I have often heard people talk woefully of “another failed relationship” as the curtain draws down on their current romantic engagement. The coupling may have lasted a few months, a year or a few years – it doesn’t matter as the testament to failure may still be recorded. To me, one of the great implications in this statement is that a successful relationship is one that lasts for eternity, one that has reached that mystical place of perfection and completion where no further growth, attention or commitment is necessary. A place sheltered from the often tempestuous and always uncertain ways of life. A place of ultimate security, comfort and stability. That is, certainty. How can a relationship truly be successful, for both parties and the greater community, if this is the underlying motivation and even expectation? Where is the joy in this? This idea of success can lead only to stagnation and in many ways of perception create what it wishes to avoid – failure. For me however, there is no failure, in relationships or in the wider and deeper sense when considering us as individuals.