I have been wondering recently what it takes to sustain a good relationship. After all, it's obvious that love is not always enough. We see that everyday - in the news, reading our morning or evening free papers, in shows and in real life - we know couples fall madly in love with each other and yet, they still can't make it through the myriad pitfalls that can strike a relationship. I know that there are people I have loved - people that perhaps I still love in my own way - and yet, we never made it through. Perhaps when the relationship changed, the love I felt changed as well but I honestly don't think it faded.
So what then? Is it trust? I have always believed so but yet, I have been proven wrong. I have chosen to stay in relationships where I felt like my trust had been betrayed. I handed someone my heart, I made myself vulnerable, and in their own way, they trampled on the fire that I felt. Amazing how cold a heart becomes once someone douses the flames - when someone's actions make you question everything else they say and do. So it must be trust. Without it, how could you function as part of a couple? How could you let your partner out of your sight or even out of mobile range? But yet, there are couples who survive the worst of betrayals: infidelity. There are couples who can take the experience and rebuild their trust. Perhaps it is not perfect, perhaps someone will always feel cheated and wronged and always have a niggling doubt; and yet, relationships endure.
So if not love and if not trust, then what sustains a relationship? What is the secret that those enduring couples have that everyone else seems to be searching for. Is it the patience to accept that someone will inevitably hurt you when you date them? That to be in a relationship is to want to place someone's feelings and happiness above your own, knowing all the while that it will fail. Because we are all selfish creatures and we all look out for number one; we all look out and protect ourselves. Perhaps there are moments we can overcome that, but in the end, being hurt by what is done and what is not done just makes you even more protective of yourself. Makes you an even more selfish individual and perhaps makes you more likely to strike out and hurt the ones you love.
If not love or trust or patience, is it the willingness to compromise? To know that sometimes the love grows cold, that you have reached the end of you patience and your trust is some foggy memory of times past, is it the willingness to sit down and talk and figure out a way forward? Words seem a poor excuse for passion and understanding and caring, but perhaps in the end, the most successful couples are the ones who can compromise. The ones who let some of their wants and needs go just to fit into the mold of "the successful couple". Maybe being a successful couple is not about being 'right' for each other, but about how badly you want what you have and the lengths you are willing to go for it. Maybe being in a successful relationship is all about simply molding yourself to the ideals in your mind and following that model. Maybe the only way to be happy as a couple is to concede...
So what then? Is it trust? I have always believed so but yet, I have been proven wrong. I have chosen to stay in relationships where I felt like my trust had been betrayed. I handed someone my heart, I made myself vulnerable, and in their own way, they trampled on the fire that I felt. Amazing how cold a heart becomes once someone douses the flames - when someone's actions make you question everything else they say and do. So it must be trust. Without it, how could you function as part of a couple? How could you let your partner out of your sight or even out of mobile range? But yet, there are couples who survive the worst of betrayals: infidelity. There are couples who can take the experience and rebuild their trust. Perhaps it is not perfect, perhaps someone will always feel cheated and wronged and always have a niggling doubt; and yet, relationships endure.
So if not love and if not trust, then what sustains a relationship? What is the secret that those enduring couples have that everyone else seems to be searching for. Is it the patience to accept that someone will inevitably hurt you when you date them? That to be in a relationship is to want to place someone's feelings and happiness above your own, knowing all the while that it will fail. Because we are all selfish creatures and we all look out for number one; we all look out and protect ourselves. Perhaps there are moments we can overcome that, but in the end, being hurt by what is done and what is not done just makes you even more protective of yourself. Makes you an even more selfish individual and perhaps makes you more likely to strike out and hurt the ones you love.
If not love or trust or patience, is it the willingness to compromise? To know that sometimes the love grows cold, that you have reached the end of you patience and your trust is some foggy memory of times past, is it the willingness to sit down and talk and figure out a way forward? Words seem a poor excuse for passion and understanding and caring, but perhaps in the end, the most successful couples are the ones who can compromise. The ones who let some of their wants and needs go just to fit into the mold of "the successful couple". Maybe being a successful couple is not about being 'right' for each other, but about how badly you want what you have and the lengths you are willing to go for it. Maybe being in a successful relationship is all about simply molding yourself to the ideals in your mind and following that model. Maybe the only way to be happy as a couple is to concede...
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