This one will be more of a rant so a bit different from my usual post format so just bear with me.
Do you know what the problem is with relationships these days? The reason why it seems most relationships don’t last more than a few months or a few years at most?
The problem is that a lot of people are in relationships and wanting the relationships they see others with. In other words, they spend so much time comparing their relationship to someone else’s that they never really spend enough time building a bond, connecting with each other or nurturing and sustaining their own relationships.
You spend so much time looking at your friends’ relationship or the relationships on Instagram, Facebook or other social media platforms. You spend so much time saying “I wish my relationship was like theirs”, “I want a relationship like that” and you find yourself judging your current relationship by someone else’s standard.
This person says you should do this. That person says you shouldn’t do that. You do that so often that you don’t even get to spend enough time figuring out what exactly are YOUR standards? What exactly do YOU want? Is my current relationship satisfying MINE and MY PARTNER’S needs?
What you have to understand is that every relationship is different. Every relationship is unique. The dynamics of each relationship is distinctive in a beautiful way. What works for one couple may or may not work for you. What works in your friends’ relationships, may or may not work for you.
While it’s okay to pay attention to key or core elements in other relationships, you have to be very careful that you are not actually just trying to copy someone else’s relationship without fully understanding, how and why it works for them.
Let me give you an example: You have two couples; Mark and Keisha, and Tami and Gary. Both couples love each other very much and want to spend the rest of their lives together.
Mark and Keisha are quite adventurous – both sexually and otherwise. They like traveling all over the world and meeting new people, experiencing different things. Occasionally, they both allow each other to explore sexual fantasies outside the relationship while in different countries.
When they return to their home country, the only thing their friends and family see is their love and happiness. They’ve been together for over 10 years and after many, many painful fights – even breakups – they’ve come to understand what each other needs.
They are committed to spending the rest of their lives together and for them, break up isn’t an option anymore. They’ve experimented and tried different methods and have come up with one that works well for them – a semi-open relationship.
This information, however, is private because they know that polygamy is not accepted in their community, job and overall network. So everyone sees the happy go lucky couple that travels often and has managed to keep the passion and excitement in their relationship alive for over 10 years.
The generous lover that treats his woman with frequent trips around the world and the open-minded, fun loving woman who doesn’t nag her man.
Tami and Gary have only been together for 13 months. They see their friends’ relationship and start comparing their relationship with their friends’. They eventually start complaining about each other and their relationship with each other. Why can’t you be more like him? I wish she was more like her.
Gary starts “exploring” outside of the relationship because he thinks that’s what Mark is doing. Not knowing that his friend is in a consenting polygamous relationship.
Meanwhile, Tami starts looking outside of her relationship for excitement and adventure and starts planning and taking secret trips without her partner’s consent.
Had they both accepted that their relationship was unique and openly communicated with each other, they would have been able to understand each other’s needs and be better able to decide if and/or how they can provide these needs for each other.
They eventually drift apart because of fighting and secrecy which leads to a lot of hurt and pain. What could have been an amazing happily ever after, dies. All because they were too busy looking at what their friends had, instead of paying attention to, understanding and nurturing what they had with each other.
Contrary to popular belief, good, strong, lasting relationships take a lot of work. They don’t just happen like they do in movies, romance novels, and fairytales. They require love, but they also require patience, communication, trust, compromise, loyalty, understanding, and two people completely dedicated to one another.
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Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments.
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