First, my two cents: contentment, found as a reflection of companionship is not enough. Choosing to spend the rest of your life with someone only because you feel safe, secure and content, is not the best option. There will surely come a point when you will feel deceived (and possibly resentful) of intimacy. Fulfillment in love, and therefore with couples who stay in love, stems from this much deeper form of closeness than companionship. Sincere love includes passion, connectedness and respect as the crucial elements.
What exactly is sincere love? The word sincere comes from the Latin "sincerus" which translates to: without wax. Confused? Missing the correlation between wax and relationships? There is an ancient Roman tale which brings it all together. The Roman merchants created this seemingly ingenious sales practice to deceive innocent shoppers. To disguise cracks in their porcelain and hand-crafted pottery, the merchants filled wax into the flawed areas. Clever consumers began to catch on to this and learned to examine the merchandise by holding it up to the sun. If there was indeed a crack, the wax would then melt and reveal the hidden truth. Those items passing the test were marked as "sincerus."
The modern day morale (mixed with my own personal interpretation) of this ancient tale can easily be applied to relationships. The message, therefore, becomes: Take the time to seek and honor the preciousness of genuine love and to accept no imitations for true love.
Although people don't come pre-stamped as worthy or not-so-worthy lifemate material, we still can perform our own little "wax tests." A. Justin Sterling, relationship author, presents the following as the best way to tell if he/she is right for you: "Consider him/her as breeding stock . . . a (partner) who has qualities you want to pass on to your children and none that you don't. Use that criterion even if you don't (plan) to have children because it will force you to look beyond the short-term rewards of a relationship. You have to have a long-term vision to select a lifetime mate."
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