Imagine the following scenario with me. You’ve been dating for a long time and haven’t yet managed to find someone who was a “perfect” fit for you. Then, one day, you meet someone with whom you instantly “click”.
You share the same interests, mindset and have similar life goals. They always make you feel like you’re a priority. They’re loving, caring, funny, clever. Of course, they have a couple of flaws as well (no one is perfect, after all) but all their flaws combined are nothing in comparison with their strong points.
You can’t believe your luck. You’ve finally found “the one”!
As weeks, months, and years pass by, however, your feelings start to change. As sometimes happens in life, you realize that you’ve fallen out of love with your partner. And even though falling out of love is an inevitable part of living, you notice you feel guilty, confused, and scared.
You can’t help but a) wonder how can you feel this way when the person standing right in front of you has all the attributes you’ve been searching for in a partner and b) think that you’ll never find someone like them again.
I’ve got one harsh truth for you: you can fall out of love and break up with someone, even though that someone once felt like they were “the one” for you.
What follows is a breakdown of:
- why something like that happens
- why it’s not a bad thing
- what you should do if you find yourself in a similar situation
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#1. Sometimes Relationships Reach a Natural End
When we’re in love, we believe (and hope) that we will be with our partner forever. Or, you know, till death do us part.
However, whether we like it or not, the truth is that not all relationships are meant to last, and not all relationships have to end because one partner cheated, mistreated, or abused the other.
Sometimes, relationships simply reach a natural end. Life happens. People change. And most importantly, feelings change as well.
You might not be physically attracted to your partner anymore (even though they have an almost perfect personality) and view them more as a friend than as a partner — and vice versa. No matter how effort you put into a relationship and how much you try to sustain it, sometimes, it can’t work anymore.
As clinical psychologist Randi Gunther puts it in her article:
“Doing everything they know how, good people sometimes can’t stay together.”
…
#2. People Change and So Do Their Needs and Life Goals
As I briefly mentioned above, with time, every single person’s character out there changes. You can’t help it. Our personality is constantly shaped by our experiences along with some other factors like age or trauma.
You (or your partner) might have grown, changed, and become a completely different person than who you were at the beginning of your relationship. For example, you might, at the moment:
- have completely different needs that your partner can’t meet anymore
- have completely different priorities (e.g. you might not be in a place where you can emotionally support a relationship anymore because you want to wholeheartedly focus on your career)
- have new life goals that don’t align with those of your partner (e.g. you might have decided you don’t want to have kids even though you thought you did)
Depending on your current needs, priorities, and life goals, someone who treats you like royalty might still not be able to fulfill you emotionally and make you happy. As philosopher, author, and founder of School of Life Alain de Botton masterfully states:
“We want what we want and no amount of arguing with ourselves can make our appetites go away or fundamentally delegitimize our needs. The way forward isn’t to call ourselves difficult and shut up — but to learn to honour and adroitly defend in front of others our own inner complexity.
However insane this will inevitably sound, anyone is allowed to find someone else’s offer of love to be — in the end — not their thing.”
…
#3. There’s More Than One “Perfect” Match Out There for Everyone
According to the most recent estimates, as of April 2021, the current world population is 7.9 billion.
Repeat with me: 7.9 billion.
Don’t you think that among those billions, there are people who will be a great “fit” for you?
Those numbers practically indicate that no one is irreplaceable. There are people out there who are a “perfect” match for you, and there are people who are a “perfect”, maybe even better than you, match for your current partner as well.
It might seem unlikely at the moment, but in the future, you can find someone else who will feel like they’re “the one” for you. The numbers are in your favor. All you need is three things:
- an open mind
- patience
- and a little bit of luck
Final Note
When you feel stuck in a relationship, especially in a relationship with a kind, loving partner, it’s easy to make excuses and to convince yourself to stay with them even if you know, deep down, how unfulfilled and unhappy that makes you.
You might feel guilty about falling out of love with a person who you used to believe was “the one”, scared you won’t find any other good fit for you out there, or you might severely hurt your partner.
But, guilt is the last thing you should feel, and, at the end of the day, those fears are irrational. If you’re stuck right now or find yourself stuck in a similar situation sometime in the future, you should remember two crucial things:
- Life’s too short to stay in unfulfilling relationships.
- Falling out of love and wanting to break up with someone doesn’t make you a bad person.
In fact, as Alain de Botton states:
“Real kindness means getting out — even though the holiday has been booked, the apartment paid for and the wedding arranged. There’s nothing wrong with and nothing dangerous about deciding someone isn’t for us. There is something very wrong with ruining large chunks of someone else’s life while we squeamishly or fearfully hesitate to get out of the way.”
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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