By A.S., UK

I am sure we are not alone in our story and many readers of this will be able to relate to it. My husband and I met when we were young – 18 and 19. We instantly ‘fell in love’ and were engaged at 19 and 20. We went through the usual dramas of ‘young love’ but felt pretty certain that we would choose to be together in the long term.

We had children pretty young as well. And in the midst of having kids, carving careers, renovating houses, further study and dealing with everyday life, we adopted a ‘mode’ – a coping strategy to help us deal with everything (with the help of wine and coffee and the rest).

When we came across Universal Medicine it rocked my world, because all the while I had been feeling that there must be more to life than this. I keenly started to make changes to look after myself better, started questioning the way we were doing things and genuinely wanted to learn how to live in a way where I was not always on the back foot, always tired and always looking to escape and check out from it all.

But my husband was sceptical to say the least, and initially did not like the magnifying glass being put on our lives by me. He did go along with it to a certain extent because he respected me and valued my opinion, but for him it was too much too soon. After a period of trying to convince him, I decided that the most important thing was for me to not force things.

After a few years, having been around Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and having observed everyone involved and the students at length, my husband started to take responsibility for his own choices a bit more and his own process of coming into a more honest relationship with himself ensued.

I would like to be able to say that at this point things improved, but in actual fact they got much worse, because with the increase in honesty we had to face the unloving choices we had made, individually and together, which had had a huge effect on our relationship, our kids, and our personal expression in our working lives. The hardest thing of all, as I’m sure many would agree, is to face what you have unknowingly done to your kids. How you have imposed your opinions on them, not met them when they needed you and been too busy with your own stuff.

For a while it felt like we were only being confronted by the ‘flaws’ of our relationship because so many patterns and ideals about how things should be in a family were being exposed. They were being exposed in that they stood out in contrast to the simple loving way of living we were coming to know through our connection to Serge, his family and other students of Universal Medicine.

It is very confronting to see that you could have lived in a more loving and natural way and have chosen not to. How we can complicate things, create dramas and relationships based on need and not on true respect and caring for one another.

To be honest, I was not convinced at one point whether our relationship would survive, but we stuck with it and gave each other the time and space to look at the issues that were coming up. As something else was revealed to us, we just worked through it one at a time. The relationships with other students and the Benhayon family in particular supported both of us immensely and it felt like we were held in that and had a constant reminder of what true love was and that it was there in us too all of the time.

I can say that it is mainly through this ongoing support that we were able to develop this strength within ourselves as individuals. Over time, both my husband and myself have independently come to the understanding that developing a loving relationship with ourselves is the key to being more open and in real relationships with others.

We are at the point now where we have a greater confidence in how we truly feel about things for ourselves and can hold this as a way of being. When we come together we have a new-found respect for each other, trusting that the other is equally committed to getting to the bottom of any issue that arises, that the other is equally dedicated to themselves and to having love in their lives and that the other is open to sharing that love.

Now that is a different way to be in relationship – there is now no need, no attachment, no ideals of how it ‘should’ be, just a daily exploration of what it feels like to be in life, in relationship and we are both open to bringing our love to the day with a newly reaffirmed commitment and togetherness.