In public events, retreats, workshops and public talks, I regularly provide the opportunity for those who wish to join me at the front of the hall for an inquiry session. I leave it to the person who takes the seat, next to myself, to open up the dialogue on any issue he or she wishes. There is a wish for insight and understanding to emerge for everybody listening including inquirer, audience and teacher.
I have noticed that issues around relationships, especially between partners or parents/children or adults about their parents become more and more an area of concern. From time to time, I have to make it clear that I am not a family counsellor, a social worker or engaged in marriage guidance. I can only offer a Dharma perspective. In summary, this Dharma perspective does not give much priority to the story and the details forming the story. Dharma explores the nature of dependent arising, clarity around intentions and a non-clinging wisdom. Love has a transcendent value – meaning love is not dependent on wishes of the self or another’s attitude.
There has been a rather widely held view that if both partners work full time, it easily leads to deterioration in the relationship – tiredness, stress and less quality time together. Some held to the view that it would be better for a mother to stay at home to take care of the domestic situation and the man goes to work. This view has lost credibility.
In fact, a research of 3500 British couples explodes this view.
A daily newspaper this month gave a report of the research. The report stated that problems between partners, with or without children, often link, but not always, to the kind of support the man in the relationship gives to the home.
Childcare, housework, cooking, shopping, as well as quality of attention to the relationship itself, keep the relationship content and stable.
The survey of British couples shows that it is the man’s contribution at home in terms of housework and childcare that really matter. A woman then feels that she and her partner are working together, as a team, not living separate lives while sharing the same bed. The survey shows men’s contribution at home, day and night, serves as one of the really supportive conditions for a happy and stable relationship.
Dear Male friends. Please sit up and take notice of the above!