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When Partners Share a Vision
By Seth Mullins
When two people commit to an intimate relationship together, they often have shared goals that serve to tighten the bond between them – at least for a time. Sometimes these goals will be financial ones, and partners will organize their lives around career and monetary concerns. Or, the idea of family might be the binding principle, and couples in this case will pour their energies into caring for and raising their children.
These kinds of arrangements tend to work well for a while. At least the relationship will look harmonious on the surface. But problems can begin to pester these couples when they finally achieve the goals that they’ve been working towards for so long. They build their dream house, with two new cars in the garage, and life suddenly feels stifling and dull. Children grow up and leave home, and their parents begin to drift through their days aimlessly, without purpose or reason to stay together any longer.
Our relationships can thrive only so long as the ideals that we’ve built them upon can last – unless we’re able to find a new vision to help us to redefine where we’re heading. Our lives and our world are both in a state of constant change. A partnership that’s intended for life but also based upon priorities that are temporary will face a real struggle over the long haul.
In a forever-changing world, the only real constant is our own processes of growth. Therefore, the one priority that partners can really rely on to carry them through the years is a commitment to support each other in growing. When lovers are bound by a common goal like this, their relationship can remain strong and steady in the face of all of life’s ups and downs, even if they move in separate circles from time to time or develop differing interests.
This kind of approach helps to pull us away from a cycle of possessive loving and into a kind of love that is much more unconditional. Instead of always thinking in terms of our own needs, and judging whether our partners are satisfying them, we will want what is best for them above all else.
It can often be beneficial for partners to begin their relationship with a joint vision of what they want to achieve together in worldly terms. However, such an approach can be doomed to failure in the long run because it doesn’t take into account the ways in which people change and grow through their life experiences. A partnership in which both people hold, as their highest priority, the true fulfillment of the other, will stand a much better chance of surviving the often bewildering twists and turns of life’s journey.