When you analyze it, any relationship can fall into one of two categories: short-term and long-term. Long-term relationships generally involve people who are serious about staying together. Often, they’re a case of sincerely attempting and hoping to stay together.
Short-term relationships are the opposite. Usually they result from a lack of commitment. People see each other for a little while, and then things end, they move on. You can also have a third category of on-again/off-again, which is a weird mix of short and long-term, but ultimately not indicating the highest level of commitment. Committed versus non-committed is another good way of generalizing the two categories.
Therefore, the single biggest determining factor is (to use some mathematical logic) what could be thought of as: the net commitment quotient of your relationship.
This would be something like an average of how both people feel in regards to the lifespan of the relationship. Marriage is high on the hierarchy of commitments — but given that so many marriages don’t last, we know it is far from full security.
That being said, compared to how many marriages last versus how many non-marriages, you can see that marriage boosts your chance of relationship survival over the long term, significantly.
I’ll use examples from relationships I’ve had, for what did and didn’t work. This way, you can learn from my mistakes and successes.
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Communication, communication, comm…
Couples need to talk about how committed they are to one another. It can only be a positive action to get these feelings out into the open. If one person has no idea about how long they want to commit for, and the other person is looking for marriage — then it is mutually beneficial that they have a conversation about this, and reconcile their differences.
They will have a much higher chance of aligning their goals when they know where the other person stands. It doesn’t do anyone any good to avoid these kinds of topics. Strive to be concrete and direct about what commitment means. Talk time-frames and goals. All of this should be important; serious couples will have no qualms diving into this.
I had the unfortunate experience of a really horrible break-up, 5 years into a relationship — which if I told you about in detail, I’m confident would make your top ten list of the world’s worst imaginable break-ups.
I ultimately realized there wasn’t enough concrete communication and accountability about what commitment meant for each of us. So when she decided to break-up with me, it came seemingly out of the blue. I was totally heart-broken.
She had often told me she wanted for us to stay together, but there wasn’t actual commitment there. They were rather empty words. She changed her mind one day, and that was that.
In my current marriage, there has always been a standard from early on, of knowing what the status of the relationship is. There has been a much more productive, practical sense of building a life together — and the relationship has been exponentially more successful than the previous one.
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What’s your relationship called?
Is it “that guy or chick I met at the party,” is it “this girl or guy I have been dating”, is it “my boyfriend or girlfriend”, is it “my partner”, or “my husband or wife”? Or Something else? In something as simple as the name, a great deal can be revealed about how serious a relationship is.
In a truly committed relationship, there is always vision of the next step. Not all that much is left to chance, because couples care deeply about making this work. They plan to build a life together, and they get on with it.
Open-ended attitudes like “we’ll see what happens” or “I’d like to stay together — if possible” will likely not endure the test of time. Eventually, there has to be progress into more solidified states.
I’ll use myself again as an example. The person I dated for 5 years; we were always “boyfriend and girlfriend”. That title has a shelf-life. We talked about marriage vaguely, but she was avoidant of homing in on it. She was never able to move into “fiancée” status even when I wanted to. This kind of avoidance, several years into a relationship, is a red flag. Of course she has her side of the story, but I ultimately attributed this break-up to a failure of commitment.
So we stayed “boyfriend and girlfriend” — which I think most would agree is more of a semi-long-term/medium-term label. Usually it implies that the people are serious about one another, they often do love each other, and the relationships can last quite some time.
However, there is a world of difference between 5 years (how long that previous one lasted) and 50+ years (how long my relationship with my wife is expected to last). Of course there are exceptions. Sometimes you do find people who are known as “boyfriend and girlfriend” and stay together for many years, or their entire lives; but keep in mind, this is not the norm.
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It’s okay to be conventional sometimes
Conventions are actually there for a good reason — think of them like useful and straightforward rules. I’m not a very conventional person, overall; nor do I like a great deal of rules. Like many writers, musicians, and artists, I’m creative, unusual, and prefer to come up with my own way of doing things, most of the time. In many aspects of my life, I shirk convention.
However, when it comes to my relationship with my wife, I am a fan of the tried and true social strategies and customs, that will work to our advantage, for the long-term. After one horrible break-up that left me suicidal for years, when I met a woman who was upfront with me about her goals, wanting marriage and kids, I was refreshed and cooperative.
That nightmare relationship I had was with a person who always liked to keep the status of our relationship vague — for the sake of unconventionality. Early on, she avoided really addressing our level of commitment, under the guise of being a “unique” and “unconventional” couple.
She was slow to call me her “boyfriend” and her my “girlfriend”. It’s okay to want to be unique and special in your romance, but there’s a big difference between that, and having a strong commitment to the one you love.
When it comes down to it, all loving couples develop their own original identity. You shouldn’t have to worry about that, it’ll happen on its own. But they at least have to be on the same page about whether they’re going to stay together or not.
In this sense, you might be doing yourselves a favor by following the conventions. If one party is resistant to that, look for a weakness in their sense of commitment. It’s a great feeling to know you are both on the same page in your level of commitment, and to have some assurances of this.
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Symbols of commitment
Rings are the most common one, but there are others. A committed couple is proud of their status, and will have no problem with making a public, unspoken statement of their involvement. This makes it really easy for others to identify — again this falls under convention.
Regardless of all the subjective factors that make you special and unique as a couple, there is no good reason why you wouldn’t want the world to know about it. A ring worn on the ring finger (located between pinky and middle finger) of the left hand symbolizes marriage in my culture.
The nice thing about this is that you don’t have to be married. Marriage is, on some level, just a word — and a symbol in itself. You can be not really married on paper or in title, but wearing a ring on that finger of that hand, will send a clear message to each other and the broader world, of the permanence of your relationship.
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Don’t waste each other’s time
We only get one life (that we know of). Why would you ever want to knowingly waste the precious time that you have? It’s worth it to quickly develop emotional and life investment in your relationships.
Otherwise, this is time not put to good use, and which you can’t have back. Of course we learn from our mistakes, and experience is a great teacher, but I think many of us would prefer not to have failures along the way, if we could help it.
Retrospectively, I’m okay with my failures in love, because I made it through them and came out a happier person — and learned a great deal. Life has a way of working out. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t wish those problems on others. I think that there is always room for improvement.
There are definitely some relationship patterns that are doomed to failure. From my perspective, it was a genuine lack of commitment on the other person’s part that unsealed the deal, though of course there were some internal and external conflicts as well, which put the relationship to the test.
I was willing to fight any battle and resolve any conflict, but it takes two to tango. A relationship is only as strong as its weakest link, and if both people aren’t in it for the long haul, through thick and thin, it won’t last.
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Commitment means perseverance
All couples have some conflicts — it’s inevitable. The stream of consciousness of commitment is: we will stay together, we will work this out, on both sides. Straying from that into the territory of I don’t know if this will work or I have my doubts about this continuing is evidence of a compromised sense of commitment.
It’s hard to stay strong in the face of conflict, so be sensitive to where your mind goes when there are problems. Of course we all have doubts and concerns sometimes; that’s also normal. But the more committed you are, the less of this there will be.
Some conflict will become normal and manageable. Any truly extreme and seemingly out-of-control fights or disagreements will nevertheless be worked through. Relationships will be tested, regularly, for just how strongly each person is set on staying together.
It goes without saying that relationships that don’t work, will more easily buckle under the stress of conflict. If there isn’t a deep sense of commitment there in the first place, it’s easy to be thrown off when things go wrong.
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Breaking it off isn’t an appealing option
Commitment, in its strongest form, proves this point. Therefore, if you find you and your partner talking about divorce, breaking up, or going your separate ways, as an option — this means commitment is at stake.
It could enter the conversation casually, like “So if we ever were to break up, then…”; this is talking about what essentially amount to back-up plans. Often, it comes with a kind of incentivization, like “…at least you could be with someone who you get along with better”, or “…we’d be given the option to be on our own for a while”.
It’s normal for us to come up with backup plans in life, and often it is a good idea — but with relationships, this is one area where by coming up with a backup plan, you’re working against commitment. For the ideal couple, there is no backup plan. Them being together is the only plan, and this is the one that will be adhered to. That’s the whole point. It’s only a problem if both people aren’t on the same level.
The more appealing the backup plan, the worse the relationship. The classic example of this is, one person leaves the other, to find something better. At some point in that relationship (and likely quite a few times), I can guarantee that the person who left, thought to themselves, “Well I could always leave, if it turns out that this just isn’t good enough”. The more they consider that as a possibility, the more real it becomes.
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When to cut your losses
This is the backdoor escape route for commitment. The simple reality is (in my humble opinion): not every relationship was made to last. There are always exceptions, even if you’re married or otherwise firmly committed to one another.
In those cases, an undying sense of commitment is not the best way to go. These are situations like abusiveness or loveless-ness, amidst dogmatic religiosity or pragmatic security, where there is so much spiritual and emotional pain being suffered — or merely a lack of pleasure, without any potential for resolution or improvement, that staying in the relationship is not the right option. Those can and do happen, of course.
For the most part, people who love each other, and are committed, can make it last, and they’ll have no regrets in doing this. I’m not a supporter of telling people to do something they don’t want to do, but I know from experience that all else being equal — namely love and romantic feelings, it is dedication to the relationship itself that makes the difference in long-term success.
I also know that sometimes, our feelings can waver in the moment. People are not machines or automatons, emotions are complex and changeable. It’s normal for there to be ups and downs in any relationship, and to need to work through these, regularly. Even when it’s challenging or boring or confusing, committed and loving couples power through, and they end up happier as result.
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This post was previously published on Hello, Love.
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