What are your birthdays adding to your love?

What’s Love Got To Do With It?
I was with a long time friend this week on her birthday lunch.  Because we have known each other some donkey years from way back when we were some baby nyanas — we had so much to talk about.
We chatted for hours, comparing notes and dishing out the juicy tidbits.  And as such discussions are prone to doing — the conversation drifted to relationships, and we found ourselves asking what we thought were very pertinent question: when you add another year — what happens to your relationships?  What happens and what is supposed to happen? Are your relationships growing with you as you grow older or are you growing in years alone?
I have heard it said that age often comes with wisdom but if you are not careful age may come alone? Which is it for you?
Are your additional years bringing more value to your relationships or to how you do relationships?  Or is there  no change? Take a moment to assess and evaluate your own relationship journey. Are you growing alone and leaving your relationships behind?
Here is what I think.  When you grow, the way you do relationships also should change. You cannot stay at the same level or continue struggling with the same challenges over and over.
Say you and your spouse struggled with communication in the early part of your marriage — if 10 years down the road you are still struggling with the same communication challenges — what good have those years brought to the mix?  Has experience not taught you anything?  If we are to say there has been any growth at all, you must get to a point where you say this used to vex us, but over the years we have found a way to go around it. If not then you are not benefitting anything from the additional years.
If you were impulsive and childish five years ago, should you continue being like so?
There has to be growth in the relationship, otherwise what is the point of keeping and growing it?  And as parties to these relationships –— whether male or female –— we should strive to work out better ways of dealing with stuff.  Let us encounter new problems that we then have to also figure solutions for but let us not struggle with the same challenges over and over.
So, dear readers, as we grow from year to year, may our relationships grow with us.
Any of our relationships. It could be our romantic relationships, our friendships, our sisterhood, brother hood and even with the in-laws. Go round the bend with your in-laws — don’t be stuck in the same rut sweating the same stuff with your mother-in-law that you did when you were a new bride 25 years ago.  We owe it to ourselves to find solutions that work for us, to learn and discover more about ourselves and those that matter to us.
Our additional years should aid us in our relationships. However, let us take note that with years it’s not a given that relationships improve.
They could change for the better and stronger, but sometimes the opposite could be true, whichever way let time tell.
All the best.
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