The Power Equation...

Ive always wondered about what drives relationships. What makes succesful relationships and what breaks them? The web of our existence is intertwined by a unending array of relationship threads- and they are certainly not similar. Familial relationships are god-given, friendships are symbiotic and work-related networking a bit like a temporary equilibrium- you strive to maintain that delicate balance between formality and bonding. Yet there must be something common to all of these- some virtue that applies to all, but in a different way to each?

During my growing-up days, my idea of a love story with a happy ending was based on the tenet of true love: you love your partner so much that you are ready to sacrifice evrything for him/ her. Everything else- status, compatibility, et al was just secondary. Indeed, fables and Bollywood (however senseless it may seem now, it surely had a subconscious influence) only reinforced those beliefs.

And indeed, when I looked around, it did seem true. I had, and still have, friends from various strata of society, with different mindsets, different perspectives to life. Yet all that matters for me to click with them is an agreement of core values- the basic things we stand for. Indeed, I do know of people falling in love, irrespective of vastly different social backgrounds and disparate views of life. And not all of it was puppy love- there were deep connections.

But did it all stand the test of time? Not really. As some close friends fell apart and lovers' tiffs turned to quarrels, I realized that true love didn't guarantee eternal happiness in a relationship. Something else was pulling the strings. My prime suspect- some sort of balance between the two parties involved. Something that is an innocuous bystander at the start- its meek voice is obscured by the din of love and caring. But as time goes by, it starts speaking to both, furtively, creating the fatal rift. I call it the POWER EQUATION.

So what is the Power Equation? Simply put, its a parameter of each partner's relative strength in a relationship "as perceived by each other". My theory- to be happy in a relationship, you have to get the power equation right. If that is not the case, irrespective of all the love in the world and all the caring, you will never be happy and contented.

So where does the Power Equation derive itself from? It could be as simple as how much each partner needs the relationship- that's Emotional Dependency, the most common player. Indeed, in my case, most of the times it was emotional dependency that led to unhappiness. The most common is also the most curable- Emotional dependency is perhaps the only thing that is within your control. In other less-fortunate cases, it could be rigid factors- Financial Status in some cases, Intelligence in some.

Again, the important part here is "As perceived by each other"- a couple may be living off on the fortune the wife earned by heritage, but if wealth is not an important parameter to the both of them, they could still be living happily. The relative perceptions also are equally important. The wife may feel that the husband is not giving enough time to their baby, though he may feel he is doing enough- it would result in an unbalanced power equation in the wife's mind. Most of the times however we see an interplay of various power equations- take the first example again- the wife may be richer but may be much more insecure than her husband- the two would then cancel out to create a harmonic balance.

A final word- not to imply that true love is a fallacy. Indeed, the hopeless romantic that I'm, I still believe in it. Just that the Power Equation is an important consideration too- a notion we often dismiss away under the guise of over-practicality.

Think about it. Does it help in a teeny-weeny way in solving those riddles that always racked your brains? For me, yes it has. And it's also given me a key to happiness- I now keep the equation balanced, and it keeps itself solved :)