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8 years? Not being flippant, but 8 years is one chapter. More than 8 years of my marriage were so great I couldn't imagine anything better (and I have not top
by blunte 5y ago
8 years? Not being flippant, but 8 years is one chapter. More than 8 years of my marriage were so great I couldn't imagine anything better (and I have not topped it with anyone since). I'm saying that you can and should enjoy relationships, but if you expect the impossible, it will end badly. It doesn't have to end badly! It could end naturally, with great respect and friendship.
No, my attitude is that one can have many meaningful chapters (perhaps more than one with the same partner). The problem is this shared assumption that relationships should never end. If one person can grow a lot in life, and you have two people together, the idea that they will both grow in the same ways which keep them sharing the same connection is _very_ ideallistic.
Add children, which certainly changes the parents, and you have even more variables. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do what is right for you at the time, have children, have a happy family, and enjoy it. It just means you should not think it's the end of the world if (when) people's directions begin to diverge.
- eloff 5y agoYou're correct that not all relationships last for a lifetime. Not all should last that long. But neither should none. It varies, because people vary, and you have to both work at it and want similar things. Fairytales aren't real, but that's also not a reason to just say all marriages won't last. That's obviously false. It's also not the end of the world, as you say, if in the end you've both grown so far apart neither can remember what you're doing together in the first place. You fight for a relationship up to a point, but there are limits.
- blunte 5y agoStatistically most relationships don't last for the remaining lifetimes of the partners. I don't even have to back this up with footnotes. (30+ years ago it might have been true.) I will point out that if you go looking for stats, they can be very misleading as they often compare current new marriages against current divorces. They are not comparing original marriages to their eventual divorces. My point, which seems to be missed everywhere, is not that you shouldn't try - it's that you should not make the duration a key metric. Live for today, and for the next year, and maybe collectively fantasize and plan about the nextd 5 years. This day zero focus on "forever" just sets people up for mysery if (when) things start to change for the worse. Isn't now good enough? After all, we only live Now. If we spent more of now enjoying what we have now, then we might waste a lot less of the "good years" worrying about the next years.