Bin it or Bind it?

We all ask ourselves this question, generally in relation to an item, say a dress…its got two missing buttons and a rip at the zip. Do you bin it or bind it. Throw it away or try and fix it? Sew or through?

Sound familiar? And like I said we all ask ourselves this question generally about an item be it that buttonless ripped dress or your car that has one too many false starts or visits to the garage.

So what about your relationships with your significant other? When things are bad….do you ask that question?  I am sure for many of you when things are ‘bad’ your first thought is BIN IT!!!

You probably are already saying to yourself, well at the time when it is SO bad that I want to bin it…..there is no scope left to BIND it.

But is that true? Really?

Take a moment………what if you were not allowed to bin it?

 

What if the LAW (not because you are married) said that couples were not allowed to split up. What if once having committed yourself to someone – there was NO way out?

For ever, for good for bad, for annoying habits, for everything, for LIFE!

So the scenario is you have been together for ten years now, you’ve had your ups and downs, you’ve had periods where you have been ecstatically HAPPY and unbelievably SAD and for the majority you have plodded along somewhere in between the two extremes.

But for the last six months you seem to be jammed in the Unbelievably Sad polar. You argue all the time, cry yourself to sleep and tell your self there must be a way out, a different option, a rainbow somewhere.

Last night it came to a head you had the mother of all arguments and you both hurled insults at each other with the pure intention of hurting the other. You cried, shouted, swore and even spent over an hour in silence. So it’s the cold light of the morning and having had a night to sleep on it – you wake up with the resolve, that its OVER  and  if you never see him/her again it will be TOO SOON!

So you start to pack and the door knocks lightly, so lightly that you convince yourself it didn’t knock. And then – it knocks again, this time more definite and forceful. You go to the door and there in their shiny uniform is the RELATIONSHIP POLICE they caution you and explain that if you leave, they will find you and arrest you. The charge Conspiracy to break a relationship. This carries a mandatory custodial sentence of ten years. Before they leave they issue your partner with the same caution.

Bloody hell you think to yourself, I have just done ten years in the relationship and now I face another ten years in a cell for the same relationship.

The relationship police leave and you sit on the chair in your room and stare at your half packed suitcase. Your partner is in the other room, also sitting staring into space (slightly shocked at the prospects their future now holds). Ten years in prison or carry on with THIS relationship!

What to do?

You hold your head in your hands and the voice in your head appears to have increased by twenty decibels. It is shouting but I hate him/her, I cant do this! Oh my Gosh my life is over!

You get up and put your shoes on and go for a walk, for the first ten minutes your voice in your head is still shouting the odds. But gradually it begins to quieten, forty minutes into your walk two things are very apparent. One – there is no voice in your head, and Two – you do not have the foggiest idea where you are!

You stand still for a minute and get your bearings. You begin to head home and as you do the voices return, but this time they are saying something completely different. They are saying I am not going to Prison, so we are going to have to make this work. You start to think of the positives that you can build on, you reminisce about the times when the majority of your relationship was spent at the other polar extreme, you start to think about their good points – while suppressing reminders of all their negatives. By the time you are at the corner of your road, you have decided that you have enough to build on. You CAN both make changes, do things differently, make a fresh start.

So you do an about turn go into the Off Licence and buy a bottle of Champagne.

As you approach your front door, you reach for your key, you pause and then place your key back in your pocket and ring the door bell. Your partner opens the door and you hold out the bottle of champagne and say ‘we need to talk’.

They smile and step back to allow you to enter. You both walk into the kitchen, get out two glasses and sit at the table. Your partner asks ‘why Champagne’ and you reply…..we have a lot to celebrate!

 

Just a thought!