You Have To Work At Relationships
A wise and good friend once said to me that "...Love is not a Noun but a Verb, a doing thing that requires effort and energy." You have to put work into love to make it happen. Relationships are part of the same process.
If a relationship is to continue from where it starts or where it is at a given point, it has to be seen as something flexible, malleable, and ever changing. The relationship you have with one person is as much subject to your input as to the input and exchange they get from the rest of their network and peer group. However, you can only be responsible for the contribution that you make yourself.
Building support, enhancing people skills, this is work in the true sense of the word. But in a natural relationship, where there is a point of connection, the effort or the "work" is not of the same type. It requires instead that you actively take part, that you bring yourself and your focus to the place of two or more people gathering.
There will be times in any relationship where you need more from it than you are contributing yourself and then the situation will change and you will become more of a giver, bringing strength to the arrangement. Simply being aware of this ebb and flow will allow you to have a sense of perspective and to be realistic about the exchange of energy that you observe to be needed. To stop giving, to end the contribution, will see you losing the relationship or at least no longer receiving so much from it.
Place your energy and your intention into the creation of a relationship that gives to both parties a sense of being welcome, having something to contribute, of being a space where judgment is absent and is neither required nor needed.
Your input and commitment to the relationship can bring satisfaction beyond measure, as you build upward from a foundation of understanding, appreciation and love. Your own input, sharing, supporting and encouraging can bring you all you will ever need.
Do the 'work' and receive the joyful reward of relationships that are both fulfilling and giving.