BENGALURU: Imagine the worst fight you have had with the love of your life. You may have been screaming at each other, maybe came close to being violent. Maybe you made up, maybe you
decided the fight wasn’t worth it. Maybe you just let time heal and let other things become important enough so that the fight no longer mattered. The point is this: How do you know a fight has ended?
The challenge for many couples is that when they stop fighting, one party might believe the fight is over, while the other might just believe they have taken a pause in the fight and the fight has been marked as “To Be Continued.” If it is the latter, then on another day and time, the previous fight may be connected to another and snowball into a much bigger one. Of course, it becomes a really big and ugly deal if both parties to the fight are in the “To Be Continued” mode.
As more “To Be Continued” fights pile up like a bedside library full of books that one has never completed, it is likely to one day topple over and crush you. Soon, there is either a giving up and an uncaring attitude, or there is an active rage that throws out everything. What if the pile of books could be picked up and read now and then? What if couples tried to clear the clutter and misunderstandings between them regularly?
Imagine yourself doing it quite literally for all the incomplete things in your life - those shows that are left at 40 per cent on NetFlix, or those half done craft projects in your closet. If you took stock, how much clutter would you clear away? My bet would be that you would probably find that there is a lot that you simply grew out of and that you just don’t want any more. Maybe a few that you want to keep for later, and maybe one or two that you really cared about and want to attend to right away.
So, what would happen if you actually kept an active roster of open issues? A journal exclusively for all these “To Be Continued” fights that you are having with your loved one? Could it help you let go, and yet hold on to what is really important?
Try it!