Why a successful relationship is like a bicycle

I know from my own wisdom that any relationship, especially marriage operates with the principle of biking. That the pedals are only two and they cannot be in the same position at any one time. When one is hoisted up in the north position, the other automatically adopts the south position to form a holding spot for the force to launch the north-placed pedal forward. The pedals keep alternating in position throughout the journey. If at any one time the pedals are in one level, the bike is considered broken and a fundi must be called to fix it before the journey can proceed.

The principle applies to relationships. You see, the reason our mothers and fathers lasted longer in relationships was because they were intentional with such basic principles of wisdom. Women, especially knew when to keep quiet and when to answer their husbands back. When the men came back home roaring like lions about real and unreal issues, the women stayed calm and tactfully lowered their confrontational energies.

They would then highlight the idiocy and call it out once securely in the bedroom away from the children and others, and as we all know men are naturally friendlier, more submissive and willing to receive correction once they are in the safety of the bedroom. Once securely separated from their clothes This is something that the older generation of women knew and exploited accordingly without attempting to publicly wrestle the mantle of leadership from the man.

Using that balance, a lot of women steered clear of conflict just by shifting energies between them and their men opportunistically. In fact, there are a lot of family setups commanded by women in private while the man is allowed to wear the ceremonial crown in public to ensure that the balance is not rocked. Such insights are elements that are inherently ingrained in the being of a woman from birth. The problem we face today is that we want to match the energy of men in real-time. Scientifically, it amounts to plugging a positive terminal into the other positive terminal, an act whose only result is explosion.

I read somewhere that in every relationship there has to be one idiot. I disagree. While the element of idiocy might be relevant, it is a position that must be assumed alternately to achieve a perfect balance. Relationships are emotive arrangements with a huge voltage of current running in the grains at any one time. If handled with mediocrity, the winds of uncontrolled emotion would take over and steer the ship southwards to Bermuda’s triangle where separation and divorce is served.

A partner might knowingly skip responding to a situation until a friendlier and more conducive environment presents to address the matter.

An idea from a partner might be outrightly stupid but to brand it so can only destroy the other person's ego and cause discomfort that can be irreversible. It is like a madhouse requiring each party to sermon sobriety whenever the other person is driven by demons to wreck the ship of happiness. The power struggle is the main cause of fallout in many relationships. Women are particularly notorious for calling out weaknesses they see in their men forgetting that these are just newer versions of the same men our mothers lived with happily ever after.

Those of us who stopped believing that love wins can instead adopt the tagline ‘tact works’ to slither through the dynamics of a relationship till death do us part.