Relationships

I'll leave my heart as payment among the coins, and pass... – Nichita Stănescu

After a chance meeting of mutual friends, I was introduced to Tim and Sonia in a restaurant in central Toowoomba, Queensland, eight days before their home was washed away.

We often associate divorce with the unhappiness of adults who reprehensibly decide to go their separate ways. For under-age brides Noora and Nujood, however, divorce was their escape from a nightmare of domestic violence and abuse, into which they were thrown at a young age by their own families.

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

I was only 13 when I first experienced it. My three best girlfriends handed me a letter. It said they no longer wanted to be my friends. The only reason given was, “The guys pay you too much attention.” After delivering the letter, they simply shunned me.

Trust is so difficult to build, and yet so easy to lose. A lie, a broken promise, or infidelity may lead to the weakening and breaking of trust between partners. Sometimes rebuilding that trust may seem impossible. But the good news is that it is possible to restore trust in a relationship.

Can you be happily married to anyone? The idea of ​​happiness as a thing of one's own creation persists in our times, although its cultural sedimentation belongs to the modern age.

Some forms of love come easily to us. A parent's love, for example, is a natural instinct: you love because it would be impossible not to. But marriage demands a longer commitment. Marital love does not come ready-made; it must be learned, cultivated, and tested.

Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea until he has something to forgive. – C.S. Lewis

These days we all need to hear good news—that life will soon return to normal and that we will be able to return to the troubles of yesterday, which now seem small to us. In the meantime, our lifestyle has seen changes that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

After the authorities in different countries announced a relaxation of the restrictions, people started to impatiently waiting for that, maybe even with plans to recover last bits of a confiscated spring.

The loss of a loved one unbalances us; we are never ready for it. Here are a few recommendations given by psychologists for such a situation.

"Marriage: a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters written in prose." (Beverley Nichols)

Daily stress is a good excuse to avoid other people's needs, but this choice is a double loss. The kindness we display to make other people's days better is a very strong antidote to the high level of stress we experience daily.

In a world of many predetermined things, friends are the family we choose for ourselves. Often, their presence is what keeps us going. In Vital Friends, Tom Rath says that many of those who end up on the streets, divorced, or addicted to overeating, struggle with inner demons precisely because they are alone. They feel excluded, abandoned, unloved.