Tag: marriage

He is certainly a good man… But is he a good match for you?

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So, sometimes we find people that are nice. Somewhat of a rare occurrence nowadays, especially if you are in the dating scene. You finally come across one, start talking to him, and soon a date happens. You notice how this person treats you well, and you try to focus on that instead of focusing on how you guys are tremendously different from the get-go. Let’s give it a chance, it might work, right?

Let’s say that you are a homebody, and you’d rather interact with only one friend at a time. Not only that, but you also need a considerable gap between those social events. They drain you, and you don’t really like leaving your house on top of that. The guy you’re talking to, on the other hand, is a person who likes to go camping every weekend and never misses a party. You like artsy movies, something he certainly does not like, and his concept of a good movie is a good amount of explosions and cars. You don’t like drinking, while he loves to drink with his buddies. You like cats, and really dislike dogs, while he is the opposite of that.

Even though his invitations are a little bit different from what you’d have picked for a fun time, you enjoy having this nice person around. After all, he is so nice to you, and treats you with so much respect! Eventually, you guys take the next step and move from occasional dates to a real relationship.

You try to make things work. You try to go camping with him, even though you absolutely hate it. He stays in with you, but you see that within a couple of hours, he gets agitated like a child who ate a whole bowl of candy. You try to pretend that you enjoy spending time with his friends while you really don’t. He says that the movies that you like ‘are okay’, and he ‘can’ watch them with you. These compromises seem to make none of you happy. How can you enjoy the movie you want to watch with him if, even though he is smiling, you feel like he is dying on the inside?

It’s either both of you making a lot of effort to make this work and not getting good results, or spending a lot of time separately, maybe even more time apart than the first weeks back when you two were still just dating and barely knew each other. You feel like it’s either misery and a lot of effort or growing apart.

You go to therapy, and you also talk to people about this. You tell them “I just want him to spend more time with me”. You want a solution for this…

But there’s no solution. Well, there’s one solution, but you really don’t want to even consider it.

After all, this guy does treat you well. He does things for you. He wants you around too (despite the fact that there’s never a moment when both of you are completely happy together). How can you break up with a person who treats you well?! There are so many women out there complaining about all the douchebags they’ve met, and you’ve met quite a few too! How could you let this guy go? Wouldn’t love be enough to fix this situation?

But is it really love? Or is it fear of not finding anybody better?

The truth is, you are holding onto this guy not because you love him, but because you believe that nobody else will treat you well. The scarcity of “good candidates” is making you stay with this man, not love. You don’t love him, you love the idea of the person he could become if he changed most of his characteristics. You might even like some attributes that he has, but you don’t like him as a whole, as who he really is. You are feeling miserable either because you are trying to become more like him or trying to turn him a bit more like you when the reality is that you two are like water and oil. Two completely different universes. If you had somebody already and met him, you’d probably just say that he is a nice person, but you wouldn’t even become his friend.

I am not saying that there are not a lot of nasty people out there, and I’m also not saying that finding a good person is easy. But him being a good person is not enough. You need to love this person for what he is. The sooner you let go of this “ghost” or idea of him, the better. If you want to turn him into somebody else, or you want to turn yourself into somebody else to spend more quality time with him, that is a very good indication that he is not the man for you.

Many women complain about getting older and things getting more and more difficult when it comes to romance, but they end up spending a lot of unnecessary time holding onto men who are not a good fit for them. Two years invested in a person who is not a good match for you is two years wasted that could have been spent looking for that one person, the real one. 

Am I undeniably saying that you will find someone better? No. However, just picking a guy because he treats you well is like ordering food and being extremely happy just because it didn’t come with strands of hair in it. It’s just the basics. Believe it or not, you should expect to be treated well by everyone around you. 

If that did not make you stop and think about your situation, let’s finish with this one: people crave intimacy, not just for the body, but the soul too. If you and your partner are complete strangers, the threat of a future affair or divorce is extremely high. Let alone that, when old age comes and sex drive is not even that important for some, what is left? The friendship, the emotional bond.

For the women out there who have their biological clock ticking: you might say that you just want a good father for your future children… Sure, he will probably be a good father… Well, to be honest, we can’t 100% guarantee that he will be a good father, but let’s just pretend that we are absolutely sure that that is the case. Is this all you need? Really? Your husband ideally should be your best friend. Someone who enjoys doing things with you. And you should also think the same way – that activities with your husband should be, in their great majority, effortless and pleasant. If you are completely different, as I mentioned before but I’m going to repeat myself here, the threat of divorce or affairs is very real. What I mean here is: that he might still be a good father, but he might still divorce you and live somewhere else. He might still cheat. He might still work late, and god knows what he could be doing. You might feel lonely and end up in an affair, ruining this marriage yourself. If you don’t see these possibilities as good outcomes, I’d ask you to reconsider.

No, there’s not always a chance

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Let’s talk about a concept that some relationship coaches constantly talk about – that if you’ve had a relationship with a person previously and they broke up with you, there’s always a chance of them coming back to you in the future.

First of all, that is a lie. It’s not just a lie. It’s a disservice.

Imagine that somebody broke up with you just yesterday. The “love of your life” decided that you guys are not meant to be. So, after possibly the heaviest and longest walk or drive home, you lie on your bed (because your body feels like it weighs five tons) and pull up YouTube. You start looking for answers. “Is it really over?” “Will he/she come back?” “How long does it take for an ex to come back?” (I personally love this last one, it’s like everybody behaves the same way, right?)

I get you. Looking for answers that don’t exist is normal. We crave certainties, especially when it comes to love. After all, we can always get another job, even if the previous one was supposedly your dream job. Deep down you know that there might be another one that is just like it, or even better. This could even indicate the perfect moment for a career change. But when we lose the person we claim to be the love of our life, that’s it – it’s that person or nothing. There’s no substitute. So we start freaking out, looking for answers to soothe our souls. We look for people who will tell us that this might be (or rather, is!) temporary and that everything will be okay in the end. We just have to keep the faith and maybe follow this or that step given to us through our screen.

But here’s the problem: no, there’s not always a chance of them coming back. No, if you guys shared this type of connection previously, you will not be connected forever. It takes two to tango. The other person might have unplugged your connection to them already, maybe that was even done a while ago and you just did not notice. They might have even gotten a pair of gigantic symbolic shears to cut the connection cord.

When a relationship coach tells you that the connection will be there forever, it keeps you stuck waiting for that person to come back. It’s what you want to hear, but not what you need to hear. You just won’t move on with your life. Why would you, anyway? If you believe that you have this almost magical connection between you guys, why would you even waste your time moving on? Just sit there, and wait for the love of your life to come back. Why try something with someone else, and be at risk of your ex seeing you with this new person and not approaching you because you are “taken”? No, let’s make ourselves completely available for the next week, month, year… maybe decade. Maybe more than a decade? I mean, when the time is right your ex will come back… right? And so, this Disney-type of delusion keeps on feeding itself. Let alone the new delusion that might fall right onto your lap, like a gift from hell: “They will see how long I’ve been waiting for them and how much I suffer, so they will come back.”

All of this, albeit tremendously damaging to one’s life, is not even the worst-case scenario.

Let’s now consider an abusive person seeing these same videos when the ex-partner finally breaks free.

Abusive partners get into whirlpools of romantic delusions too. This type of message being sent by our dear coach makes the situation for the person who has finally broken the chains a lot more complicated. It definitely feeds stalking behavior and unwanted messages. It also feeds the idea that the ex is theirs, no matter what. This type of thought is already common among abusers, but hearing that from someone else definitely gives it a boost; it basically confirms what they think.

With all that being said, this idea that “the love we shared will bond us forever”, “there’s always a chance with an ex”, “they will always think about you, you belong to their life story” or even things like “they blocked you because they can’t handle their feelings for you” only makes heartbroken people stuck in life. Unable to go on despite the suffering, and make disturbed people even more insane and perhaps (more) dangerous.

Lastly, to those who are looking for these borderline esoteric messages and trying to decrypt “codes” from an ex in the hopes that they are crying at night thinking of you, please, try to move on. I’m not saying that ex-partners never come back, but you cannot depend on this. Don’t be delusional. Your life is not a Hallmark movie. You have to move on thinking that they won’t come back, even if every single cell of your body wishes the contrary. If they eventually come back, and the time is right for YOU, fantastic. If the time is bad, it’s their loss. And, hell, after a while, you might even realize that that person was not “the one” after all.

You should feel slighted

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So, I came across this advice column that really got under my skin. It jolted me out of my perfectionism rut and nudged me into writing my first article. What triggered me? A woman in her 70s spilled her feelings about feeling snubbed in her marriage in a recent Morningstar column.

Let’s get into it.

Imagine this: You pack up and move to another country to be with your partner, footing most of the bills – understandable if that’s your arrangement.

Now, here’s where it gets messy. You decide in your will that if you pass away first, your property and half of your US Social Security will go to your husband – fair enough. But take a look at your husband’s will, and there you have it! Everything is set to go to a cousin’s 10-year-old grandson, leaving you high and dry.

The advice columnist downplays it, saying it’s all good. Hold on, not in my book.

Let’s break it down: You make this life-altering move, carrying most of the financial load, and even throw your husband into your will. Meanwhile, he hasn’t made the same sacrifice, doesn’t reciprocate the effort, and forgets about you in his will.

And don’t forget the 10-year-old wildcard. The age that he will be when receiving this inheritance doesn’t matter – what matters is your husband prioritizing his family legacy over your well-being, completely disregarding the mountains you moved to be with him.

In essence, you’re not just investing in the present but also securing his future even after your passing, yet he’s not reciprocating the same concern. It’s not solely about financial destitution, as you’ve made it clear that you won’t be left in dire straits if he were to pass first. The crux lies in his apparent disregard for your welfare in his plans. While you’re putting considerable effort into this relationship, he seems to be falling short when it comes to acknowledging and safeguarding your well-being, both now and in the future.

Take a step back and look at the bigger picture of your relationship. Neglect in significant matters often mirrors smaller, daily neglect. Maybe that seemingly perfect life you’re painting hides subtle egotistical acts. Red flags usually don’t come alone; they bring friends. Recognizing them could be the first step to a healthier relationship.

In conclusion, the issues you’ve brought to light are significant. Whether this prompts a reassessment of your relationship or simply serves as a wake-up call, dealing with these concerns is crucial