If happiness, focus, and full life participation comes down to nurturing our facets, how do we do that without hurting anyone, including ourselves? I sincerely wish I had the answer to that. As I said, with regard to romantic relationships, this is certainly more complicated than faithful/unfaithful. This "piecing together" in an attempt to fill a void can introduce variables that can cause chaos, distress, and restlessness. It's difficult to truly recognize what you are missing, define it as a need, and determine how you might satisfy it.
Regardless, this approach seems to best fit me and the intricacies of my life. Time and time again, it’s been the solution that has allowed me to live with the decisions that I've made along the way. Those decisions were perfectly perfect for me at the time I made them; but, over time and as my needs changed, I was left feeling incomplete, empty, and anxious. Each time I found myself lacking happiness and fulfillment I mind looped incessantly about possible solutions; however, any action that I could think to take would simply replace the existing set of stressors with another. Based on my observations over the years, it appears that I'm not alone in finding myself dealing with this set of circumstances.
So...permanence in relationships...is it possible? I fully believe - one hundred percent - that people come into our lives when we need them. They write lines of us and become part of our story. They can be fleeting fixtures of happiness and love, the catalyst that brings on a necessary transition, or the comfort needed to help us struggle through pain. If it’s true though, that the only constant in life is change, then how is it plausible to think that we could ever establish any one relationship - romantic or otherwise - that would continuously satisfy all of our needs as humans? Why do we continue to adhere to, and groom our children to adhere to, the social construct of how relationships are supposed to be conducted?
Interestingly enough there is no social expectation of a legal/contractual obligation or public declaration placed on non-romantic relationships. So why then do we hold the belief that we need to pledge our intent to observe permanence, sexual exclusivity, or monogamy when we find ourselves in an intimate and sexual interpersonal relationship? Why isn't it acceptable to simply say "I love you today...and I want to see you tomorrow"?
Instead, we’re conditioned to bind ourselves to one another when we begin to feel emotionally intense. We seek to preserve the relationship by promising our intent of a lifelong devotion. We become blinded by the excitement and optimism of the relationship and overlook how our expectations may later inhibit our partner’s ability to be free and spontaneous. Our fundamental need for connection causes us to ignore our need for autonomy. When we lose the feeling that we have personal control over our behavior and our decisions we feel compromised and empty. In oder to feel like we're alive we need adventure and passion, we need to feel like all those facets of ourselves are fully functioning. If we don’t feel this we either wither and become a shell of what we could be; or we become desperate to find it often thinking the only way to do so is by moving on and leaving that relationship that so perfectly suited us.
I suppose that any relationship can be permanent if at least one participant is willing to continuously compromise their own beliefs and needs. But I think a person's level of ability to self-compromise for any length of time is based on core personality attributes, hierarchy of needs level, attachment styles, and situational influences. That being said, I do believe that our lives may become and remain congruent with another's. But not if we attempt to throw all of our hopes and dreams into a box and climb inside with the partner we've chosen and close the lid. I think that the secret of a “forever relationship” lies more in the philosophy that each party has to be free to leave, free to retain autonomy, free to nurture their facets, in order to truly stay.
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