Righteous relationships

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
-Rilke

As I’m currently transitioning relationships I’ve been thinking a lot about what has been important and what has been missing in previous relationships. Above all, I think an acceptance of the other person as a person, as a solitude, is essential. What makes relationships bad is to think that our borders are under attack. You should never have to defend your border from someone who purports to care about you. But so often, people attack to defend their own borders. (Western) religion is a good example of this. Someone can care about you, but as long as part of their identity is dependent on others sharing their beliefs, there can be no stability, and there can be no peace. Their very identity is an attack, and they can never achieve love in the sense Rilke has described.

But what wondrous things can happen when you can truly let your defenses down around a person. In that case, a person is free to be who they are. Being around someone who makes you feel even more like yourself than usual is a wonderful feeling.

On the other hand, I can remember having a “Christ-based” relationship. We would pray together and read the bible together. We were both searching for answers, and it was a very intense relationship. But that relationship, I guess, could only go on as long as we shared the journey. If I’d left the journey, that would invalidate the other person. In the end, it’s hard for me to rule out the efficacy of a religion-centered relationship assuming you’re both centered in the same place.