Are we aware of when we are being insensitive? Is it fairly obvious, like being angry or happy, speaking rudely or affectionately? In a way yes; when you are dealing with mundane things- do you ensure you leave enough food for everyone when you eat first, if you are cooking or ordering, are you considering your partners likes and dislikes, do you lift enough weight around the house to ensure your partner also has a life and is not a glorified maid, and even if you are not there yet, do you ensure you don’t add to her or his workload by leaving things messy. All of these are good measures of how sensitive or insensitive you are to your partner. However, these are surface-level issues that you will learn over the years, living with your partner. Whether you like it or not, both of you will strike a compromise, a compromise for convenience, of not having to fight everyday and have some semblance of peace in the relationship. However, if you want to transcend what you see at the surface level, to a point where you are sensitive to your partner, you need to truly love. This is a chicken and egg situation. You can truly be sensitive to your partner, only if you truly love him or her, but to build that love, that connection, you have to go beyond just what you see of your partner or what he or she tells you. How does one do that?
The only way is to break walls. Breaking walls within yourself. Understanding your partner starts with understanding yourself. Understanding your triggers, understanding your prejudices, understanding and accepting yourself as you are (for example, accepting that you are judgemental. Only then can you become non-judgemental. You can’t change unless you accept), dropping your image of your partner and truly seeing him or her for what she or he is, at that moment. It requires that you change the core of your being. When you understand yourself, when you drop all the filters through which you see the world, and your partner, you’ll build that connection. You’ll learn to truly love. You’ll learn to be sensitive, to yourself and to your partner. Only then will there be oneness. Only then there is truly a relationship.
