SOURCE - https://brightwanderer.tumblr.com/post/681806049845608448
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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned āforeverā into the only acceptable definition of success.
Likeā¦ if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, itās a āfailedā business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you donāt actually want to keep doing that, youāre a āfailedā writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, itās a āfailedā marriage.
The only acceptable āwin conditionā is āyou keep doing that thing foreverā. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a ārealā friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a āphaseā - or, alternatively, a āpityā that you donāt do that thing any more. A fandom is ādyingā because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
| just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And itās okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of successā¦ I donāt think thatās doing us any good at all.
Agree with most of these I guess, but marriage specifically is the one thing thatās intended to be forever. Til death do us part and all that jazz.
Thereās nothing wrong with forever, but it shouldnāt be some sort of āstandardā we hold everything to.
The ādeath do us partā thing is a tradition, but marriage is a legal status. Not everyone is going to follow that tradition, and surely you wouldnāt argue this ought to bar them from the legal status
I think it definitely applies to relationships. It does you and any of your partners a disservice to say your relationship was only a success if one of you died.
A person isnāt a thing you possess. They have needs that grow and change with them. If those needs ever stop being compatible with the relationship, then the relationship should end. Thatās not failure. Itās wanting the person you love to be happy.
Marriage is not just another relationship. Itās literally defined by people deciding, and vowing to stay together forever.
But realistically, we all know you can get divorced. While we might hope itāll be forever, we also know weāre still not gonna stick around if things get too bad (nor should we). Nobody has the shocked pikachu face when marriage isnāt forever after all. No matter what the vows say, in practice we pretty well accept that itās a big commitment, but not a permanent one.
How about this: things are allowed to fail and thatās OK.
If you marry someone with the intent of staying together for the rest of your lives but you donāt, the marriage failed. It doesnāt have to define you.
Itās also okay to fail. I agree with that as well. I just wonāt see a relationship - marriage or not - as a failure if it brought two people happiness for a while until they amicably decide to end it. Itās only a failure when it makes them miserable or when they end it by needlessly hurting the other person. Butā¦ thatās still okay if they can at least see what they did wrong and learn from it. We all make mistakes.
It just depends on your definition of failure. Did the marriage fail to make people happy? Not necessarily. Did the marriage fail in its stated aim to bind two people forever? Yes definitely.
I personally think a divorce is usually a failed marriage (unless the marriage was specifically intended to be limited time) but I donāt think that failure is always a bad thing.
For me it comes down to how you use language. Mental health is important to me and I recognize the power of words, so I care more about the impact of language use. No matter how much you reassure people that itās okay to fail, failing still feels bad. It makes people feel like ā¦ a failure. That seems counterproductive and unnecessary to me. Why make people feel bad when they did nothing wrong?
You can specify exactly how and why itās a failure if you want, and youāre not technically wrong. Iām just not principally concerned with being technically correct in the first place. Iām reframing the standard narrative because I hate to see it go unchallenged. So for anyone whoās hurting and reads this and feels like shit, this time Iāll be the one to say something.
Then I guess you, like me, dislike the concept of marriage. Because the whole point is forever. The forever part is not even what I hold against it though. Some people can and want to be together forever. Feeling forced to be by culture is a bad thing though.
I see it mostly as a legal contract and legal status, but with a lot of extra baggage heaped on top. Itās an overloaded concept that tries to cover too many things at once, making them all suffer. Separate out the legal business and youād lose the need for an explicit declaration that this union is to exist in perpetuity until cancelled by either party. Sure sounds full of romance when stated that way, doesnāt it?
And regardless of how you look at it, the idea is that itās for life, from the ground up. I could go into how itās rooted in other horrible things but yeah, the romance is retrofitted to get people to accept it. And itās worked.
As you get older, you may realize āforeverā isnāt actually forever. Its just for the few decades you have left on this planet in this existence. If you find someone that you like being around, they like being around you, and youāre both willing to put up with each otherās faults and shortcomings, then marriage can be a really good path forward.
When we age, our looks go, our health, and many times our minds too. Having someone that cares about you and has your back through all of that, is a wonderful thing as you will have their back too. You still see them as beautiful as you did when they were younger, and they see you the same way. You look past each otherās graying (or missing) hair, to lack of physique, the lines in your faces, the extra weight you carry in strange places, and eventually the loss of mobility youāll have and they still want to be around you. You still want to be around them.
Old age frequently brings loneliness too. When youāre not forced to work a job with people anymore, it takes effort to maintain social relationships with other people. When you have your mate, you always have that company irrespective of other social connections (or lack of).
Finally if your partner dies before you, I think it will give you something to look forward to in your own eventual death. You know youāll be at the same place as your mate, wherever or whatever that is. If there is something after, theyāll be there waiting for you. If there is nothing, you get to be nothing together. Life is really tough if youāre going it alone. A mate can shave off those sharp corners and make even the most unpleasant times bearable.
If you find someone like this, I encourage you to grab on and hold them tight. If you donāt, life will move them along and youāll be left with just yourself against a cold and uncaring world.
Thatās all well and good, but you absolutely donāt need marriage to stay together forever.
The point was that the concept shames you into it. Another option is just to stay together because you want to. Seems more meaningful to me that way anyhow.
Thatās what I strive for in any relationship: staying together purely because we choose to. I donāt want someone to stay with me for any other reason, and I want my partner to know that I choose them. Not out of obligation or necessity, but because I truly want them close to me. Itās simple but meaningful.
My wife just moved out after 30 years of marriage, and it sure feels like a failure to me. Maybe some people get to the point where itās not working, and they arenāt invested in the marriage so much that walking away is painful. I think most people would say they shouldnāt have been married if they werenāt that invested in making it work though.
A lot of people have suggested that we should have marriage contracts that have a renewable time limit. Like, āHey, letās get married for ten years and see how that goes.ā I could see that being a good thing, but I also think itās fundamentally a different mindset than the traditional expectation of forever.
Thanks for sharing your story. Similarly, Iāve been with my partner for 10 years. We planned on having kids, never materialized because of reasons. Nowā¦ We are distancing. It certainly feel like failure. I just moved to a new apartment last week.
So far, I havenāt āduelā the loss, except for some occasional irruption of either sadness (~95%) or rage (~5%). We keep talking daily, trying to part ways softly, we are both migrants in a new country, medium sized city, which adds some peculiarities.
I think we try to avoid the sentiment of failure by keeping an open mind, and a friendship. I even fantasize this is only temporary. But honestly, we have been on this for a while. Like after the pandemic.
Anyway, some comments in this thread really help me. I do want her to be happy. We both deserve the best, and frankly we may not be the best fit today. But we were powerful. We went through a lot, and we did good.
PS. Feel free to write privately of you wanted to share more.
Sorry youāre going through that. Iām going to make the assumption that, with it being a ten year relationship, youāre not super young, but much younger than me (Iām 62). I hope you and your partner are both able to move on in a way you can be at peace with it, and once youāve grieved the relationship are able to find someone who works better.
Goes both ways, Iām happy to chat if youād like.
Iām sorry to hear about your circumstances.
Me and most of my friend/family group have married in the last few years and I donāt know if anyone would have bothered if there wasnāt a promise of forever. Thereās often the desire for a home and kids and itās (in my opinion) hard to do that if you donāt have a commitment from your partner. I donāt want to raise kids alone or have to do custody arrangements if I can avoid it.
If housing and child rearing were more communal it would maybe be different but I think the commitment is kind of the point.
If youād be willing to share your experience please feel free to. I didnāt have the experience of married parents or even watching them interact/divorce so Iām always on edge regarding the kind of issues Iām possibly missing in my own relationship.
Iām an open guy and didnāt mind sharing whatever, but Iām not sure which aspect youāre interested in. I had great role models - my parents were happily married for 50 years until my dad died. My wife and I had problems off and on for years, and weāve been more roommates than romantic partners for quite some time. We had an argument and she confessed that she hasnāt been in love with me for some time. Sheās not with anyone else or anything like that, but she doesnāt want to be with me.
Thank you for sharing. Sorry to hear about your father but it seems like he had a child and wife who loved him.
That falling out of love concept is really my big fear. I think I know what a healthy loving relationship is, but only because I think Iām in one. The thought I might wake up one day to my partner saying that no actually, we were not in one of those is my big concern. I donāt know what it should look like and having nothing to compare to so it feels like the biggest obstacle we could have.
Iām sorry to hear youāre going through that but glad to see that people can and do make it out relatively ok. I truly wish you the best.
Thanks a lot. No worries about my dad -he was pushing 80 when he died, and he lived a life most people would be proud of. It was also 24 years ago. Sadly, my mom lived ten years longer, and I think the only reason she didnāt die of a broken heart is because she got Alzheimerās and kind of forgot about my dadās dying.
I donāt think thereās one kind of healthy relationship. Every person has strengths and weaknesses. The key is finding a person whose strengths and weaknesses meshes with your own. Iāve seen people with significant issues have happy marriages with spouses who just love them and balance with them.
Ultimately, all we can do is try to work with our partners, understand that every relationship has rough times, and hope we can weather those times. Sadly, thereās no guarantees, as I can attest to.
Donāt overthink it. If you are aware that this could happen, you will be able to see it at its earliest ;)
Did you communicate about it with your partner? Thatās probably a great starting point. Go for a chill afternoon of opening. Sometimes, we go through so much together that we take the other for granted, or just forget to open-up and share our innermost feelings with enough room of both space and time.
Thanks for the reassurance.
Weāre generally pretty good and I think thatās the issue. It feels so weird to have a normal loving relationship it feels like that itself is cause for concern lol. Will definitely find some extra time today to tell them how special they are though.
The game Outer Worlds touches upon this concept a bit, although itās set in a space-capitalist dystopia.
Like a more administrative declaration of vow renewal, in a sense. Can feel a bit cold and could cause a lot of bureaucratic headache however.
Iām sorry for your loss/pain though, on a more serious note.
Thank you
I would agree if we stopped making marriage the end goal of relationships.
I tend to agree with you there. There are a lot of things intended to be temporary, and a lot of things intended to be permanent.
Wasnāt there a study about that Man instinctively looks for other partners after while, this being the natural behavior?
Given that, christianity sets unrealistic expectations.
Donāt know the study but any anthropologist can tell thatās a generalization on a certain time, place, and society. Itās (mostly) true, only under certain conditions.
Now did they study any other gender? Perhaps by Man they refer to all humans??
No, male humans.
Look, can we please not mix politics/ideology with science? Youāre mistaken if you think human is 100% conscious decisions. In economy, itās long known already that homo economicus is a fantasy. We are mammals too.
The way hypothesis are drawn, which programs are promoted, where budgets are cut, etc. are all political decisions that shape science. But I understand your point, although I wasnāt talking about free will. Somehow, this talk reminded me of a book, āthe naked apeāā¦ it was written by a zoologist. Probably had many things just plain wrong, and itās more speculative-observations than actual rigorous studies. But I enjoyed reading it when I was an life sciences undergraduate. Btw, why are we writing Man with a capital letter? This is what prompted my previous question.
99% percent of the times a study calls some ānatural behaviorsā on humans, itās just propaganda looking for legitimacy.
Only if you think humans are slaves to instinct and are defined by them.
Man also instinctively eats lots of sugars and fats because they are high in energy, so is restraining oneself to a healthy lifestyle unrealistic?
You think all your decisions are conscious too, hm?
A large part of modern world is obese. Going against your instincts is a informed struggle. In case of high sugar and fat meals, whilst circumnavigating the instincts with a healthy diet.
Yes many are obese, and it can definitely be a struggle, but that doesnāt make being healthy an unrealistic expectation. Itās highly realistic, and many people are healthy.
Yeah, but you have to know how and have to motivation to do it.