Everybody changes over time. The world changes around us. We have to respond to those changes. I think it's a mistake to expect anyone to remain the same over a long span of time.
Hell, most the changes I found started about a week or two after the honeymoon! Or maybe it was the day after the wedding.
My parents married 51 years and both of them evolved and spoke out loud to all of us through recollections through movie love stories, WW2 stories, parenting lessons learned from failures and success....my greatest deficit from them was real intimacy training....what to do seeking a mate....dad only said PLAY HARD TO GET...mom said nothing but did tell my daughter BE A VIRGIN UNTIL your wedding ....lifelong love is possible but it takes old fashioned loyalty and tender patience
Some women change in such hostile, aggressive, and manipulative ways that it becomes almost difficult to maintain own's sanity and impossible to love her any more. When she is ripping at you every day and showing no love, a man's love dies.
Still, I appreciate the man described above. He is fortunate that his wife's changes were not so hurtful.
Are relationships meant to last, are humans actually wired for 60 year r/s’s…? I don’t think so. Giving my 30 year r/s serious thought just last night … when struck by near terror envisioning myself still limiting life to that extent.. I think I smiled with freedom
why not? some people are more polyamorous and some are more monogamous oriented... I see it as a spectrum not something that is definite and "hard-wired" into all humans.... and if you are speaking from a purely sexual, procreation stance.... think of asexuals... are they more suited to monogamy than sexual people?
If there is enough give and take you can make a marriage last. The key is learning that often you give more. But often you will take more. It's not a balanced scale. But it's a workable scale.
@demifeministgal I’d consider our primate behavior, and from what I’ve learned of that, no such long-term monogamous relationships exist.. It also appears, lacking the sexual draw ..we’d likely kill each other.
For me, we drew closer with a shared goal. With that goal met (children), we gravitated to personal goals, thus drifting apart. Lacking the need or desire to reproduce (responsibly), long-term relationships appear more codependent than lasting mutual attraction.
@ProudMerrie I’d have prolonged mine, too.. But looking back, I’d have further wasted a large portion of my life. She moved on to another husband, and I’m free. Had it not cost me my family homestead … I might even celebrate.. I can do long-term ..that’s what scares me
@freeofgod It was the giving that took me.. A caregiver, when my love & attention was eventually split between her and two children, apparently it was no longer enough for her. But I gave all I had. It was not an equal r/s, but that wasn’t her fault, we married too young, and the wrong person…
@Varn So in your assessment then the childfree couples out there do not have actual love and lasting attraction but are based off of nothing more than co-dependence? what a bleak worldview
@demifeministgal There’s a love bond attraction that apparently wears out. It’s nearly impossible for me to think of anyone who hasn’t had a divorce, or two. Children appear to simply prolong the inevitable.
Your implication that this is my choice, or that reality is altered by my conclusions smack of projection, or blame.. I struggle emotionally and socially as most, tis not my wish or desire, but my observations and experience that frame such conclusions.
@Varn My generation may do better... we have the lowest divorce rates in recent generations and we delay or avoid marriage altogether for common law relationships and are having fewer or no kid(s)... we may shine a new future of coupledom you may have never imagined!
I don’t know. Sounds kinda passive to me. Sure, flexibility is good, as far as it goes, but that only “allows” it to last; not the same as “making “ it last. We can find ourselves in sour relationships we’d hope didn’t last.
I think what makes it last is investing time and effort into building the relationship into something that is of great value to both of you. People don’t casually walk away from valuable investments.
Whew! Glad to hear that. I was starting to feel a little panicky there.