For the most part I believe couples get married because they are in love. Unfortunately not all marriages last because people are always changing, whether it is because of maturity, certain situations, or just a change in heart.
There have been many people that I've heard say that they love their significant other, but they just aren't "in love" with him/her anymore. I can say that there is truth to this statement because I've been there myself. With my ex there was a lack of communication, and we just lost our connection to each other because he hated talking about our problems. Luckily we never got married, but it was a good experience and wake up call.
I love the first six months of a relationship. Both people in the relationship are trying their best to impress each other and to get the other person to be interested to pursue a more serious commitment. This is what romance novels are about. There is so much fun and excitement going on during this time, which is what makes it so satisfying. But what happens after that? The stage of working on keeping that relationship going is what happens. There are so many people, probably mostly women, that want that fairy tale. The truth is that almost everybody has had that experience in the first six months or so. What people aren't prepared for is the ever after...
My point being is many people brush their problems aside, and don't deal with them. Any relationship takes work and of course commitment. Holding in problems and not talking about them are never good for any relationship. Communication is big.
I would have to agree that communication is key. My first real love lasted for 3 years and was the most open and honest relationship I have ever had. We are still friends to this day and have been broken up for almost 3 years. I believe we are friends because of communication. Our break up was as mutual of a break up that could possibly exist, because of communication.
ReplyDeletePrevious comment was actually my reply to Love=work.
ReplyDeleteWhere to start? Love is such a broad and deep subject, with many opinions as to it's importance and meaning. For me love should be effortless. Let me clarify that before people assume that love does not take work. Love definitly requires effort. What I mean by efffortless, is that the initial attraction and desire, as well as the ability to communicate and have common interest should be instantaneous. However once the relationship is established work is required to learn the quirks, dislikes, likes, boundaries, and how the two of you handle stress and disagreements. That is where the work is involved. If the initial compatibility is effortless and the two of you are on the same page then the other areas of the relationship that require work will not seem as difficult to work into the daily relationship routine. This theory comes directly from my only relationship that I can say I was truly in love. Unfortunately every encounter with a future potential relationship is judged from this experience. Once having had real love I will not settle for anything less and would rather be alone than in a relationship that is not truly a love situation.
ReplyDeleteI actually agree with you about love being work. People do have to work at love and that sometimes people will give up too easily because they don't want to take the time to work on it. They feel that love should always be easy and when the going gets tough they give up and bale on the relationship. Maybe if more people tried to work on their relationships and didn't have the mind set that love should always be easy, then maybe the divorce rate wouldn't be as high. I am not saying that all people who get divorced don't try to work on their problems but there are people who don't. The other people that do work on their love and try to work on their relationships are the people that can walk away with a greater knowledge of what didn't work and can do something different in the next relationship.
ReplyDeleteI call the first six months or so the honeymoon stage where everything is pretty much perfect because no one wants to show their flaws at first. Once the comfort sets in, flaws come out and arguments start, which is when everything goes down hill if the couple doesn't know how to communicate.
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