By Farah G. Decano

 

HAVE you ever heard of the discordant, annoying, and repetitious wailing of fools?  Ah, they break their hearts again and again – committing the same mistakes as if following an infinite pattern.  They run to you the minute they feel limerent and begin to chatter endlessly about a new prospect.  When their fantasies get shattered, they knock your door off and weep every night until dawn.

Does this sound familiar?  Do we have friends who are frequently victimized by their own follies?  Do we know people who romance their partners like guiltless swindlers or abusers?

We were never really taught how to navigate our emotions and manage our romantic relationships.  We learn as we dive, so to speak. We either sink or swim, or worse, we are eaten by sharks pretending to be lovely dolphins or helpless sea turtles.

They say falling in love is the easy part and that it is maintaining the spark that requires the hard work from the both individuals.  A lot of individuals, however, are prisoners of their own emotions, never understanding why they feel the way they do. They have a vague idea about passion, love, infatuation, commitment, and vows.  Curiously, they interchange these concepts.

At the moment, we have this notion that age is proportionate to wisdom.  This is not always true.  There are many 50-year olds who have been scammed in this digital age.  It is wrong to assume that the older we become, the more we become stronger and skilled in protecting ourselves from heartaches and fraud.  It would seem that our protracted personal journey is not a guarantee of learned lessons.

If we allow individuals to “learn by doing” then we risk having more broken marriages, and even many more children raised in unhappy marriages or by single parents.

The 1987 Constitution recognizes the family as the foundation of the nation. With this legal pronouncement, we should no longer trivialize relationships and relegate them to the concerns of only the romantics and the psychos.  The state has an interest in keeping the bond between two individuals who have decided to form a family.

The state can actually translate its concerns for the family by injecting new topics in school curricula.  If sex education is included in the sciences, then love, romance, and relationships should also be incorporated in social science subjects.

Perhaps, high school and college social science courses should   offer topics such as childhood trauma and its future impact on one’s affairs; identifying and finding the ideal partner; the red flags; reading body language; the ten emotional needs; rejection and addiction; oxytocins, dopamine, and other hormones; behavioral maladjustments; fidelity; eroticism and commitment.

We need to start early. The youth must be trained to intellectualize their emotions so that they will grow into adults with smart hearts. These proposed courses on love, romance, and relationships in high school and college should also teach students metacognition – that ability to be aware of one’s own thoughts and feelings.

By educating individuals early on emotional matters, perhaps we could be saving a lot of heartbreaks, suicides, and mental breakdowns. And likely, marriages will be taken more seriously.  There will also be less of those live their lives with regret.

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments