According to Osho, close relationships self-balance: if one partner over-identifies with calm, virtue, or “heaven,” the other is pushed into heat, vice, or “hell.” Roles polarize by compensation. The remedy is authenticity—allow natural anger, sadness, and joy—so neither must enact the opposite extreme. This balancing also plays out in life at large. Drop pretenses, share humanity, and meet in ordinariness.
If you act too perfect or calm, your partner gets forced into being the upset one; be real so you both share feelings fairly.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
It is true that in a very close relationship when one 'plays' the good, understanding, calm and relaxed one, it is only left for the other to be nervous, tense and angry? Please explain.
Yes, a certain kind of balancing always happens in relationship. If one is playing very calm and quiet and cool, the other will have to do all the work of being angry, nagging, miserable, fighting. Just a few days ago Chaitanya Hari had asked a question, "Why did Socrates continue to live with this naggy-daggy woman, Xanthippe?" The question is relevant, because he is also living with a naggy-daggy woman, Krishna. But remember, Socrates was responsible. He was playing too cool, too philosophical. Xanthippe was not as bad as she appears. If you go into the psychology of it, she was the victim of a philosopher. She had to do all the work, the poor woman. And so is the case with Krishna! Krishna was saying to me, "Osho, do you think this Chaitanya Hari is a saint?" He is not! He only pretends! Now Chaitanya Hari is also responsible…
He who will authentically love will authentically be angry too. Until you attain Tao, you will have to live in this opposition. And if you must live in opposition, only by living authentically is there a possibility that someday you attain rhythm. For the inauthentic man there is no way—because he never connects with the stream of life. Everything remains on the surface. His prayer, his worship, his love, his hatred, his enmity, his friendship—everything is superficial. Nothing stirs his life-breaths. Try a little experiment: if something seems missing in life—say, compassion seems lacking—then try to understand. It means your anger is inauthentic—contrived. It is not real. Where it should be expressed, you don’t express; where it shouldn’t be expressed, you do. One who lives with such false anger cannot become nonviolent by any means. His ahimsa will be just as hollow and shallow.
It is just that sometimes you cannot allow things to remain perfect; then you create some kind of negativity. That's your creation, and you seem to be one of the expert people around here who can create negativity. But it is a created thing -- bogus. It is nothing true it is just that you enjoy creating it. You get into it... but you get into it. It is not that the negativity comes to you; you invite it. When everything is going well you start feeling a little uneasy: 'How can things be so good?' -- you can't trust. And when things are going well you are not in control; you want to remain in control and you can be in control only when things are negative. That's your expertise. And I know it is very difficult to drop one's expertise.
What happens in and with the relationship between two partners if their egos drop?
Every day some couple comes to me and says 'We would like to change the partners. Enough is enough. We are tired.' But what will you do? You will do the same with the other person. It is not going to make much difference. Maybe for a few days, the fantasy, the romance, the honeymoon, and again... And they know it -- because they have done it before too. And they nod their heads in agreement. And they say 'Yes, that's true. I have been doing this to many women. But what to do? I am stuck again.' Rather than changing the partner, rather than dropping your woman or man, drop your ego. Dropping that ego, a different quality starts taking shape in your life, a different light, a different vision. And things settle in that vision. With that light coming in, all old miseries and conflicts and anguishes disappear.…
You do one thing -- rather than living completely separately, just meet for two or three hours every day, and the remaining time be alone. You can use the friction and the situations that come up in your relationship, and be alone too. In fact whenever two people are in love, they should not be together for twenty-four hours. It is very very harmful to them, and more than that, it is harmful to the love itself. People kill and destroy their love by being together too much, because something deep down is violated. Each is in need of a certain space, and lovers become too interfering in each other's lives, unknowingly of course. They love, so they want to cling and interfere in each and every thing -- and that's how every love is destroyed. Love can be tremendously beautiful if it is not destroyed.