The Trouble With (All Types of) Relationships

I've noticed a little something within myself that makes me think about relationships and how they come about.  If the ideal of love is that it's unconditional, then we fall far short of that when we choose a single partner to spend our lives with.  Love is no longer unconditional, but based on the attraction to that one.  Otherwise, it wouldn't matter who we paired up with - it might as well be arranged.  ;-)

I've been examining my own attraction to others - first I'm impressed by a skill, talent, virtue, etc (something that I probably lack myself), then I'm pulled to that person (wanting to have the thing they have that I haven't got), then I look for ways to be with that person, and once I've had my fill, I back off and move onto the next person.  To be so fickle in my devotion seems hardly sensible.
The first problem I see is the impression.  I get impressed by something in the other person.  Why do I get impressed?  If it's a virtue that someone has that I feel I lack, then the solution is to emerge that virtue myself.  This is something anyone can do - watch someone who has a specific virtue, then copy or model them (this is called Modelling in NLP) and eventually that virtue will be natural within you as well.  If it's a talent that I admire, then that might not be so easy for me to emerge.  I doubt I will ever have a fine singing voice.  However, because a person possesses a natural talent, is this reason to be impressed?  Ok, they may have worked on it and refined it - good for them, but are they extraordinary for having done this?  I also refine my talents, so what would make them more extraordinary than me?  And who gave them the talent?  Does opposites attract? It is for the mere purpose of creating a whole from two halves.  Instead of making the effort to make ourselves whole, we look to someone else to accomplish that task.  In this case, we become dependent on the other and we make them dependent on us.  Does it make sense that I am impressed with the receiver of the talent, but not the giver? The next problem is the attraction. Through attraction I become attached. My thoughts constantly go towards the object of my attraction. The problem here is that things that DO require my attention get less of it because I'm constantly pulled towards another. My thoughts and my time are used to fulfil these temporary desires rather than focus-ing on my lifelong aim. Attraction then merely becomes distraction. Both are actions of the mind.  Finally, there is a problem if what I am doing is trying to find wholeness. I've heard people say, 'I don't feel we can be complete without another.' Can't we really? If I were single and someone told me I'm only half a person (or even half of a whole), I would be terribly insulted. Which is why, perhaps (we dread being single) we are desperately looking for our 'better' half which will (not always) turn into our 'worse' or the 'worst' half ever. If that half turns like this then our relationship becomes sour and stale and it stinks; thus, living together is unbearable. Why do you think there are so many separations and divorces happening? If the adage is true that  a temporary relationship is..., this is fatal, as we invest all our years to encourage this depend-ency and then one of us dies.  Where does that leave the other one/'half'?  Often following just 3 months behind. 
Are there any good relationships?  Yes, the eternal ones!  The relationship with God (who/wahtever you call this Energy, this Higher Consciousness...) and with the godly family.  When we cultivate a relationship with God, we become the recipient of unconditional love, and when we build relationships with the vision that each one we meet is a child of the same God, then we deliver unconditional love.  We find our own completeness and wholeness in God and then we can help others to find theirs.  And this is my (the) definition of a healthy relationship. Have you found another definition? I haven't!
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Ross Galán, NLP Spiritual Life Coach
at the Spiritual Life Coaching School