Relationships And The Parabolic Arch

What the heck do they have in common you might ask. I’ll tell you.

 A parabolic arch is a simple enough looking structure that is extremely strong if correctly constructed, weak and certain to collapse if not.

 The roof of this house this house  is an unsupported parabolic arch, constructed from thousands of clay tiles fixed together with plaster of paris.

This particular arch was created with a layer of tiles laid lengthways with the next layer in a herringbone pattern, the third layer lengthways and so on.

It has several tons of gravel and soil for the grass covering to grown in over the top too for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

During its construction half of the roof was completed with the other half still a single layer, when one of the builders accidentally leant on the incomplete half and a huge section of the roof collapsed. Thankfully nobody was injured and the house was eventually completed and is a beautiful and practical family home.

It was watching this house being built on the Grand Designs program on Channel 4 that made me realise that the best relationships are built in the same way. Not from layers of clay tiles, but the building blocks of life.

We meet someone, there’s a mutual attraction and together you tentatively take the first steps. A date, a kiss, the first building block is placed. Ok for us it may not be a kiss, but replace that with whatever is appropriate. It could be you got bent over and had your arse caned red raw the first time you met, a BDSM equivalent of a kiss.

Slowly we build the layers of our parabolic arch by spending time together, making the effort to make our new partner happy and enjoying the exploration of getting to know each other.

We grow to trust each other, to lean on this significant other and support each other through the trials life throws at us and continue the relationship, like this roof protects from the elements and keeps the house standing.

What happens to a relationship when you put too much pressure on a weak point?

It collapses and fails.

Sometimes we don’t know where the vulnerabilities lie. Perhaps the relationship is too new and flounders before it’s really had chance to get off the ground because one or both (or more) of you, accidentally or even recklessly behave in a way that causes collapse.

Maybe it’s something that’s not been discussed or not expected to arise.

Other times we do know what may cause a relationship to fail, it’s these areas we can work to strengthen and hopefully avoid that catastrophic collapse, but it’s only by taking the time to slowly and carefully nurture our relationship and enjoy the fruits of our labour as we see it grow stronger day by day until eventually it will withstand almost anything.

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"The most powerful sexual organ in the body is our brain, open your mind and allow your fantasies free reign, mutual pleasure between consenting adults is a wonderful thing."
DanesWood