Relationship for Sale
by; Sena Schmidt
Relationships are a full-time job just like the one you prepare for every morning with your briefcase and cup o’ Joe. The similarities between them are distinct in that both can be fulfilling, allow tremendous potential for growth, and be something into which so much energy is placed. Additionally, they can drastically alter your mood, have one person primarily calling the shots, and something you can out-grow over time. Just like in a career, if the ends no longer satisfy the means and there is no progression in sight, sometimes there comes a point where it’s time to step down from the ladder and seek new enterprises.
Every couple has issues, and nothing in life comes effortlessly. If you’re a good person, chances are you don’t abandon your family if they anger you, you don’t neglect your child if they rebel, and you don’t quit your job without serious consideration. Enormous exertion and passion are placed in our daily undertakings, so what is it that makes giving up on our love lives so commonplace nowadays?
Most couples begin their merger with doe-eyed bliss and exaggerated selflessness, displaying only their best behavior and flawless personality traits only to eventually shed their facades, wasting one another’s time by not being themselves to begin with. Naturally, that’s what people have to do in every aspect of their lives in order to get ahead, but there comes a point in our relationships where the laziness sets in and being the best versions of us begin to fall by the wayside. However, if we followed this trend in our careers we’d be canned, so what is it that makes so many of us think that these actions are permissible at home?
Chances are we have become communicatively lazy, overridden with stress, or maybe we have just stopped “clicking” with that person we fell in love with. What needs to be remembered is that nobody we are paired with is going to be perfect. If people looked at relationships like a business project or real-estate endeavor, maybe we could ignore the downturns and look at our liaisons as long-term investments with promising conclusions. So many people today just surrender their personal “investments” with such haste that in the end they’re left with slim pickings, finding that what’s left in the sea of opportunities are fewer fish and more guppies.
Sure, the “honeymoon phase” I discussed in my article, Clinging to Courting, can be a carefree time for a new couple, but sometimes the relationships that begin with minor difficulty and bickering can jump those hurdles more quickly, thus learning to adapt to their differences from the get-go. For myself, I found that in relationships where troubles were hashed out right away, it gave me time to decipher personality conflicts from the beginning and helped me decide if I wanted to continue with it, rather than wait out the inevitable maelstrom.
I believe we give up much too easily in our love lives these, which explains the nation’s Mount McKinley-high divorce rate and influx of job openings for relationship therapists. Healthy fights may divide you for a while, but bring you back to one another making you more in love and more appreciative of one another than ever before. If we worked on fixing our problems immediately like we would in any other facet of our existence, tensions wouldn’t build and we could continue to advance as happy, healthy couples. Careers, homes and material goods are replaceable yet we seem to place more emphasis and an abundant amount of concern into them more than we do our loved ones. Imagine what would happen if we watched the stocks in our personal connections rise with as much enthusiasm as we did our property values? I think that would be the moment we find true romantic enlightenment.
Certain dissimilarities are too grave, however, so maybe those issues may not be up for compromise and letting go is sometimes the only option remaining. But if you’re feeling it’s time to withdraw from your bond, make it a clean and fair break, and avoid any unnecessary spectacles. Remember the importance of relationship karma, and make the getaway as professional as possible, keeping in mind the manner in which you would walk away from a job: poised, tactful, refined.
It normally isn’t fun starting over. Change can be scary and intimidating. Granted, sometimes we need to flip our relationships and open the doors to perspective new investors. But generally, you tend to want to leave your property in better condition than how you found it. If it’s time to put up the “For Sale” sign in your bond, make sure you leave one another as better, savvier people.
