Looking for an ideal Life-partner

It was heartening to read a young man’s views on marriage (“Arranging love marriages: A fine balance”, by Aditya Mahajan, KT, 22nd Sep 2010). Love at first sight happens in stories and movies. In life, we are often attracted towards certain individuals. This attraction may become so strong for a certain individual that we may confuse it with ‘love at first sight’. In reality, more often than not, it is still an attraction based on certain strong sensory input, which often clouds judgment. No wonder, such love is ‘blind’ and the person is said to have ‘fallen’ in love. However, life cannot be lived with such blind love. It is important to establish that the attraction leading to certain ‘special’ feeling is beyond physical attributes and base interests. Subtler the source of this attraction, longer it will last. Marriage is not merely a union of two individuals; it is a fusion of many more things such as aspirations, values, life-styles, likes & dislikes, families and even cultures. Such fusion is not possible if both partners are rigid. Flexibility is the cornerstone of this fusion.

Looking for an ideal life-partner is similar to looking for utopia on earth. Since no one can claim to be perfect, how can one even attempt to find an ideal life-partner? The best one can achieve is a good match. For this, however, you have to start with yourself. An accurate assessment of your own strengths and weaknesses would help in establishing realistic criteria for your life-partner. While listing the criteria, you must include all aspects of the desired match, including family and society that you wish to live with. These criteria must be prioritized in order to give due weightage to the important ones. Finally, when you come across a matching partner, listen to your heart more than the mind. Mind has the tendency to trap you in the state of ‘analysis-paralysis’. It will always throw doubts on whatever you decide, while heart will always show you the right path.

A man marries a woman, not a wife. He must make a wife out of this woman through patience and understanding. Similarly, the woman must make a husband out of the man after marriage. The path of marriage is that of team building – starting with excitement, turning into a storm, leading to normalization and finally understanding. Love is what one discovers in this journey. As the understanding deepens, so does the love. How else would you describe the deep bonding between two aged people who have lost their physical attributes to attract each other? They are ready to give everything for each other without any trace of expectation. Love is not blind for them. It becomes the light in which they see everything clearly. They don’t fall in love. They rise to the pinnacle of love.