Marriage and children are our most sacred relationships

Marriage is a rollercoaster - let no one tell us otherwise. One minute we are up. The next down. One minute we are madly in love; the next we are madly in hate. Polar opposites of each other but yet the same. If there is love, there is hate because both are derivatives of passion. When we hate someone, we are still very connected to them because there is still feeling. Passion is a delicate balance between extremes. A tipping point that can push us either way – to create or to destroy. To love or to hate. To be helpful or vengeful.

That is why it is so important to establish a foundation. A base. A place we can go back to in times of trial in our relationships because it is that touchstone that delivers us from the darkness. That allows us to find a safe harbor to make it through the pain particularly when we feel all else is in vain. Relationships are interesting dynamics and are good indicators of where we are in our development and in our growth.

We attract people into our lives to help us to become more in touch with who we are and sometimes those relationships are lasting while other times they are fleeting. The people we choose to marry are our greatest teachers because they are the ones who reflect back to us our deepest fears, our deepest desires, and our deepest vices. They reflect them back to us tenfold. What we despise in them, we despise in ourselves. What we love in them, we love in ourselves.

The children that come into our lives. The ones we think we are parenting are also parenting us. Each of us choosing the other to help us to become better people. To learn the fundamentals of life. To understand and know compassion, faith, forgiveness and love in ways only we could bring to each other. Those relationships are the most sacred relationships we will ever have in our lives outside of the relationship we have with ourselves.

Our spouses, significant others, and children are extensions of who we are. What we see in them, we see in ourselves. What pushes our buttons the most are the very lessons we are meant to learn about ourselves. When they irritate us, all that is happening is that they have touched a nerve within us. A vice we have not come to terms with in ourselves. A vice we need to deal with and if we don’t then the lesson extends outside of our sacred family unit to the next level of relationships we live in on a daily basis - friends, relatives, and coworkers. Each relationship at a different level but necessary to help us to discover and bring to the surface what we have known subliminally about ourselves all along.

At first the lessons are gentle. Asking us to seek ourselves first but when we don’t listen they are played out on the grand stage for everyone to see and hear. For us to fall flat on our faces until we come to terms with ourselves and only then will we be able to move forward with the lesson well learnt. With the ability to stand tall again and face ourselves in the mirror more grown and more learned.

Marriage and children are our most sacred relationships. They are our compasses in the wild that help us to find who we are and what we are here to do. Treat them with the honour and respect we wish to have in our own lives and we will find and know love, faith, forgiveness and compassion in ways unfathomed. Because we will know ourselves.