please share your views.
thanks,
Dushwari
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
Hello Dushwari,
Another nice question, you are interested in relationships alot, I think "Understanding each other" is related to our tolerance to other fellow and to allow him/her to remain as a distinct self, yet be actively in relationship. It is only possible, if we have a distinct self apart from our relationship.
Here in our culture one can see alot of instances, of such relationships, where people try to over-come the "failed-selfs"(I used this term for a condition when we feel existentially failed/bad etc.) by escaping the realities and trying to romanticise new shallow selfs out of relationships, such an effort leads to no way. Neither a good relationship, and nor a healthy self.
"Understanding" is also related to respecting each other in a relationship, I think there are very few people who could genuinely respect the other partner, specially if the partner is a female. We don't have a positive philosophy of life, Life is a kind of condenation for us, This philsophy is emerged from partly that we are historically dominated and partly from the Islam: An imported tribal religion.
It (Understanding each other) is also related to finding "good" in other partner, One can find worst & best in the same person, depends on how we want to move forward with someone. Finding "bad" in people is not the fault of the "people", it is the fault of the person who want to extend "bad" out of people. So the special one for whom many people wait for their whole life is not at all special, its just about building a good "Understanding":D and thats what understanding is, and thats why its so important.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
thanks, Words. nice perspective.
esp. the 3rd paragraph's logic.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
Dushwari
To me, it is acceptance of other person’s existence as a whole.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
Understanding in a relationship is a realization that the other person may have POV very different from your own. Understanding in a relationship is the tolerance of accepting other person as they are, instead of molding them in a way one want them to be. Understanding is the understanding that the other person may not be as much understanding as you are.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
-- double post --
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
yes, i have come to realize that as a friend of mine, once captured in words, sometimes, previously unknown or suprising aspects of a person's charatceristics can be really endearing in a developing relationship.
thanks for ur comment.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
[quote]
I think there are very few people who could genuinely respect the other partner, specially if the partner is a female. We don't have a positive philosophy of life, Life is a kind of condenation for us, This philsophy is emerged from partly that we are historically dominated and partly from the Islam: An imported tribal religion.
[/quote]
Care to elaborate on this?
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
Yes Offcours, I think there is sure lack of respect for each other, and specially for female, I'm not talking about the respect that comes from sacredness, its just to treat other person as human and not animal.
And i think this thing emerged from two things,
We are a dominated community, and its not far in our history, actually its still going on, i.e. the domination. Now a dominated community feels disgraced and a disgraced one, cant give respect. There is further psychological detail that why a dominated one finds it difficult to treat others better, But I'll try to be simple here.
We are following a religion which had grown in a tribal society, Now we all know that a tribal society is specifically cruel to females, there is a role of physical strength and women being weak are often the victums. So even reformed form of such a religion is quite cruel. And further the religion is an imported one, i.e. not indigenous, i.e. people tend to be superficial/ un-real about such things. You won't find arabs, as superficial about islam as people of this region, and people of the age of Mohammad was not at all unreal, because it was a matter of day to day life to them. So they treated it normally.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
^^ Sorry for being blunt, but TO ME your reasoning is very shallow.
You are suggesting that ours is a male-dominated society because the religion we follow came from a tribal society. So according to you, tribal societies are male dominated. Personally, i heavily disagree to that. Male domination is more apparent in those societies where the survival conditions were very tough. By survival condition, I don't mean freedom of thought & expression; survival conditions TO ME mean ways to find food, safe place to breed and raise off springs. If you don't want to involve religion, you don't have to look far to find reasons of male domination. Just look at the animal kingdom.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
You are suggesting that ours is a male-dominated society because the religion we follow came from a tribal society.
I'm not talking about the term "Male Domination" here, I don't mind you getting blunt, but you got to look at the whole scenario first to put the response. Remember we are talking about relationships.
What i explained in the above post, was the explaination of the paragraph 3 of my first post, and i mainly talked their(i.e. in that paragraph) about the positive philosophy of life and giving respect to each other (specifically female), I maintained that there is a lack of both of things, and we percieve life in a bad way. It was in the context of understanding each other in a relationship, When there is a lack of respect its for both sex, female offcourse suffers more because of its physical weakness. And further i said that our this lack of having a positive philosophy of life and lack of giving respect to each other is because of two things, First that we are a dominated nation, i.e. Dominated Historically by british, and Secondly an imported tribal religion.
Now how could you reduce this thin line of debate to only "Male Domination"?
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
I am sorry that I jumped to conclusion, however, if you look at the two points you raised above together, you might see where I am coming from.
Can you please elaborate the effect of British domination on contemporary generations?
May I also ask what you mean by "Positive Philosophy" and "Giving Respect".
Thanks.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
words & witch dr., as a reader of your responses, i can say that both of you might have valid reasons for why you are saying what you are saying.
however, i would like to add that there are cultural percepts due to which sub- consciously, we, as members of a social establishment, whether we like it or not, DO, get influenced by right or wrong behaviors and pick up on them, later relive them, if our own sensibilities are weak & we are susceptible to others' ways of living or inflicting wrongs on people around them.
ideally, i always hope that people are able enough to tell right from wrong, not play the blame game & self correct their own egoistic habits.
male-female imbalance in powers is there, but it is there.
what good women and good men can do is, NOT let the imbalance, tip each other off.
a wrong doer must acknowledge that a wrong doing has been committed, and be sorry for it, & not repeat it again.
in a culture, where it is considered okay to belittle women, or men, of course, people are going to be insensitive to hurt that they cause, since, they have grow up seeing and believing that hurting each other is the way to be.
that mind set needs to be reconfigured first.
this is only my opinion.
dushi
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
**Scientific explanation: **When the Chemistry works
Philosophical explanation: When works done has some physics.
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
good understanding in relationship according to my personnal experience means that both person have a similar thought structure, and ways to feel and react to their environement.
When two people with similar brains meet they can talk for hours, undersand each others feelings and emotions, they can guess wht the other is going to do or say...because they are similar.
Intuitions are the chore basis of thoughts, and those who share similar intuitions can interact easily, and understand each other easily.
So my point is that whereas most intelligent people can understand almost everyone, it does not imply they would like o live with someone so different that they need to deeply analyse each move and word o know what's going on in his/her head.
Living together with someone is easier when you feel alike, and that is why we often call our dear ones "soul mate".
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
I was asked this very question today by my friend.
Re: what is meant by ‘understanding’ each other in a relationship?
knowing him/her to the minutest detail and being unaware of all the after-effects 
Re: what is meant by 'understanding' each other in a relationship?
Salam,
I think the discussions are fracturing but very, very, intersting. I think that male domination is really romanticised globally....woman needs man to take care of her, man directs woman with either lectures or violence. Woman cowers or gratefully says...'u r so right'. Media enhances these stereo types and even ridicules men and women if they deviate too far from the basics of this.
Understanding in a relationship is actually, I think, something that stems from a very basic starting point. Actually 2. The first is being honest...that is if when seeking a life partner the man/woman takes ona 'role' which is designed to 'act' the desired partners 'ideal', problems will arise later. Firstly because no-one can keep up an act indefinitely and so inevitably when the 'real' self emerges a) the spouse finds themself with someone at odds to them b) the 'actor' feels resentful that 1- she/he has had to pretend they are someone they are not and 2- why shouldn't they be appreciated for exactly who they in reality are, and 3- think why can't my spouse 'evolve/compromise adapt to the new me.
We fail to recognise that people find their own comfort zone and hate to be dragged out of it. That is hard work.
- Listening. Its a simple thing but most people don't know how to listen...we naturally place 'filters' and tend to 'accept' compatible messages and 'reject' incompatible messages. We are also guilty of 'interpreting' what we hear into either something we prefer ..."so what you are REALLY saying is..." (and 'bend' the view into something we can accept) or become confrontational, we do not like what we are hearing and therefore become aggressive in order to establish the right to have own views/opinions/desicions etc adopted and accepted as the 'criteria' for governing relationship roles/rights/behaviour.
Anyway, that is just my small humble opinion.
or