“The Prince And The Swallow” – A Story About Addiction In A Partnership

With this story from Mar Pastor about the role of love and dependency in partnership, I would like to invite you to reflect on what an uncertain love does to us, how it causes us suffering and how it does us hurt when we want to control and dominate our partner and use love as an excuse.

Let’s think about the differences between love and addiction. Why do we confuse the two of them? How can dependent love negatively affect our relationship?

“When we are attached to something, we also feel fear. We’re scared of losing this thing. This feeling of insecurity will always be with us. “

Jiddu Krishnamurti

The prince and the swallow

The prince spent his days looking out the window and waiting for something to happen. He had only one attendant at his side who took care of the shopping and kept the lock clean. “What a boring life,” he  sighed.

One April morning a swallow sat on his windowsill. “Oh,” he   cried,  “what a cute and little creature!”   The swallow sang him a little serenade and flew away. He was very excited about her. Her singing was the most beautiful thing in the world for him and her plumage made him speechless. A really unique creature!

From that day on, the prince could not wait for the little swallow to return. One day the time had come and the swallow came back to his window and sang another song for him. He felt so happy. “Are you cold?” He asked himself shortly before she wanted to fly away again.

The third time the bird came to him, the prince worried that he might be hungry. In the following days he built a little house for the swallow. He sent his servant out to buy wood and nails and to catch insects. After several bumpy attempts, he finally ordered him to build the house too. “Cursed bird,”  the servant whispered and got to work.

The prince put the insects in the house and provided water and a bit of silk to serve as a bed for the bird. When he saw him make himself comfortable on the windowsill again, he put the house built especially for the swallow on it and enjoyed watching her drink water and eat the food prepared for her. “Do you like these insects, my sweet swallow?” He   asked her. “I caught them for you,”  he added. The swallow answered him with a chirp before setting off again.

The prince has to live with uncertainty

Then fear overcame him. And what if she never returns? What if she finds better shelter? Other princes might build her a nicer bird feeder or actually catch insects themselves. He couldn’t let that happen. There was no swallow like this in the world! The prince could not sleep for two days and think of nothing else until he decided to bridge his waiting time by building a door with a padlock for the little house.

Finally the swallow came back and when she went into the bird feeder to try the food the prince locked her in. “I love you,” he   swore, “with me you will never run out of food or water and you will never have to freeze again.”  The swallow was a little confused at first, but then made itself comfortable. She enjoyed her warm home and the abundance of food without having to go hunting herself.

The prince put the cage on his bedside table to greet the swallow every morning with a stroke on the head. “You are my swallow, sing me a beautiful song,” he  asked her. “This life is not that bad,” thought the swallow and then sang. But over time it fell silent, until at some point it stopped making a sound.

The swallow fell silent

“Why don’t you sing anymore?”  The prince asked in astonishment, “you made me happy when you sang.” “My singing was made up of the flowing water, the sound of the wind in the trees and the light of the itself inspired by the moon reflecting the mountain rock. I was happy to bring you this, but I can’t find anything in this cage to sing about, ”  she answered him.

“I keep you in this cage because I love you,”  replied the prince. “It’s dangerous for you to fly around outside alone. What if something happens to you? You can’t find any food or a hunter shoots you? ” “ What is a hunter? ” Asked the swallow. The prince only assured her: “I will take care of you and protect you, here you are out of danger.”

One day the prince got up and was horrified. He wanted to stroke the swallow and found it dead in the cage. In a rage he looked for his servant and fired him because he was sure that one of the insects he had caught had killed the swallow. However, the fact that he had found someone to blame did not appease the prince, who only felt more lonely and worthless than before the swallow came into his life.

It stayed that way until someone else sat down on his windowsill and trilled a song to him. It was the most beautiful song he had ever heard.

Houses with padlocks that put an end to love

This narrative sheds light on how love and dependency work in a partnership and shows us how our fears and fears often put a stop to the wishes and rights of the other. The story is full of truth: when we change people we know, we are, without our noticing it, responsible for causing them to distance themselves from their being and their happiness.

Regarding a situation where we feel lonely or empty, we can either take responsibility for escaping it, or we can impose it on our partner by creating a relationship full of dependency.

Love for a person can confuse us to the extent that we ask too much of that loved one and we make him a unique and irreplaceable creature in our eyes, as does the fear when we imagine we might lose him reinforced. We deprive the other of his freedom when we use it as an excuse to protect him or to want to take care of his or her well-being.

This story tells us something about dependency in a relationship, but about love, respect and tolerance in a partnership . To love means to accept the other person’s ways, to put happiness above our needs and to let him fly when he needs it, when – like the swallow – that is what makes him happy.