My ex was careful to never make me promises. He didn’t want to be the kind of person to make them only to break them. For a long time, I respected that. He wanted to be a man of his word.
Later, it made me angry. Didn’t I deserve some reassurance within the relationship? Wasn’t it reasonable to want the one I was in love with to want to make some promises to me?
He looked at promises as absolute guarantees, but I saw them differently. Promises are intentions. They are declarations that we intend to honor and reassurances we make. Plus, there are promises we can make that we can keep.
I Promise to Be Faithful
Fidelity is something we can promise. Infidelity happens in steps and stages. No one just falls into bed with someone else without any intention of it happening along the way. No one slides into another person’s DMs in secret without knowing they’re doing something wrong.
We can’t promise the relationship will last forever, but we can commit to being faithful to it. While not every relationship is monogamous, even polyamorous relationships have rules that can be respected. We can promise to be a trustworthy person who won’t betray the other person through infidelity.
I Promise to Try
I didn’t need guarantees that the relationship would last forever. I just wanted to know that I wasn’t going to be the only one trying to make things work. As long as we’re committed to one another, we can promise to keep trying and investing our energy and effort into the relationship. We can’t guarantee the success of our efforts, but we can fulfill the promise that we at least put effort forth in the attempt to make things work.
A promise to try isn’t just words. It comes with actions that back it up. If we’re not willing to make an effort in a relationship, we likely aren’t ready to be in one.
I Promise To Be Honest
He said he loved me, and then he stopped saying it. At some point, he either realized that he never loved me at all, or he stopped. But what he failed to do was to be honest with me about it. When confronted, I was offered the very confusing excuse of “it’s not you; it’s me.” I wasn’t sure how to take that or what it meant for our relationship.
We can promise to be honest. If our feelings change, we can voice that. If we have doubts, we can talk them out and decide what we’re going to do. What we don’t have to do is leave the other person hanging while we make up our minds about whether we’re in or out. It’s a kindness just to be honest about what’s happening.
I Promise to Be Kind
We should pay attention to how people talk about their exes and what level of respect they grant those past relationships. While I admit to talking trash about the ex who was abusive, most of my exes get a modicum of respect and consideration. They aren’t just dismissed as garbage human beings. Kindness is a choice even when relationships end.
I never worried about this. I was so convinced of my ex’s innate kindness that I never foresaw it turning. But I should have. When I became the ex, I lost the respect and consideration I was granted before. I became just another disappointment in a long line of them — and the kindness disappeared along with it.
We can promise to be kind. We can be kind inside the relationship, but we can also be kind if it ends. Kindness is a promise we’re capable of keeping if we try. Centering our interactions on basic decency and respect can help us stay true to our integrity even if we find ourselves angry, hurt, or grieving.
I Promise to Choose You as Long as We’re in This
Loving someone is a choice. We wake up every day and choose to love this flawed human being we’ve partnered with in a relationship. We can’t promise that everything will always be easy (it won’t) or that the relationship will last (it might not), but we can certainly promise to choose them every day that we’re still in the relationship.
This part is hard. We hurt each other even when it’s the last thing we want to do. People are messy and complicated, and our feelings can be intense. We can’t promise a happily ever after, but we can promise that as long as we’re in the relationship, we’ll consciously be in it. We’ll remember the things that we love about each other even when we’re arguing. We’ll keep choosing the relationship until we don’t any longer.
Promises As Reassurance
The partners who won’t make promises are hinting that they are already anticipating breaking them. Sometimes, the lack of promises indicates a lack of true commitment to the relationship. I get it: commitment can be scary. But being afraid of the future only ever wrecks our joy in the present.
Relationships require reassurance. No, we can’t say for sure nothing will ever change. We could fall out of love. We could change our minds. Anything could happen. But we can reassure each other that we’re in this for however long it lasts. We can make a few promises — and keep them.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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