The Vinay Writes

Parameters for a Mindful Relationship.

4 Pillar of Relationships
1.⁠ ⁠Loyalty/ Trust
2.⁠ ⁠Dependability
3.⁠ ⁠⁠Emotional Bond
4.⁠ ⁠⁠Physical Connection

Recently, I went to a doctor, yeah the doctor of emotions. Not a huge thing, just the person who has studied the behaviors and is trying to help us to achieve more than what currently are.

So, I discussed about “how can we be sure that this person is good for us or not” There are lot of factors, the un-measurable ones. We can’t just go with our gut feelings and call it a good match. So there he explained, we cant just describe it in few factors, but we can try ensuring the primitives are there – that will help us to make the decision.

I really liked what he shared, so thats why sharing it here. The parameters he conveyed were not just materialistic, or quantifiable – but also included what we call as “Gut Feelings”.

Starting with the main one, Loyalty and Trust, so whenever we want a stable relationship where we can feel happy and relax without rushing and also just enjoy the companionship of someone without the fear. That’s where we want loyalty to be there in the set of judges. Loyalty means the ability that we can be 120% sure that this person wont do this with me. If given a marshmallow and the room is closed, this person will not eat the marshmallow even if I allow him to be. That is loyalty, Loyalty brings the trust in relationship. It should be reciprocated from both of the participants of the relationship. If your partner doesn’t eat marshmallow until you allow them to do, but also they keep on nagging until you allow them!! That itself is Non-Loyalty. See cheating is cheating, even if it is done after getting permission or without permission. Forcing someone to permit coz you want to do it, but they wont like it to happen, or they won’t feel good if that happened. That also shows the illusion of loyalty. If someone commits to someone, and then does something the other one won’t be happy about. It doesn’t matter if he/she would not do it again in future or not. It doesn’t matter how much the commit-ter is sorry about that mistake. They did even after knowing, so they can’t be trusted again. Next time it will be done again, but won’t be told. So… see thats a tricky part of life. But a very important pillar. Once the Trust is broken, the chance of re-gaining the trust is extremely negligible. So thats the first Pillar.

Coming to second one, Dependability. This one is very simple. Can the partner focus on other things in life once if they assigned one of the task to their partner? Or they still need to keep on checking? Or they have to do it again as the quality of that task will be low? Or, the partner will create 10 more tasks while doing the given task? Can the partner sleep in peace once tasks are assigned? Can this be done mutually? Can this be done at both sides without burdening the one partner only? See, that is dependability. Once allocated to the other one, just forget about it. It will be considered done. Picking kids while one is taking the in-laws for regular checkup. Ordering the groceries while the other one is busy deciding the guest list. Preparing the food while the other one is preparing for the very important meeting. I am sure while reading, you must have felt “wow, thats such a bliss, so much peace of mind” Exactly. It should bring you peace, It should make you focus on other parts of the work, So all of the goals are fulfilled and with perfection. Assuming if one have to re-check or nag constantly, are the kids back? are the items booked? are the …. you got it. Dependability is extremely important, not in just small parts of life, but also in the difficult part as well. The other one should also consider “is my partner having enough capacity and time to do this?”. As this process will get better, the converstation will change to “If she has asked me to do this, then definately she must be packed up with work and this must be very important”. See!! No burden to anyone. If the one keeps on constant nagging, If the one always gets imperfect work done, If the one always finds out mistake even when the other did their best. These all will be the reason of reducing the dependency. Eventually they would ask someone else to do the things for them, or the one doing will stop doing anything at all. Yes that’s a problem – it need to be discussed properly. How much efforts they had to put, what is making them unable to fulfil the requirements, what the other partner can do to make it bit smoother, and how this task can be done perfectly in the future – this will help them to solve conflicts faster. If they can’t solve it, they should be ready to take a bold decision. Its fine, nagging is not good for health, nor the lack of dependency in the relationship.

Now the third one, will write less on this as this is self-explanatory, “Emotional Bond”, Emotions doesn’t always means crying in front of each other. You must have faced the situation where you can’t be too much happy in front of your friend, as they may get sad about your happiness 🙂 or they may think we are making fun of their sadness . See this is Emotional Bond, the bond where we can share our happiness, sadness, guilt, trauma, everything without even thinking of getting judged. We can show our weakness “I get scared of Dogs, Please help me when going to this relative”. Or “I am very happy that I got promoted, I know you have lot remaining to prepare for your meeting, So won’t ask you to come for dinner outside today, Just let me know which food you would like to have for dinner, I will make it for you 🙂 also let me know if I can do data analysis for you so your work will get completed early”. Simple. Understanding their emotions, and conveying your emotions. FREELY. Communication yes, but ability of communicate the emotions without the fear – that is emotional bond I would say. If emotional bond is weak, they will hide things from each other – eventually creating a very big bubble that will burst taking away the relation with the blast. Or if they start to convey things to other friends that would also increase the gap between the couple. Eventually the friend will know more than each other. Ideally it should not break the loyalty, but it can be a reason for reduction in trust. So convey whatever it is to your partner. If it is meant to hurt them, then hurt them then care for them. If they decide to leave, then let them do so. You can’t decide how much this would have hurt them. It is their choice.

Last but not the least, Physical Connection. Do you feel a cold breeze, with the cherry blossoms all around, the warm rush of blood, the dilation of the iris, and the happiness all over when you just see your “Insaan”? Let me know, I mean dont let me know, but let yourself know “If not your insan, who is that imaginary person with whom you feel this?”. See that is a problem, in ideal case you should choose your partner with whom you feel this connection. It may not be magical like in movies, but you know what you should know. If you are getting awkward feeling when they are around you, when they sit closer to you, see then there is a problem. You should not just go forward if the person couldn’t make you comfortable by their presense. Yes that happens slowly with time, that should be communicated. If they can’t understand that, they should be “Dhishoomed”. We can say, this is the most closest to the gut feeling. The requirements of physical presense should be communicated well and should be reciprocated as well. No one should feel guilt or doing “Ehsaaan” on the other one. If any of this is there, then with time it will become a headache, and it will burst out very soon. It can result in break of Loyalty (ideally there is no reason to break loyalty, thats the strict rule, convey it, break the relation, then do whatever you want, no one deserves to be cheated, this just gives them a trauma for life. Its simple just leave them, and do move out with the other one). So yeah, this compatibility can be one reason to break the relation, but thats fine, if it is not compatible, it should be broken!! You will find or honestly if not find someone with same compatibility thats too fine, ATLEAST you will be happy. You are not keeping someone bounded and unsatisfied. So breaking is better than any of it.

So, these were the 4 foundational pillars of any relation, be it with parents, siblings, in-laws, wife, husband, friends and so on. Try to achieve strongness in each of these pillars, find the weak spot and work on it. At least now you know where to work. All the best, and wish you lot of luck for building your Antilia on top of your strong foundations.

5/5/2026,
South Delhi, India