I am lying in bed, in a hotel room in Lyon, thinking about relationships. Why are they such hard work? Why are we not always able to reach a compromise, why do we keep measuring our and our partners’ commitment? Are we afraid of getting bruised? Is love enough to make a relationship work?
When we move in together with our partner, are we really prepared to let go of our life as singles? Even when we find what we’ve been looking for, some of us are reluctant to let go of our single selves. Is this necessarily bad? Are we allowed to come into a relationship with single people behaviour? Can we hold on to our old habits without being perceived as either weird or selfish? Or can we continue to keep our space, spend time on our own, ‘do our thing’ AND have a perfectly healthy relationship? At what point do separate interests become separate bedrooms and, ultimately, separate lives?
Lately, I have also been thinking about babies … Why are we so different in this respect – some people have made it their number one objective to have them, whereas others simply couldn’t care less. Does the biological clock function differently from one person to another? Both men and women are challenged in this respect even though I guess it’s the women who are more pressurised. Can’t we be happy in pairs? Do we necessarily need babies to round up a relationship and make it complete? On a personal level, I have often wondered if I would really be good at this … How much would that change in my life and would I still be myself.
Maybe we should stop searching for a perfect relationship and settle for a satisfactory one and, when we are about to throw in the towel, we should be aware of the fact that no relationship is perfect and that good relationships are hard to find.
3 comments:
So how does this work - from single to pair/couple? There is always a need to compromise, to give up part of yourself and to accept part of someone else in return. If it fits the whole couple thing works well, it it doesn't then the couple fails. Of course it's not that simple. If it was everybody would find a happy, stable relationship.
Sometimes the parts just don't fit, like a jigsaw. You can force a piece into a space, but at the end of the jigsaw the picture is at best flawed and more likely, depending on how forced the piece, severely damaged.
Another scenario is the piece fits at the start, but over time the shapes change and warp and the fit is not so good later, the jigsaw falls apart.
So, are babies glue? Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes they pull the couple together, sometimes they place unimaginable strain on the relationship tearing it asunder. It's impossible to tell, with certainty, how this will pan out. The risks are high with a third, very vulnerable person's, life and future in the mix.
About all I can safely say on babies is; only have one if this is what you feel you want, and not because you feel you must.
Yes, I fully agree - babies should only come into the picture because the partners really want them and not for the wrong reasons.
Personally, I don't really believe that babies can hold a relationship together. But ... who knows! When it comes to relationships there are no recipes!
Like hed sed, it's all about compromise. For relationships to work, both (all) parties will have to give a little and take a little.
It's said that a partnership is like a dance. Whether that's a waltz, a tango or a gavotte is up to the people doing the dance. If you're too hung up on your own needs, you're probably dancing by yourself, but near someone else.
As for children: They can help to reinforce existing bonds, but they're incredibly stressful and will NOT repair a relationship which is breaking up. The best thing for that is conversation.
Just my £0.02-worth...
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