"The best boundary against giving in to bad relationships, less-than-satisfactory relationships, or bad dynamics in a good relationship is your not needing that relationship." (Boundaries before Marriage- Cloud and Townsend)
I don't mean divorce, break ups or the actions to take against a bad relationship. As I thought about what to write to a friend over the weekend, I know she was not seeking my advice as to 'what she should do', but rather, how to 'think' when you feel that you are in a relationship gone wrong. I flipped through "Boundaries before Marriage' for the 3rd time, and my eyes remained on this line. I partially liked it because I do like ironies- one of my crazy quirks, but most of all, I thought that is a good line to reflect upon even in my own relationships.
Over last year, I only found courage to confront a friend after I decided not to 'need that friendship'. It was a very good friend I'm talking about, but I was beginning to feel that there was an imbalance in how we give and receive in that friendship. 3 months of silence and 3000 kms later, we had a very frank talk about how we felt in the relationship, something we never done over the 18 years of friendship. I knew I stand losing a valuable friendship if she had walked away during that silence, and I could have allowed myself to harbour feelings of being compromised and keep the friendship for the sake of it. It is an irony that it was only through not needing the friendship that I found myself reclaiming a better friendship in the process.
Not needing the relationship doesn't mean that you no longer care about the relationship, or that you should take the first boat/bus/tram out, but it simply means you are no longer holding yourself hostage to the relationship by needing that relationship so badly that you forget the reason why you were in that relationship in the first place. At the thought of losing, you are happy to settle for form over substance, not realising how it would return to gnaw at you later.
Reflecting on that line as I finish writing that letter, I found out that the difference between playing first and second fiddle is possessing courage and faith- courage to lose, but faith to claim the better.
