When Things Go Wrong Should Love Go Too?

When Things Go Wrong Should Love Go Too?

 - By Antony Innocent

After a long intriguing week it is Sunday and thankfully so. And it is 7 O’ clock in the morning. For a man that talks so much about the importance of spending time with the family and about the importance of balancing work and fun, are you wondering what I am doing in front of the laptop, at 7 am on a Sunday morning? My son is still in bed, enjoying his Sunday morning sleep, my wife and I woke up at 6 am. Are you wondering again why 6 am on a Sunday morning? Today, it was a bit late actually; we wake up at 5 am daily including Sundays so that we get more out of the day, more out of our life and more of each other’s company. I will have another post soon on our ‘5 am coffees’ and on why we started doing this. Anyway, after that beautiful Shawarma my wife made last night, the heavy dinner made us indulge in another hour’s sleep this morning. We had our coffee, did a bit of gardening and she is getting the breakfast ready and I stole a few minutes in between to put my thoughts down… we have planned to go fishing this afternoon to a stream close to our house. Fishing is a newfound interest after our trip to Wayanad this summer (2013). We tried our hands in fishing two weeks ago with the angling rods that I made at home, enjoyed relatively good success, despite being fresh hands we caught around six Tilapias. We are going to try it again this afternoon.

Things were not as romantic as you are visualizing in your minds when we entered home last night after a long day. The blocked plumbing line, which has been giving us warning signals for the past two days, gave up totally and it was not anything that you will desire when you enter home after a long tiring day and that too on a Saturday evening.

Life is for sure flavoured with several “what more can go wrong” kinds of days as if someone up there decides what kind of toppings he would like to have for that day, coming to our counter and ordering,

“today I will have a flat tyre”,

“today I will have blocked plumbing line”

“today it will be missing car keys”

“today I am in mood for some good fun so I will have a flat tyre, blocked plumbing line and missing car keys”

But remember that these are just the toppings and not life itself!

I am sure that each one of you reading this has seen many such toppings that spice up your life!!! No one is spared of these special toppings and I can get instantly a thousand people to amen me on this.

Even for couples that are in good bonding, it is not the same when things go wrong. This is when things flare up; angry words are exchanged and of course thoughtlessly, may be without any intention to hurt the other person and without actually meaning what we say. The question is ‘should love go too when things go wrong’, I do not mean to say here that just because a few angry words are exchanged, love and affection disappear. I am more concerned about what happens after the incident, when we come back to ourselves. Like I said, the ‘thing that went wrong’ is just the topping and it is not life itself. So, after the event:

Do I add ‘one’ to the score of wrong things thinking that 'let it happen one more time, then that will be the end' kind of thoughts…

Or does my mind race back and forth the event distressed that I could have hurt the other person and try to make it up to that person at the first chance that I get?

Something that I found helpful is to jump into the scene without really investigating whose fault it is. Rather than nitpicking, rolling up the sleeves and getting the collar dirtied a bit  resolves the issue faster and it surely does improve the bonding . A blocked plumbing line which can lead to sleepless nights though not for all but at least for those ‘anxious minds’, is actually a minor glitch which can of course be worked out and the same applies to every other glitch that we come across. However, what is important is whether we are there supporting each other even through these, “(silly) what more can go wrong” kind of days.

As all of us have such days and that they have undermining effects on our relationship, it is an important area that we should focus on when we are trying to enrich our relationship. Let us not pretend that such things do not exist in our relationship because if you leave them unattended, it will explode at a time that you least expect them.