Fueling the Fire of Your Relationship

So often times I am asked what the difference is between long happy relationships and promising relationships that fizzled out. The easiest way to answer that is to say that couples who last have a triad relationship rather than a singular relationship.

What does that mean?

A singular relationship is one that consists of one entity. In this case, one relationship. The couple came to the relationship and left their own selves and formed a new sense of self; one that consists of the two of them combined to make one.

A triad relationship, consists of three entities. The two individuals and the couple entity. Each person does not give up their own identity and agrees to make room in their life for a second identity – the couple.

Unfortunately, because of things that people learn in their formative years, they believe that giving up themselves to form a combined  unit once they fall in love is the ultimate show of their love. 

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

I use this example all the time:

A couple in the forest needs to build a fire in order to stay warm at night. They look around and gather the wood that is close to their campsite to build a fire.

This fire keeps them warmish if they are facing it but as soon as they turn their backs to it, their front gets cold. They spend most of the time adding more wood to the fire to keep it going. Soon the wood surrounding the campsite gets very low. 

In desperation, they each walk away from their campsite and gather two different types of wood to bring back to camp. They combine this wood with the wood around their campsite to build a new fire.

Since this fire is made of three different types of wood, it burns hot and strong. They are able to stay warm whether they are turned toward or away from the fire. It burns longer so they don't need to use up all their energy to keep it going. They are warm, rested, and happy.

This is just like a relationship.

The wood around the campsite is the things you do together as a couple. The individual wood gathered is what you do as an individual - work, community service, time with friends, self-care, religious observance, physical fitness, et.al., and bring back to the relationship. 

Relationships only last when both of you seek to fuel yourselves up individually and together. Don't depend on one type of wood to fuel the fire of your relationship.

You were both attracted to one another because you saw something unique in each other that only fit you. Why would you put that aside now that you are a couple?