HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE?

In an earlier article, I spoke about the fact that real love has height, depth, length and breadth. Today, we want to deal with the principal attribute that guarantees the depth of love. It is called transparency. This transparency is the next ingredient of a perfect love environment.One question every lover must ask themselves in their relationship is, ‘Am I free to be myself in this relationship’? Except you are free to be yourself, you may never attain the depth of love possible in that relationship. This is because transparency is the price of intimacy. There are certain enemies of transparency in relationships.

PRETENSE: You will be alarmed to realize the volume of relationships that we have in our generation that are based upon pretense. The danger of pretense lies in the fact that our lovers may loose interest in us when they discover our real nature. Pretense is like acting, no one can act forever. At some point, you will have to take off your mask, get off the stage and be yourself. For a pretense based relationship, it is at this point of revealing your true self that all hell breaks loose. This is because your partner will begin to assert that this isn’t the person they bargained for. Be yourself!
OVER-REACTION: There are several lovers who lack what Daniel Goleman calls emotional intelligence. One of the attributes of people with low emotional intelligence is that they lack the ability to control their emotions over issues. This can sometimes manifest in outbursts of anger, nagging, accusations and even physical abuse. The danger of over-reaction is that if a partner persists in it, the other partner can get to a point where they begin to hide their true nature in fear of their partners reactions. At this point, this person’s true nature becomes hidden only to emerge later to the shock of their partner. This tendency also can lead to catastrophic consequences for the relationship.

CRITICISM: There are certain partners that are masters at criticism. Nothing their partner does is ever satisfactory. The outcome of a critical relationship is self consciousness. Unfortunately self consciousness robs us of the freedom to be ourselves. And if you can’t be yourself with your lover, I wonder where else you can be free.

PERFECTIONISM: There are certain lovers, particularly those of a melancholic temperament, whose external posture of perfection makes them very hard to relate to. Most of them look like they’ve never made a mistake or committed an offense in their life. The outcome of projecting perfection is the intimidation of our partners. Be sure that a partner who is intimidated by your perfection will do their best to hide their real nature from you.

How then do we begin to develop a culture of transparency in our relationships?

Take the initiative to open up personally but gradually – Most people will not have the courage to share their less glamorous sides with you if you don’t encourage them by sharing a bit of yours.
Radiate an atmosphere of acceptance around you – The fear of rejection is embedded deep in the psyche of every human being. As long as the possibility of rejection is discernible in you, know that they won’t open up. The opposite of this is an attitude of acceptance,that says; No matter what you have done,I accept you as a person and nothing you tell me will change your value in my eyes.
Resist the temptation to be judgmental,condemning and critical – If you indulge yourself in these three vices, your partner will regret ever opening up and they will penalize you for it by closing up totally.
Maintain absolute confidentiality and never divulge the secrets of your partner in public – Neither should you ever use what they told you privately against them when disagreements arise. If you do, just know they will never give you that privilege of access again and the relationship is most likely to fail.

Finally, following this recommendations to the letter will enable you see a side of your partner you have never seen before. This transparency will birth degrees of intimacy in love that was heretofore unimaginable. No matter how hard the price you pay to achieve transparency is, you have got to pay it,because until you know your partner,you don’t own your partner. Knowing your lover is a prerequisite to owning them. Good day.

THE GREATEST IS LOVE!!!

Deji Olabode.
Love Dynamics Global.
Enthronement Assembly Lagos.
lovedynamix@gmail.com
@lovedynamix on twitter.
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