I was baking a birthday cake for my daughter earlier last week and she wanted to help me. She gathered all the ingredients needed to prepare the cake and she realized we were out of sugar. She saw the amount of sugar needed on the recipe and said to me, "Mom the recipe only calls for 1/2 cup of sugar"; she couldn't understand why it would make a difference if the sugar was left out. I explained to her that without that small amount of sugar it wouldn't be cake.

 

At that moment, I began to think of that scenario as it relates to our relationships. Your overall relationship with your significant other can be compared to a beautiful birthday cake with intimacy being the frosting.

If after preparing the ingredients for a cake, you realize you are out of sugar, how good can the birthday cake be? You could go ahead and bake the cake anyway, and later try to make up for the lack of sweetness by applying extra frosting. Although that might create the appearance of a great cake, it would lack in substance and satisfaction. Or, you could take the more time consuming and difficult route of doing whatever it takes to provide all of the essential ingredients.

The frosting on the cake functions to:

• make the cake even sweeter
• add flavor and complexity
• allows for multiple cake layers to be stacked
• allows for decoration
• hold everything together neatly

All of our significant celebrations, events and just that added touch to make for a lasting memory includes a cake. So mix in intimacy in the cake making of your relationships, with lots of frosting to make a good thing last.