A Bridge Too Far
The Burning And Building Of Bridges, And The Relationships That Are Allowed By Them.
Originally published at https://pherothanaton.substack.com.
The term “burning bridges” is one that most people are familiar with. It’s an idiom that has lived in the west for many years. What most people don’t think about when it comes to personal relationships and the “bridges” between each other is that we build and burn bridges throughout our relationships. Our communications and how we treat others, as well as the trust we build and betray, end up defining what kind of relationships we are allowed to have.
What It Really Means to Burn a Bridge
The idiom, of course, refers to the military tactic. However, when used as an idiom, it refers to the line of communication between relationships. I understand this could be debated, to a point, but the general idea would be the same. I would also point out that communication isn’t always conversation and words when it comes to relationships. Communication can stretch to various non-verbal, subliminal and physical interactions. For the most part, I’ll be referring to the verbal communication.
When it comes to burning bridges in our relationships, we are, essentially, ending that route of communication. One of my goals in this article is to point out that burning bridges does not always refer to completely ending interactions. It generally means that you have ended a certain layer of trust. So, when you burn a bridge, you are, technically, building another one. For a visual example, it would be like a strong stone bridge was destroyed, but a less stable wooden bridge replaced it. There is still a bridge of communication, but without the trust, foundation and level of traffic that it can handle.
Trust Defines the Strength of Every Bridge
When two friends fight, unless the friendship is completely destroyed, they will continue talking and even rebuild the relationship to what it once was. Generally, there is a level of forgiveness among friends. In relationships that are more intense, like romantic relationships, an argument can mean the beginning of the end. The more intimate the relationship, the more demanding of trust that relationship requires.
The wise couple does try to forgive each other after a fight, which would allow a stronger bond. Outside of intimate connections, most relationships are more prone to temporary terms. The relationship between a coworker that you would have a conversation with on break is less likely to have the same level of care and concern as your wife. Your wife would get more concern than your brother. Your brother might get more than most friends.
Relationships exist within a caste system in our lives. Whether we realize it or not, we automatically rank the importance of the relationships based on whom they are with, as we should. There would be complete and utter chaos if we were whimsical with our relationship with our wife and took the relationship with our mailman more seriously than any other, or perhaps even treated all relationships the same.
The Hierarchy of Relationships
These relationships, with whomever they’re with, are maintained with bridges of communication. Now, those bridges of communication are constantly changing. Sometimes they are getting stronger, reinforced and even rebuilt on a better foundation. Almost as often, the bridges are destroyed, downsized, and even severely restricted.
When Bridges Weaken or Collapse
The estranged son and father who never, or rarely, talk would be a good example of this. One would argue that at some point their relationship was based on a mostly strong foundation. The bond between a father and son, some would say, is one of the strongest. However, it is no strange thing to hear that a son and father are not as close, or have cut off all communication completely. That would be an example of the deterioration of a relationship, the “burning of bridges”.
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The blossoming of a relationship between a young man and woman into a healthy marriage would be the example of making the bridges of communication between two people stronger in every way, even in changing the foundation of communication in their relationship. Fewer relationships experience this extreme growth, obviously as this would make a person dysfunctionally sociable.
Most Bridges Are Ordinary, and Fragile
Most relationships have what you would consider a rather standard bridge. It supports most traffic, and even the random large haul, sometimes they begin falling into disrepair and start crumbling or they get serviced. Analogies aside, this is very typical of most relationships. Give most your interactions in life some thought. You don’t, typically, have the most enlightening conversation with the guy on the next fuel pump over from you and you don’t usually talk about the weather with a close brother. Talking about weather is traffic meant for the weakest of bridges. It’s basically foot traffic.
How Our Actions Reshape Communication
So, what am I getting at? What’s the point in this article? I wanted to touch on some aspects of the bridges of communication that many people don’t consider and even don’t understand. That is, the fact that our actions will evolve the line of communication between us and others.
When Forgiveness Isn’t Enough
Let’s say that we have someone whom we are giving advice to and they don’t accept it, and yell and scream to the point of trying to be offensive. As Christians, we should, of course, forgive them. All well and good. What neither party may realize, even though apologies have been received and forgiveness given, is that the line of communication, the bridge, has been altered. There is a subliminal removal of trust. The bridge has been damaged, and, though patched, will not be as strong.
There are some relationships which can survive, completely heal, and become stronger after damage. Most relationships are not that type. This is why friendships sometimes just slowly end over time. The bridge was not maintained and repaired properly, if it was even bridging two compatible lands. It is not necessarily anyone’s fault, and would have happened either way. Sometimes people just move apart. Most of the time it is because one, or both, don’t understand that the bridges between them had changed and they want it to bear the same load that it once did.
If someone tries to treat a bridge that has become weaker as if it is as strong as before, the bridge will crumble. We see this many times with a person who has constantly strained a relationship, and wants “everything to go back to normal”. Well, forgiveness or not, the terms of that relationship have been redefined.
If you have someone confide in you and you betray that trust, that person will probably not confide in you again. Even if they forgive you, they would be foolish to put the same level of trust in you. In the same way, if someone is giving you advice, and you lash out to them when you don’t like the advice, they will give advice less readily.
The Bridges Worth Building
These are the terms, or the bridges, of our relationships. The more we understand this, the sooner we can improve and build our relationships, and we can secure the relationships which are deemed unworthy of building up where they are.
Originally published at https://pherothanaton.substack.com.
