Relationships - How To Handle

I had been to a small gathering today... and it got me thinking about relationships. We have got this great urge to classify relationships, tag them and put them in a slot...with various rules for each slot. With the busy lives of today, its become more necessary to give relationships a name! Let me just try to define the variety of kith and kinship and the tags that can be linked to them.

Husband - He is the man you share your life with. So there's no issues here. But isnt there? Are you married recently? Well if are, chances are you are like an eager puppy around your spouse, eager to impress, eager to share that smallest bit of information, easy to take offense, defensive about your family, siblings and mostly willing to overlook your extended family of cousins, uncles, aunts, and the whole brood whom you have left behind. But after a decade of marriage, will you still be the same? Of course not! Your spouse tends to become a comfortable (or irritable) extension of you and vice versa! Lets now get to the more complicated relationships!

The former boyfriend - Is he a friend? Can you treat him as just a simple acquaintance? Would you care to introduce him to your husband?

Your wife's cousin - Friend, relative, in-laws, acquaintance?

The close friend who had proposed to you and whom you had ditched in favour of your former boyfriend - as likely as not, he would be moving in the same social circle. How do you treat him? Its easier during youth to pretend someone doesnt exist. How do you greet such a person, in the company of friends, colleagues, spouse...and if he happens to join your work place...

Your Children - I feel this is the most difficult relationship of all. The transition from nurturer to guardian to friend (or foe) to a parent in the background is so casual a one that many a parent find it difficult to handle and understand and let go, preferring to cling to the belief that they are perennial nurturers! And if you don't handle it with tact, as likely as not you will fall in the category of unwanted parent!

But believe me, relationships are always a little bit more complicated for the female of the species - for in their everyday role of looking after the family, home and hearth, the casualty more often than not is individuality and confidence and past relationships!

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