Love Knows No Boundaries

(source: http://www.newmoonmovie.org/category/poster/)

I bet many of you have somehow or rather heard about the upcoming sequel to the movie Twilight, New Moon. You could have read both novels or watched the Twilight movie or both. The movie New Moon is based on the novel itself which is written by Stephenie Meyer. Click on the link to watch the trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gomruCpWX1Q

Basically, New Moon is a love story (as well as a thriller) between two totally different individuals who experience challenges and difficulties in their not-so-ordinary relationship. One is Bella Swan, an ordinary eighteen-year-old girl who is in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. According to the relational formation and development, the relationship between Bella and Edward is formed from complementarities; the tendency to form a relationship with those who are different from us. They met each other in school where there is close proximity and greater opportunity for interaction in the movie Twilight. From then on, the interpersonal relationship continues to be built upon to the point of deep intimate love. But of course, every relationship has its downfall.

Fanatics of Twilight and New Moon would have known that Bella and Edward, the two main characters in the movies, encounter extreme challenges even to the point of life and death. Bella and Edward started out as friends also known to be at the "Initiating Stage" in Knapp's Model of Relational Development. Their relationship continues to progress but not linearly until the point in New Moon where there is a conflict in the relational needs of intimacy versus distance. To protect Bella from the world of vampires, Edward leaves the town of Forks. I believe both Bella and Edward still feel for each other but unfortunately, they are fated to face life challenges such as disassociation when Edward had to leave Bella behind in order to protect her.

Despite the challenges Bella and Edward are facing, they both knew the importance of self disclosure in which Edward is willing to inform Bella about himself, a vampire, which would usually not be accepted by the norms of relationship. Imagine if your partner is really a vampire or someone who is out of the norm. Would you be willing to overcome all the obstacles in your relationship and do what it takes in order to save it? Here we can see that self disclosure is essential to maintain a relationship. Trust and commitment towards the relationship are crucial because they are part of the basis of a promising (well hopefully!) relationship.

Every relationship requires some kind of a sacrifice in one way or another. Most people would certainly want to be more engaged in the “coming together” stages of Knapp's Model of Relational Development namely the “Initiating, Experimenting, Intensifying, Integrating and Bonding” stages. But then again, everything has its reason. Love is something that is fated and is sometimes beyond our control.