When It Isn't Forever

A perspective offering for when relationships you thought would last forever, don't.
Plus, what actually makes a relationship successful or not.

Learn about my coaching program: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com

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Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
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Transcript

0:13

Hey my friends what I want to talk about today is how I think in our society, that is modern Western society, we have this cultural belief that in order for a relationship to be good or to be successful, it has to last forever. I think that is bullshit. Or at the very least outdated. And some of you are probably having an allergic reaction to me saying this, but just hear me out. If you think about the role of women historically and the oppression they experienced, women weren't considered full people in their own right, right? They couldn't own property or even like, work a job and get paid a living wage. They were dependent on their male relationships. They started out under their father's care and were expected to marry so that when their father was no longer around, they would not be left destitute. If a relationship ended, that would be catastrophic for them. They needed their marriages to last until death. And so we have our marriage contracts which say until death do you part. So I think these are the roots of where the idea that a relationship needs to or should last forever comes from. And societally, that is no longer the case. Right? Women have the ability to get jobs, and credit cards, and own property, start businesses, and do all the things that historically they couldn't do. But the idea of a relationship lasting forever still persists. I think in large part because it is one of the toxic influences that comes from modern Christianity. It is a vestige of still trying to control and suppress women and that is a whole other conversation in and of itself. But I also think it persists because we've romanticized the idea of forever. We've made duration of time the measuring stick by whether we determine a relationship a success or a failure. Logically though, it doesn't make sense to use that as the measuring stick. My grandparents on my mother's side have been married for 66 years and counting. 66 years is a long time. If you use time as the measuring stick for success, you would say that that is a successful marriage. But they have a terrible relationship. My grandpa is mean and nasty to my grandma. He doesn't lift a finger around the house, never has, and expects to be waited on and served like a helpless infant. She is basically his slave. And this is not like a new thing. This is not just him getting old. She's old too, right? But it's always been like this. Duration of time takes no factor of quality. This relationship might have lasted for 66 years, but I would say it is a failure in the ways that actually count. Whereas, I dated this guy in college for a couple of weeks. The relationship only lasted a couple of weeks. But those couple of weeks were great. I had a great time. If you use time as the measure of success, though, that looks like a major failure. Like oh my god only a few weeks what a disaster. Right? But I don't think of it as a disaster at all. I think it was a huge success because those weeks were high quality. People always think like, well, if it was so great, then why didn't it last longer? It was a logistics thing. We weren't going to be going to school in the same place anymore. And we weren't going to do a long distance thing. So it ended. And you know what, even if that wasn't the case, it probably still should have ended when it did because it was complete at that time. It was the perfect time for it to end. Our society sees the ending of a relationship as a failure. You can see that in how we talk about them. Right? We call a divorce a "failed marriage." I Don't think of the end of a relationship as a failure though. I think of it as the completion. That two to three week relationship completed at the end of those weeks. A relationship doesn't end; it completes. It finishes. It was what it needed to be and when it doesn't make sense anymore, it completes. I think this is a much less dramatic way of thinking about relationships. With a so called"failure", we want to place blame. We need someone to be at fault. We need a villain. We end up spending time debating with ourselves or even the other person on who is at fault. Who gets the blame. Who is the bad guy. And that is all very unnecessary. And I say that as someone who 100% does think that my ex is a bad guy. But I don't spend time validating that to myself or other people because it doesn't even matter. The relationship completed and I don't have to think about it anymore. Completion lets you move on a lot easier. You don't have to spend time on what went wrong and how could I have done things differently. You can of course decide that going into the next one you are going to try some things differently, but that is much less emotionally fraught when there isn't blame attached. I think it also makes it easier to leave relationships that don't make sense anymore. Staying in relationships that no longer work or no longer makes sense is incredibly painful. But we do that when we see the ending of relationships as a failure, when we don't want it to mean that we are a failure. But what I would offer you as a counter perspective to society's is that relationships have a natural course. And when they've run their course, they're completed and it is time to move on. You may have some relationships that have a longer course than others. You might end up with a marriage that lasts 66 years or more. And you might not. But the important part is only being in relationships that are good for you. The true success in relationships is knowing what is good for you and when it is time to go. And I offer you this perspective so that you can see that there are options available to you. Society's way of viewing relationships isn't the only way. Ultimately, you get to decide how you want to define what is success and failure in relationships or if you even want there to be a definition, maybe there is no way to fail in relationships. That gets to be your call. You do not have to let society define for you what your relationships should or should not look like or what your relationships mean or don't mean. That's your power. That's your decision. Don't let society take that away. Choose for yourself on purpose. Even if that ends up being keeping society's definition. Choose for yourself on purpose. Alright, my friends until next time, be well.