What’s the use of developing friendship and love if people so often have more crucial circumstances than keeping those loving relationships?
I hear extremely often that A was dumped by B, whom A cherished very much, because B has someone C who is a very important person in B’s life at a certain moment and C doesn’t like A. B, tired of the tension and afraid of losing C’s good will, (who isn’t loved but is a V.I.P. right now in B’s life), had to decide and chose, of course, C.
This happens a lot in families, but also among friends.
C = a much-needed mentor, a hard-earned spouse, a benefactor at a time of need, etc.
Perhaps they have the wrong idea of what is a loving relationship? We are taught that love is an exclusive intimate affair to be shared with one person only. It is reinforced socially our whole lives. It is completely backwards. A loving relationship based on exclusivity destroys itself. I think that is what you’ve described. A true loving relationship is one of sharing and caring. It isn’t possesive or coercive. Desiring to be with is certainly part of loving, but exclusive ‘ownership’ isn’t loving. It is sad that so few ever learn this.
I see the difference, but at the same time, there really isn’t any difference. Anyone who can walk away from a friendship because you are friends with someone they don’t like, wasn’t a friend in the first place. Caring and loving is the same in that neither can be conditional and genuine at the same time. Genuine caring or loving isn’t because of what we know, but in spite of it. Those who say I will care, but only if… are simply playing a game to be in control. That isn’t caring.
C is a controlling person, of course. There’s no argument about that. But C is crucial to B. So often there’s a C in B’s life that forces B to end her relationship with A, that I ask what’s the use of developing friendships at all? Just the little possibility that no C will appear in my friend’s life?
When my parents became old and very sick, there was a very influential person (C) who could and does help them enormeously (has access to key doctors, owns a pharmacy, has sources of specialized help, etc.), but demanded in return that they cut all contact with me. My parents (B) and I (A) haven’t seen each other since then.