My father-in-law told us both when we were married: “Remember that sometimes you will be a friend to one another, and other times you will be a parent. Everyone needs to cry like a child sometimes.”
Do you have any advice that you’ve been given that helped you be a better partner?
I don’t know where I read it, but something along the lines of:
Dependence is not love, but a set of shackles. Love grows in proportion to independence.
Basically, love cannot truly exist when the partnership is necessary for survival.
I like that. It reminds of “interdependence”, which I understand to be two whole individuals coming together to create something together, as opposed to hoping for the relationship to make you feel whole/ok.
I don’t know about that. A significant part of a long term relationship, especially a lifelong one is exactly repairing and maintaining the other, or having someone to repair and maintain you. From physical ailments which are often permanent to mental health. This one place where the child-parent dynamic laid in the OP plays out in reality. Independence only works until the first major mental or physical breakdown which is always one accident away. 😂 In fact I’d go as far as saying that dependence is almost inevitable and if one hasn’t learned to find love in such a status quo, they shouldn’t promise another to be around till life does them apart.
I like your perspective. I agree there is a “repair and maintain” aspect to a good, lifelong relationship, and that we’re fragile (“one accident away” as you say), and so we need each other.
I guess I’m exploring the expectations going into a relationship more than the sustaining of a long-term relationship.
I have a neighbor and friend who recently left his wife after keeping another relationship secret. I fear he is only going to find more of the same dissatisfaction in his next relationship, because there are aspects to his personality and values that he can’t get away from, and I’m fairly positive these will show up in the new relationship. If he expects the new relationship to fulfill the brokenness he feels, I’m not sure it’s a strong foundation upon which to enter into a new relationship.
My partner and I have independently arrived at this conclusion. It’s serving us wonders.
Some off the top of my head:
- People can and do change and it’s totally valid to try to as well as help buff out rough edges.
- Establish a logical framework to communicate. Learn some formal critical reasoning if needed. Learn fallacies, etc.
- Discuss anything and everything, don’t let things fester. There often are easy solutions before things have snowballed.
- Encourage introspection.
- Don’t consider feelings as something immutable and sacred. Both positive and negative. One can foster or reduce either.
