RE: Long term Relationships -are they importain to you?

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RE: Long term Relationships -are they importain to you? - 1/8/2009 8:31:23 AM

manxcat

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Longevity is at the pinnacle of importance to me. I think that the more you have invested in a relationship, the closer you are to another person, and after you've survived the kind of crap together that only time can throw at you, the more important it gets to maintain the relationship and see that it grows. Compromise and a willingness to give becomes really beautiful as long as both people are there with bells on and ready to do the work involved. Maybe it's not sexy, but there's a lot of joy to be had with long-term.
Nicely said; but at the end of 5 years i thought would be forever, it was still sexy as hell. I could not lay next to him without becoming aroused, and i was the one leaving. And it hurt just as much.

All that said, I totally agree with what many others have said in this thread - longevity in itself doesn't signify value or importance in life to me. I absolutely believe that even the shortest relationships can have an impact on us that last a lifetime. I know I have a few of those in my past, and even today they resonate.
Yes! Likewise.

Great topic.
[/quote]

manxy

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< Message edited by manxcat -- 1/8/2009 8:32:28 AM >

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RE: Long term Relationships -are they importain to you? - 1/8/2009 10:52:11 AM

Jeptha

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Joined: 9/18/2008
From: Portland, Oregon
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quote:

ORIGINAL: openmindedslave

What does longterm relationship mean to you ? And so we all understand, if you are seeking a longterm realtionship , how long was your last realtionship that you though fit a longterm time frame?

thank you for your involvement

I prefer long term. Long term for me would be over 6 months, I guess (just to assign an arbitrary number to it for the sake of conversation.)
Long term does not mean forever, and I prefer that my partners not think in those terms.
My average relationship span has been anywhere from 8 months to two years.
There have been some shorter, some longer.
But that is about the average life expectancy it seems, and that's what I tell my partners up front.

I have ended relationships when I was younger because they were too comfortable.
We were too young to settle down.
I felt that we both needed to learn more and grow, and that would probably be without each other after a certain point.

Maybe that attitude will change as I get older, but I'm not sure.
I seem to go in very long, broad cycles of seeking security and routine and then changing everything and seeking new challenges and change.

I've never believed in marriage.

I am still friends with my exes (with one exception), so in that sense they are still relationships.

I prefer a longer relationship because I think it takes that long for things to really develop nicely.

But, I don't live with my partners, so that's part of why I need that larger time frame.

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RE: Long term Relationships -are they importain to you? - 1/8/2009 1:25:25 PM

CallaFirestormBW

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quote:

ORIGINAL: openmindedslave

What does longterm relationship mean to you ? And so we all understand, if you are seeking a longterm realtionship , how long was your last realtionship that you though fit a longterm time frame?

thank you for your involvement

For me, a "long-term relationship is one that extends over a period of years, and survives the various twists and turns of a complex communion. My -shortest- relationship was 7 months. I had a number of friends who thought that was a "long term" commitment... I considered that one 'serious', but not 'long-term'.

All of my successful long-term relationships (6 of them, some extending concurrently with other relationships) have extended beyond the 10-year mark (and all of them hit a wall that we had to surmount in around the 6th or 7th year). My current existence has an 11+ year base, and wraps around a poly dyad with satellite relationships, all of which are between 5 and 11+ years long.

I don't believe in promising 'forever', with or without the trappings of a 'traditional marriage'. Even when I wed my ex husband (with whom I am still friends), my vows were re-written to say "for as long as love may last." These days, I think I would rephrase that to say "For as long as our being together nourishes us more than it drains us."

< Message edited by CallaFirestormBW -- 1/8/2009 1:27:51 PM >

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