RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (Full Version)

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littlewonder -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/15/2010 2:55:47 PM)

I go into relationships hoping it will last a lifetime. I'm devoted and I do everything within my power to make it last a lifetime. When I was married we both vowed to never divorce no matter how bad our relationship was. We both came from families where your relationship was a vow to God, not just each other. I still believe in that. My grandparents on both sides of my family were together until one of them died. My brother has been married for over 35 years now and doesn't look like it will be ending anytime soon.

I don't understand people who get into a relationship looking for the end or expecting it to. It seems so sad and negative.




hereyesruponyou -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/15/2010 6:15:56 PM)

Engraved in our wedding rings is our motto which was a part of our vows - No Refunds No Returns. I've told him the only way out is toes up. We were both of the "never ever ever again" persuasion on marriage when we met. He really had to work to convince me to take the chance. But once that step was taken, it is permenant for us. The knowledge that we can go through just about anything (we've had some serious rough times in our relationship and lives so far) and still be there, generally even stronger, is something that is core to both of us.

Now i will say that we met as older adults and we had both learned how to compromise and determine what is and is not crucial. I do think it is much harder to get together young and grow together. We change so much as we go through life, it's actually kind of amazing that so many people can make the long term run.



Kaliko -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/15/2010 6:40:34 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: hereyesruponyou

Now i will say that we met as older adults and we had both learned how to compromise and determine what is and is not crucial. I do think it is much harder to get together young and grow together. We change so much as we go through life, it's actually kind of amazing that so many people can make the long term run.


I also think it's harder to get and stay together as a younger person, but that is only based on personal experience. As I get older, I view "forever" differently than I did 15 years ago. Forever really isn't forever, it's only another 40 years or so (hopefully). And there's a good chance that part of that time will be spent in declining health with needs other than those I have now. Though it sounds morbid, I take comfort in the fact that if I were dying, I would want my man with me. That, I suppose, is my bar. Anyway, definitions of happiness change over a lifetime. I'm curious to see what my happiness will be 10 years from now and whether my current relationship will satisfy me. I hope it will, I expect it to, and I will certainly try for "forever", but...I also won't turn my back on my own life changes, and if my life takes me down a different path from my partner...so be it.

I suppose...then...maybe the trick (if there is one) is finding someone who is willing to let you change, and willing to grow themselves. BDSM or otherwise. If a partner is hurt/angry/perplexed at changes within you, therein lies the friction. If a partner is open/willing/interested in allowing you to explore deeper levels of self, then maybe those are the happy lifetime loves.


quote:

Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be


Love this, by the way.



strangedesire -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/16/2010 9:26:44 AM)

My girl and I don't have life goals that match up. (She wants children. I do not.) We're young and changing. I don't expect this relationship to last forever, and to be honest, I like it that way. Every moment with her is precious.

And we have an exit plan. I intend to be "Auntie" to her children one day. I expect our lives to diverge, but I care for her truly and deeply, and I don't give things like that up just because we won't make a good couple one day.



sexyred1 -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/16/2010 9:40:29 AM)

Relationships today are different than the relationships of my parents or others from another generation.

My observation is that in the past, people stayed together as it was expected and they tried harder to make things work because being disposable was not as much of an option as it is today.

I have shoes older than some of the relationships that I see around me, including marriages where people bolt at the first sign of an issue or because a need has not been met. People do not seem to want to actually WORK at a relationship.

I see it as a garden. If you have two gardeners and one nutures the soil and the plants and relishes the flowering, the garden will remain fertile. If the other gardener lets the other do all the work, or does nothing themselves, the garden will fail and the flowers will die.

We are mostly a society of people who want to be connected in relationships, with some exceptions. I am both a romantic and a realist, somewhat cynical but with too much of a romantic side to give up.

When you are young, forever is a long time. As you age, forever takes on a whole other meaning.

I never go into any venture, relationship or otherwise expecting it to fail. However, after being married a long while and having a very long term relationship where we were madly in love but incompatible, I know for a fact that you can try your heart out to make it work but sometimes it does not.

Being a mature adult, you understand that, stop fighting it and move on and you hope you will reconnect with someone more compatible.

Remember too, that often times one goes into a relationship with one set of needs and comes out with a whole new set. I know I changed my need and want set and rearranged what I will and will not accept based on what happened in my relationships.

Priorites shift and my parents who have been married for 56 years successfully and happily, but realistically gave me some good advice: always pick someone you actually LIKE and who you can talk to, because that gives the best shot of working out. If you only LOVE and feel passion for someone, that is not enough.

And again, both parties need to devote the same amount of time towards making things work, not one giving more and one taking more. It is also critical that both parties agree and are honest, which is the key, about what they want from a relationship. If one wants commitment and the other wants casual, not going to work.



allthatjaz -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/16/2010 4:14:33 PM)

I love sexyreds post.

To me/us, forever is all of the foreseeable future and beyond.

I see too many disillusioned people who say that you can't say forever about anything because they can't see that far. I see forever (in this context) as a very accurate expression of how I feel.

I was very much in love with my first husband but he was killed when we were very young. He lives on in our son who is the image of his father and so even in death he will be forever in my life.
My second husband was for the best at the time but I never really saw us being together forever. I lived in a relationship for many years, knowing I had made a grave mistake.
Now, after many years, my faith is back. I'm not afraid of what the future holds. As far as we are concerned this is forever.



TotalDiscipline -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 3:05:26 AM)

quote:

realistic expecation


to expect something to be realistic...mmm..I never expect it to be.....but I sure hope it will be.....a relation to be forever.



jbcurious -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 5:32:48 AM)

My attitude differs from the norm... I don't think I've ever been in a relationship that I thought would be forever.  I've taken the view that it will be good for as long as it is and then it's time to move on.  I've never looked at this as failure, simply because the want or desire was never there to make it forever... I guess you could call me a serial monogamist.

I don't think it's a natural state  for humanity to spend the majority of their life with one person, or it wouldn't be so difficult.  Why do people say a relationship takes hard work?  If it were natural it would come without all the effort.

Looking back at my relationships I always knew they would come to an end and why... long term goals too different, family expectations clashed, he didn't have the strength to be with me over a long period.. etc.    That and it was always so much fun falling in lust, giving into that wonderful chemistry that can happen between 2 people, that intense magic that possesses you but never lasts.

Now I'm 50 and I just don't get that chemistry as frequently as I used to... in fact it's become quite rare and I think I'm finally ready to look at my next relationship as forever.  I think that at this stage of my life I'm ready to build something with someone.  I don't have the conflicting need to prove to the world how capable I am and my desire to have a strong man in charge.  I've done all the proving I need to do, I've accomplished the things I set out to accomplish and now I can settle into a relationship in which my priority is my partners happiness and well being.

I think I've followed natures path rather than the path set out by society and religion... I've followed my instincts and fulfilled my needs, it sounds selfish but it's honest.




catize -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 6:39:20 AM)

quote:


I think I've followed natures path rather than the path set out by society and religion... I've followed my instincts and fulfilled my needs, it sounds selfish but it's honest.


JB,
I can certainly relate to a lot of what you said here.
In my life, when I was younger, I tried to make things last. Two marriages and two divorces taught me quite a bit. Once I became more practical in my expectations as well as what I was capable of, things smoothed out for me. What works for me is that I found a few dominant men who are on the same page as I am. We don't want 'forever', we don't want monogamy, we don't want to live together. We all are committed to honesty about our desires, that is not selfish, it is realistic!
As I have matured (I'm 57) I don't have the energy to manage more than I already have, but it is fun and pretty much drama free and so much healthier since I gave up the expectation of forever.



DesFIP -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 6:52:20 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SomethingCatchy


Relationships end for two reasons - incompatibility and immaturity. You can have people 50, 60, 70 years old still struggling with making relationships last, because of their immaturity. They are naive and don't understand how to treat each other in order to make it last. These are the things I've been learning since working on my own relationship so that MY relationship will last for forever.



I wouldn't call that immaturity. I will say that you need a lot more education and testing to get a driver's license than you need to get a wedding license. From what I can see of the drivers around here, the 50 hours and six months of a junior license is nowhere near enough. Marriage should require a lot of training, a lot of education, a lot of learning. None of which do most people get.

And then you add being parents into the mix which changes the marriage entirely. No training required for that either and being a good parent isn't something you can do naturally. You need to learn the skills. Most people don't know that relationship skills do exist, and can be taught. If you've never been taught them, how are you to acquire them?



stardancer00 -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 7:01:46 AM)

Is it realistic to expect a relationship to last forever?  Forever certainly is dependent upon  mutual perspective and willingness to adhere to commitment regardless of disappointments and personal dissatisfactions which will inevitably occur over time.  The culture in which I was raised stressed maintaining the relationship regardless of circumstances. This rule led many to live in unhappy,  sometimes destructive unions.  We are fortunate to live in a culture which does not generally condemn moving on when a relationship is no longer working.  Our culture still fosters the idea of perfect  love,  the fantasy of living happily ever after.  This is based in an unwillingness to face the truth of life's impermanence, and the truth of change.  It is possible to have deeply caring and intimate relationships which respect the individual  needs of each partner and allow for the necessity of separation when the relationship no longer serves its purpose.  Truly living life fully means being willing to experience complexities and to foster growth.  Sometimes this acknowledgment leads to parting,  and sometimes it can lead to a new phase in a relationhip.  It is a matter of openness and creativity combined with embracing our own and the other person's strengths and vulnerabilities.  It implies a depth  of friendship to ourselves as well as to the other.



LaTigresse -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 6:12:51 PM)

I do believe in 'For a Lifetime' but I don't believe in stagnation. I believe a relationship can last 'Till death do us part...' IF the parties involved are willing to grow and allow the other person/s to grow and change. Give each other space. Support one another in whatever path they need to take.

It works in my life. It's worked wonderfully for over 20 years. Today we built a splendid fence together with minimal (for us) yelling and tool throwing.[:D]



takemeforyourown -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 7:55:55 PM)

It IS unrealistic to expect relationships to last forever. I firmly believe that the only way relationships DO last that long is because the parties involved both commit to 'life', whether they are always happy with that commitment or not. My marriage has been on the rocks and back. It was the commitment to making a forever family that kept us together. If we had succumbed to our selfish desires, we would have been long-gone from each other by now.



NuevaVida -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/17/2010 11:05:24 PM)

This is a topic I've given a lot of thought to lately, regarding myself and my own relationships.

A couple of years ago I found myself thinking "forever" was mostly just cool sounding fantasy.  In fact, I entered the relationship I am now in, with the idea that life is too short to be miserable, so if it's not working out, I'm outta here.  I committed to being in the relationship for as long as it made sense for both of us to be in it.  This didn't mean I didn't give a crap about it, it just meant I had stayed at all cost before, and the cost was almost more than I could pay out.

But in the last few months, I've found my thoughts and feelings about him, me, the relationship as a whole, changing quite a bit.  I started realizing that in the past, I've brought myself into relationships with the expectation that they would last, simply because I loved as I did, and because I wanted it to last forever.  Such thoughts and feelings, however, did not provide me with the skills I needed - to be healthy with myself, and to foster a healthy relationship.  Love and desire are not enough to lay out a successful path to "forever."

I've said before that this relationship is unlike any I've been in.  In fact, he has even said this relationship is on a completely different planet than anything either of us has experienced.  But it's those past experiences, and what we did with them, that equipped both of us with the self awareness and relationship tools to create something we both think is pretty remarkable. 

It was only very recently that he told me he see us lasting a lifetime, because of what we both give to it and to each other, and because how well we both seem to fit together.  And only recently I've been able to begin to see and feel "lifetime," too.  I think the openness in which we both talk to each other has a lot to do with this.

It's early, though.  A year and a half new.  And there are no guarantees.  All I know is we both cherish this, we continue to create the kind of relationship we want, and we are compatible on just about every level.  We talk about everything, and we fix issues that come up as soon as they come up.  We don't care about who's right or wrong - we care about making things right between us.  We're both on the same side here, so issues that come up don't pit us against each other.

With that, we continue forward and plan for the best outcome.  Sometimes, though, life changes us, and we (generically) don't change together with it.  Unfortunate as it is when that happens, I still believe it is better to part ways than remain miserable together simply because we committed to being together  at all cost.  I would hate to think he was with me, after all, only because he said he would be, and not because I'm where he'd choose to be over everywhere else.



Zevar -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/18/2010 12:45:48 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: KnightofMists

Is it a realistic expecation to find someone to spend a lifetime with? Is this expectation only creating more pain and hurt when the relationship runs it's course? If we didn't have this expectation... would life be better? Would people be happier? What do you think?


Thinking along the lines of longevity I realize that in some situations there are no real possibilities for longevity to manifest, for one reason or another. While in other situations longevity does manifest without hindrances. When I recall prior times before the passing of My Beloved Companion I understand longevity as totally possible.

I recall how I never thought I would find anyone that I could commit to and be involved in a way that included longevity. My ability to commit is reliable yet was challenged long ago to transform into a deeper ability to love in a way that included offering longevity. I did learn valuable Life lessons having loved in a way that also included longevity.

I recall being satisfied to live a solitary life prior to her. My ability to find happiness within myself and sharing my life with family and friends served to bring about sustained contentment. Then when she and I met something amazingly powerful within myself surfaced that I had no term for. I found myself wanting to see her daily. I thought of long term, years down the road sort of thoughts often when thinking of her. Our Love increased with every passing moment.

Then one day something clicked within. I became crystal clear that my ability to love had been present all along. So had my ability to offer longevity. What was different was that I was involved with a woman that touched me in a way that gained my attention and captivated my affections for her without me even knowing what was happening until it had fully transpired. I was in Love not just lusting after her body. I was in a most powerful presence of Love that included an intense desire to be with her for an eternity.

Prior to her I was certain that longevity would never find its way to me in terms of an intimate love. I was sorely wrong, having met her. She met me not only on a physical realm but also on every level possible. Our staying power was increased by our love for one another. Thus longevity seemed to be a natural aspect of what we offered one another without needing to assert any effort to do so.

Not everyone touches another in the way she touched my soul. I will never be the same man having experienced our love that endured the storms of battling an illness that ended our physical union here on this earth. Our love endures past what longevity could possibly accomplish on a physical level. Although Life goes on, nonetheless so do the memories.

Frankly speaking though I won’t allow myself to love in a way that includes longevity again due to becoming familiar with the other side of longevity. There is a grief that accompanies longevity after losing a loved one as I did that is as an unseen shadow that never quite totally fades into the distance. I have learned that an "unseen shadow" comes with the territory of the longevity shared between she and I.

Life goes on. Without a doubt! Loving again with longevity? That is a whole other brewing cauldron that I do not care to partake of having faced the fact that a Lifetime with the one you love can end when you least expect it to. Then, one day you discover that you have no power to effect a change toward sustaining longevity whatsoever. All you can do is Let go, simply Let go and Live fully, as you possibly can.

In the midst of grief just behind the unseen shadow I have asked myself plenty times over the years, "Would I have done anything differently?" No! Nothing on this green earth is permanent. It simply appears to be so in the mind and heart of the dreamers' dream.

Lessons learned, aye!



hardcybermaster -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/18/2010 5:25:28 PM)

Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Does that clear things up?



slaveluci -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/18/2010 5:34:39 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: KnightofMists
Why does it seem that so many are looking for that lifetime togetherness when realistically the odds seem to be against it from happening.

"The odds seem to be against" winning the lottery too but it doesn't stop people from buying those tickets and checking those numbers. Sometimes people even win.

quote:

Why do we do it... why do we chance this "what appears to be an unrealistic expectation.

Because sometimes it pays off and it's so worth it. How can you ever get real happiness if you're not willing to take some risks to try to beat those odds you mentioned? I'm glad it's worked for you and yours and glad it's worked for Master and me[:)]

luci




MMsCandy -> RE: For a Lifetime!!! Realistic? (10/20/2010 7:05:56 AM)

Well i can't wade in the deep end of the pool so i guess this is me diving in.

I am in what we consider a lifetime relationship - Now, lifetime means that we will work as hard as we need to on this and we will be the number one priority for each of us. EG: the US is the number one, nothing comes before it. We set about our relationship way back in the beginning by ensuring communication was there, trust was there, the things that we *needed* in a partner were there, then we figured out the rest. We did make a conscious agreement that we were forever, there were no outs (to treat it as though we'd never heard the word divorce). We've tested all that, i am sure we will go through other life hardships just like we always do. Ours certainly has not been idealistic, we've had our share of ups and downs, we've always worked them out. So the past tells me pretty much what the future is. I know we'll make it there.

BTW we've been together for 27 years, just celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary...we really are working on forever. And i absolutely DO believe we'll make it.



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