Relationships

in #love3 years ago (edited)

Is there a better day to talk about relationships than Valentine.s?
Well, any other day :) because Valentine.s day is about pleasant romantic activities, high hopes, big dreams, sometimes bold decisions; thinking and talking about relationships can really be mood killer; but in some point in time it has to be done if one want to support those hopes and dreams to come true.

In this post I wrote some explanations about different types of love, which we usually put in context of some sort of relationship but those two have their different life cycles and are not necessary in a relationship ;)

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In short, love is: cognitive, emotional and behavioral set toward other person.
That means it includes generally positive evaluation of some person, acceptance, respect, trust, empathy, care, support, tolerance, devotion, accountability, openness/sharing/intimacy; it also includes happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disappointments; if positive set overpowers unpleasant set love will last.

Millions of words have been written and spoken, millions of hours of psychotherapy, about relationships, problems and how to overcome them, so this post is not about that. It is just a reminder how relationships are important in our lives, whether good or bad ones, because of the way they affect our wellbeing and change us.
Apart from family relations, that are a priori given to us, other types of relations/relationships we can choose: work relations, friends, partners.
Family relations in early childhood are most important for how will person understand what love is and how will express it in different relations. One is learning from parents/caregivers how to behave in relations with others, including partners. And here we come to the “tell me something about your mother” joke :)

Beside deeply rooted scripts that are on the subconscious level, our personality traits determine who we like or dislike as a potential coworker, friend or partner- preferred interest areas, attitudes, values, moral principles, physical appearance, sense of humor... On the other side, there are personal characteristics that determine whether we actually can be in satisfying relationship with someone, specially when we talk about so called romantic relationship.
RR term is used with different meanings, can refer to those based just on sexual attraction, passion or love or utility or fear (different kinds) or some combination of given; simply put, a person with a partner is in RR (different from a usual, colloquial use of the word romantic).
If we focus on those based on love, why some of them cannot stand the test of time?
Simple answer would be that Sometimes love just ain.t enough

It is different to love someone as a person and as a partner.

Having more than one friend gives us possibility to fulfill our needs distributing them according to those friends` characteristics: with someone we will go to parties, with some we.ll have meaningful conversations about our interests, with some we will discuss emotional issues...
Having more than one partner is for most people unacceptable; we want all in one (so far I haven.t seen that kind of match) or at least as much as possible in one :), someone who will fulfill our sexual, emotional, intellectual, social needs. Someone with whom we can feel free to be ourselves, safe, respected...When our needs are neglected, deprived, frustration starts to grow, we start to feel trapped. If the person (couple) does not find constructive solutions, love is starting to fade until it becomes pale shadow; what is left are inner and external conflicts, words and actions that are hurting partner (sometimes on purpose, in many cases just as collateral of a person trying to save herself and provide fulfillment of its needs).
Ofc, ending of some relationship does not have to be very dramatic and love-killer, it can just be that priorities and how one person sees the future have changed in a way that other person cannot accept.

Loving someone and sharing (everyday) life are different things and all of you who do or did live with someone for a longer time know that. The process of adaptation to another person and reconciling business and private obligations and priorities can be quite challenging. Romantic relationship requires nurture of love as described above, time and effort, to be satisfying. If one does not search for a “perfect” partner hoping for “perfect” relationship, chances to find suitable partner are not bad :)

Enemies of love and relationship are narcissism, selfishness, egocentrism, fear, toxic communication, emotional impairment, unhealed past trauma, unrealistic expectations, wrong must and have to beliefs, active forcing other person to change...

As a conclusion, Carrie Bradshaw quote about relationships:

There are those who open you up for something new and exotic
Those that are old and familiar
Those that bring up lots of questions
Those that bring you somewhere unexpected
Those that bring you far from where you started
But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself

Although simplified and glamorous, all-Hollywood, series is not that shallow as may appear at first sight; it posts good questions and give examples of different kind of relationships, showing why they failed or succeed.
And yes, the most significant relationship is with yourself; you can avoid all other people but can.t run away from yourself. Ofc, one can try but no matter how much food, drugs, illusions, virtual reality...someone puts in body and mind, "demons" will still be inside, until faced and treated in adequate way.
The way one treats him/herself influence all other relationships.

At the end, Strangers in the night scenario for all (hopeless) romantics :)
Bonus: Love song for a vampire that lost his head over relationship beyond space and time ;)
and Adam & Eve two lovers in a relationship for hundreds of years :wow: :heart: :)

Happy Valentine.s Day!

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Though many people believe in the perfect match (not sure if it is 'many' people, but at least I know quite a few people who believe this), my own experience is that this is super hard to find. But to adapt in every way (or sufficient enough) to keep the spark and love going in a RR is mighty difficult. Some (to more) psychologists says: humans, are not made for a single partner. But our culture and in some countries our laws say: Single partner only. Today's culture in my country is to change partners regularly, in series. More than 50% of the marriage break. This was different some time ago, like in the 40s/50s/60s. The culture back then was more like: It's not done to break up. At the same time, the woman in the relationship was not financially independent, so she could not run out. But today, many women are financially independent, and I believe because of that, we see so many breakups. At the same time, we see an enormous increase in people deciding not to go into a traditional RR. I suppose, many prefer not to make all the adjustments needed, and try and live with those adjustments for all the reasons you mentioned. I do wonder how the world will look like let's say 20, 30 years from now. We will see an enormous increase in technology in all aspects, from VR++, to AI with human-like features. Will we be satisfied through technology more and more, and leave the traditional RR behind us? With the ever-growing number of singles, I can imagine the RR will fall apart into friends with benefits and friends ending up in having multiple partners, but in a modern sense, ie not through traditional RR.

Nice analysis and good sequel of the post; I might include "read edjes.s comments for more info" in my posts ;)
If we are to say that there is something as perfect match, that is reserved only for the time of being in love, relatively short time at the beginning of the relationship. If we put aside disappointments after realizing that other person is not as we imagined it (idealized it) and assume that we are really perfect match, what will spoil that feeling is time. Everything that lasts changes and after some time our "perfect" relationship does not feel like that. Eventually, everything becomes boring, even most exciting thing, even if the thing itself did not change.
I will not go through the reasons why our cultures prefer single partnership but focus on the individual. From bio-psy point of view we can say that humans are not made for this or that but irl we see that they are, meaning, using our consciousness and will we can decide to try to overcome some characteristics biologically given or adopted during life.
As you said, modern way of life and development of tech had bid influence on relationships. One is that ppl are lately not willing to devote to themselves (so many escapist activities), let alone to someone else; ppl became spoiled, want everything here, now and without effort, without frustrations; want someone to make effort for them but when it comes to investing themselves in other person find it frustrating and too difficult. Adults started behaving more like children :) which is sign of emotional and social immaturity, sometimes serious impairment. Also important thing of this kinds of behavior is choice paradox, which is topic for itself, one of many on my list, waiting to be written, aside with influence of AI :)

You post (well, more like 'articles') can't be left with a simple response. It would not credit your work it deserves 😉

Fully agree wrt Perfect match for most people are the butterfly days. But I was refering those people who believe there is a perfect match around, which will stay more or less perfect till end of times.

I've seen at least one couple being a perfect match. Sure, they may have had their differences, and surely they had to adjust to stay this perfect match. Somehow they did. This couple were my grandparents. Married for more than 70 years. As long as I know them, I've seen them always with each other. They always helped each other. At one stage he could watch the TV so good anymore, and she started to forget things. She became his eyes, and he became her memory. All in perfect harmony. As if they were one. When she died, he wanted to die immediately. That didn't happen so soon, but not too many years after, also he went, but that is beside the point :) I wish for everybody to have such a relathionship with their partner. But I know, many don't have them like they did.

Agree with you completely reagrding the 'spoiled' part. And also about adults acting like children... Though I must admit, I like to act like a child more then rarely. Of course, the good side of acting like a child 😉 Can't stand adults acting like the 'bad' side of a child, ie being childish in the negative sense.

Some nice topics ahead. Be prepared to get some longish comments 🤣

Thank you, I appreciate your comments, it takes time and good will to write them. One can just have a thought or two while reading and not bother to share those thoughts, which is also ok, I can understand that, if one has many profiles on follow list. But my preference goes in other direction, quality above quantity :) this way I know I am missing something but also am aware that with so many info around us there will always be missing something; I.m already living on the edge of epistemological exhaustion which is exhausting :)
Challenge that I have with my "articles" :) is when writing about topics that I can talk for hours and every time the Q is what to omit, how many layers to make, how much to simplify...and ofc what photo and song to put :D. Those are important for giving extra content, more to think about :) and when I remember later what I could do different is like ooow should I edit or should I not; like for example in this post I forgot to put reference to Only lovers left alive movie and decided to add it :)
Also think is fun how our replies become posts for themselves :)
What you said about your grandparents I also have around me, older couples. They lived in different time, different world so to say, different values and priorities. What is interesting how they made peace with given and found a way to play good games with given cards; we should learn from them.
Acting (good) childish form time to time is fun, I also do it, but is different from being immature; I was not clear enough with that. Many ppl, although adults in age, have a job, family, deal with responsibilities, stay emotionally on some level which is typical for some previous phase of development, so to say, stuck in preschool or adolescence for example; that is not in correlation with intelligence itself but it is with cognitive processing of reality, that is, how they interpret and experience events is influenced with those emotions. Also, there are those who can.t handle having steady job, boss over the head, serious relationship...bcs is to hard for them, they did not develop skills and coping mechanisms to overcome obstacles and frustrations that are part of our everyday life.
Looking forward to your longish comments :)

I try not to miss a lot, but must say, missing out on information shared in our community, more and more. Since I concentrate on music section at HIVE for curation, that's where most of my time is spend. I do like to get more active in LEO though. Outside of HIVE already spend a lot of time discovering and evaluating crypto projects. Seems a bit silly not to learn from the Leo community while also keep some of my knowledge for myself 🙃

Also think is fun how our replies become posts for themselves

Maybe you want to combine all of it into a book? Every chapter a collection of your post and in the side lines this guy's comments? 🙃

Yea, I realised you meant to say: childish as immature. I tried to respond using those terms, but seemed not to get to the right words. And absolutely, we shall learn from the older generations. I suppose they were less spoiled and selfish as we became today. Back to acting immature: I always think when I notice people acting immature: "Take Responsibility!" Maybe I thinking too simple, but when taking responsibility, everything that we need to know, will come by itself, more or less. When we don't know how to respond, how to react, how to act, we will figure this out somehow. But it all starts with taking resposibility.

Long and Short form: Both I like. But for HIVE, it tends to be long form, in posts and in responses. But, it depends a little on my available time. When short form, I always try to get a joke out, so need to think of some 'cleaver' ones. I do like Appics, the Instagram on blockchain. Currently still on the Steem chain but moving to Telos (TLOS) on the EOS chain. Still, HIVE is my default 🙂

Every chapter a collection of your post and in the side lines this guy's comments?

If this book ever happen, more likely will be comments on the main stage and posts aside :lol:
Pls say that you.re not one of FOMO persons; although just saw your post about what and why...khm ;P

more likely will be comments on the main stage and posts aside :lol:

🤣🤣🤣

Pls say that you.re not one of FOMO persons

Not really. Did that other post gave you that impression?

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