I think we can all agree how the contract of love & partnership has changed in the course of the last few years .. and not in a good way! Here are some observations.
For starters, right now a massive number of people started to reluct the idea of being in a long-term relationship .. and it has some background.
Yes some people during the course of history have had bad relationships, toxic ones. And that should have stayed as a per-case perception and not a generalization .. which is some sort of disease that has become a legacy inherited by succeeding generations. This at some point got combined with the rise of social media and a lot of personal stories were available 1 scroll away. I understand stories might have had the intention to send warnings or to pass on knowledge but somehow this went deep down to the perception of love & commitment & put question marks around it!
You see people today start with the assumption it’s gonna be bad for me. I will give up a lot in order to be in a relationship. I’m better off alone. It’s too risky. Why would I take the risk?! What if things don’t work out?! I understand in many cases that people fear that love would make them feel vulnerable .. and it can be a scary thought for some. They start building defenses or trash the entire idea of falling for someone. Cause if they don’t have enough trust in their partners, their love can be used against them.
Overthinking has become the leader of the scene. Some of those questions might be valid but they can never be absolute. They will always orbit the other person, the potential partner.
Along with that, we need to know our own value and that sometimes we are too good for some people. The moment you have this self-base to launch your experiences or adventures from, it will always be OK to return to the base and prepare your next move. In other words, moving on will be possible. It has to come with an expense but it’s doable. Once this falls into place, it will be OK to fall for someone, be vulnerable & express your feelings clearly. If things don’t work out fine, we move on. I will refrain from saying we learn a lesson which I don’t think fits the topic. Sometimes it’s the case, but it’s not fair to include it as a mandatory part of every offboarding process. It can be the case you fell for the wrong person, and that won’t imply your next relationship will be as hard .. or any hard if we fall for the right person .. the zing, the lobster .. you name it.
I need to follow-up on the moving on part after things don’t work out. I cut it short to the final stage, but this comes after trying hard to make things work. It takes some investment of time, energy & mental thoughts. And this trying hard part depends on what is not working out really. Some fundamental issue or external circumstances. For instance respect, trust & affection are in the red zone while ideas how to spend vacations or being distant sometimes fall outside the red zone. Well at least in my opinion.
Changing over time, “trying hard” in a relationship used to be a sign of interest & investment .. Surprisingly this turned now to raise questions! why would someone do that?! what is wrong with them?! Almost everyone now is overprotective .. assuming decency somehow gone up in smoke.
We might be surrounded by failed marriages or bad toxic relationships .. but that doesn’t imply we will find exactly the same. It’s more like Schrödinger’s cat. Before going in one, you will never know for sure the outcome of it. In fact you can influence the outcome when efforts or energy is invested .. and we won’t do such expensive investment without the right motivation .. and you are right it’s the partner again!
The less we try, the fewer chances we have to meet the right partner. We still might get lucky and meet them at position 1.
You as well as your partner are totally different persons from those who failed .. and in fact also from those who made it work. Different in terms of social backgrounds, emotions, interests, level of affection, expressing yourself, priorities, handling arguments, showing respect, lots of aspects that even you visiting your future self will never match! So you cannot predict the same output when the equation has totally different factors.
It’s not someone’s fault people get married for the wrong reasons. They both have one single common interest or both have pressure from people around to get married .. or whatever reason that doesn’t fall into place.
Another observation which breaks that contract nowadays is trying to change partners after we fall for them the way they are! .. Which I sometimes find hard to understand. Depending on the nature of the relationship or the culture, things might come to the surface after binding the contract, those things can be discussed for sure .. but they should never be stronger than the reasons why partners are together in the first place. The presence of respect & affection should be enough to prevent those discussions to go south.
It’s worth mentioning, the only cases where partners actually change some minor things about themselves for their partners were self-initiated. And in most of those cases their partners do exactly the same. In other words, personal initiatives to bridge the gap .. while the gap is not a black hole that would suck the foundation of their contract.
Bottom line .. whether they change or not, they will stay the same people we fell for. The same people we want to grow old with and experience things with. That shouldn’t change.
Makes one wonder what happened to the idea of finding a home in each other! We all go through ups & downs .. and our strength varies from one another .. we all crave sometimes to go to that home & have a break to recharge. Sometimes the break is looks or parking our heads over their shoulders with no words spoken. Wherever you are, whatever you do you know your partner will provide such home.
To wrap up .. and I remind myself of that too. Generalization doesn’t really help .. nor following the trend. We all aim for one shot at love, yet reality might be different. We seek stability, an understanding partner and if I may say an upgrade to the solitude, Living 2.0. Yet 1.0 should be totally fine & stable .. and 2.0 shouldn’t be an escape from 1.0. Build your own experience. If you never try you will never know. Let yourself be loved. Give your partner the right priority & energy investment. Yes they need to be your home but never take them for granted. Nothing can go wrong as long as respect is a common ground. And if things don’t work out, it doesn’t have to be an ugly breakup. Stay friends .. that’s how things should have started in the first place anyway.