go by, when in actuality, what they’re really telling us is appearances can be deceiving.
Anyone can go through the motions of a pre-designed script -as in, this is how my parents did it, or this is how books and therapists say to do it. And pre-designed scripts aren’t necessarily bad, or fake, for they do provide structure and direction. But the factor that absolutely has to be present in a committed relationship is “heart”, if that relationship is to last.
Heart -as in belief and surrender to whatever emotional needs the relationship may have. Not abusive or debasing needs, but the “comforts” and supports that identify a relationship as “special”.
Nowadays males AND females are accepted as being assertive and self-reliant. Gone are the days where only one person in the house needed to go out and claim a place in the work world. Females have just as much at stake as men, now. Females are expected to be successful, too.
Now, in couples where both partners work (most couples), no one has to feel “obligated” to surrender to the other’s needs. And after eight hours in the “dog-eat-dog” work world, coming home and shifting into heart-centered relationship interactions when you’re tired, and fried is a hard focus to maintain on a daily basis.
Attitude : Surrender
What a romantic relationship requires is usually the exact opposite of how we’re expected to be throughout the day. Trust, compassion, truth and genuine caring are relationship requirements. And if we’re unable to see our partner as a very real extension of ourselves, it’s going to be really hard to separate them out from the people we deal with throughout the day.
And surrendering to what the relationship needs (heart) is not really that much different than the attitude of surrender that we have at the workplace. A hard choice, though it may be, we know darn well what it takes to remain employed, and we do it. It’s a priority. Period. And when a priority is this strong, we surrender to it. It’s an attitude that we accept.
So with commitment -with heart- we can make it, or break it, but either way, commitment is attitude in action.
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