We decided to finally play Jumanji. She had to crawl across the living room and almost broke her knee. Now she is pouting with a cool pack while I boil water to make her tea.
Being single is cool and all. But I never want to go back. I decided this to be my life.
It’s great as long as both parties fully understand the other’s “drawbacks” and are prepared to deal with those. Never assume you’ll fix somebody with time. Hopefully both parties do grow and improve themselves over the years, but nobody is perfect.
Love is being able to get angry with someone, wanting to resolve it healthily, and then actually moving forward and feeling it was worth it. It can feel like work sometimes, but the work should never feel pointless.
20 years in, it is pretty dope I have to say.
Ideally yes. This is me and Mrs. Warp Core and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
However…
Well, let me put it this way. Ever have a best friend that, after spending a lot of time around, you find out that you actually can’t stand more than a few hours at time? That is absolutely a possibility here. Only now their stuff is in your house (or vice-versa), and/or they’re on the same lease.
$0.02: It may not always be advisable, but absolutely benchmark the practical aspects of your romance long before tying the knot. Long-term co-habitation is not the only route here. Consider other ways to rack up large blocks of time: getaway vacations, long weekends, or even just “play house” for a few days at a time. You’d be amazed at what horrible, terrible, filthy, obnoxious habits your partner has when “at home.” The reality is that everyone is a bit (more) of a mess in private, and the only real question you have to answer is: “what am I willing to put up with?”
I’m a full blown mess in private or public, they know what they’re getting into before seeing me at home. I have no shame
I took a getaway vacation with a woman I had been dating for 3 months. We got back and haven’t corresponded since then. That was a few years ago.
I still cannot fathom how anyone thinks it is a good idea not to do these things with another person before marrying them. My wife and I were both adamant that we live together and go on trips together and do “married” things long before we made that decision. I like to think we ironed out many of the early kinks without the pressure of “we’re married so this absolutely has to work” lingering over us.
Exactly … and a good way to do that is international budget travelling while you are still young (20-30 years of age).
It doesn’t matter what you got right now in your 20s, borrow, scrape and ask for money wherever you both can and go travel to some foreign country on the most minimal budget you guys can afford.
Stay within safety margins of course … don’t stay in deep dark corners that cost a dollar and risk your lives.
Stay on the trip for about two or three months and you will both cement your relationship if not for the long term than for life. You will go through terrible situations, unsavoury situations, disgusting events … but also see unbelievable things, beautiful images and people and cultures … and best of all you will learn to trust one another completely with money, with time, with space, with your lives. You’ll see the ugly sides of one another and you will learn what you like and dislike about one another and you will find out if you can accept all that or not.
The first five years of being with my wife, we went overseas as often as we could on the skin of our teeth … and it was scary, terrible and absolutely fun and exhilarating for both of us. We saw Asia, India, North Africa and a dozen major European cities … in the summers we got in the car and explored the Canadian west coast … then the Canadian east coast.
Part of the inspiration was an older couple that we made friends with years ago. Before they got married in 1970, they took a motorcycle to Alaska, then down to Patagonia for a year … they went through absolute hell and back and they are still together.
My sister did this with her then boyfriend by canoeing down the Mississippi River.
The person who wrote this has not met many married people. I don’t think they ever had a best friend either.
As someone who is 15 years into the situation OP described - yes it’s somewhat of an oversimplication of how it all works… but broadstokewise it’s on the money with the right partner and mindset. Whether your marriage works this way or not comes down to how fungible you both believe your partner to ultimately be and how much you dedicate to being each other’s joy.
Thinking being pessimistic in the face of romance is just “reality” means your chances of experiencing that kind of romance become mighty slim. Optimism and trust are nessisary components to making it happen but are sadly also attractive to abusers. End of the day I wish OP the very best of luck because coming home to your partner excited to see them every day for years on end really is worth the attempt.
Yep, also had a “bad” experience recently with divorce. Still not feeling back to 100%, but I know deep down that a happy, functional relationship is just around the corner. I could meet them at any point, and if we’re true partners, we’ll find a way to be happy with eachother. It’s a little tough to remain optimistic, but it’s dramatically better than giving up and being cold and pessimistic for the rest of my life!
It’s really nice if you got the right person for it. I love my person so much 💓💓💓
This is exactly the relationship my wife and I share. We’re each other’s best friends, so it’s easy to hang out every day. Which is important because we’re both not working, so we’re around each other 24/7.
So many couples struggled throughout the pandemic because they were actually forced to spend a lot of time together and realized they just didn’t care for each others’ company as much as they thought. But it had no effect on my relationship with my wife because we already spent almost every moment of our free time together.
And it’s not like we do absolutely everything together. There are plenty of days when we’re indulging in our own separate hobbies or interests. But we’re always close by, so we can chat or share our geeky hobbies with one another.
If you marry someone for looks, status, money, etc., you may find yourself in more of a business relationship than a romantic one, which will struggle as you get older. But finding someone who completely gets you is refreshing. You don’t need to put on a mask around them; you can be yourself and be confident that they love you for YOU. And if you truly respect them, you’ll also love and appreciate them for being themselves too.
As a counter example my wife and I have separate rooms and some hobbies that we don’t share…and it’s amazing. She’s still my best friend, we still hang out every day, we still do the dirty, we’re still very much in love…we just realized that we both love some degree of personal space, personal time when necessary, and sleep 10x better in separate rooms. I think we still fit the idea of “best friends doing life together” despite not wanting that 24/7 always together lifestyle.
I can get behind that. My wife and I share a bed, but she’s talked about having her own separate bed. She’s an extremely light sleeper and even shifting a little bit in bed wakes her up. Suffice to say, she almost never gets good sleep and ends up napping half of the day after I’ve gotten up. She still prefers to fall asleep cuddled up to me, though, which is why we haven’t gotten her a separate bed yet.
We also have plenty of separate hobbies that the other doesn’t care for. I collect comic books that my wife isn’t interested in, and she loves true crime shows, which get very boring and repetitive for me. But we each indulge in our separate hobbies in nearby rooms, so we can excitedly share details with the other.
She loves telling me all about the horrifying ways someone was murdered on one of her shows, and whereas I don’t care for the show myself, I enjoy how excited she is about sharing all the gory details. I love her passion for her interests. 🥰
This is me and my husband. I find the part about going through the pandemic together especially true. “After” the pandemic I never went back to the office and the number of coworkers I had who seemed to be flabbergasted that I wanted to stay at home was through the roof. They seemed genuinely confused that husband and I weren’t dying to get away from each other.
I have to admit though, it may have become somewhat of a hostile work environment as my husband has been threatening to tell my boss about all the times I make fish for lunch.
My wife is the best thing to ever happen to me, plain and simple. My life would be a whole lot worse, and a whole lot more boring, without her in it.
I was head-over-heels in love with my best friend when I was in my late teens/early 20’s. We had a short-lived romance. Turned out he was quietly suffering through severe depression and killed himself; it destroyed me for a long time.
However, I made a new best friend. We trauma bonded a bit, as he also went through a deep loss. We’ve been together for 10 years, 4 of them married. I love him to death. He’s my ride or die.
There are so many things couples put blinders on, but it’s important to always communicate. I’ve learned that though it’s really hard to express some of your deepest insecurities and feelings, it’s better to discuss the things that you’re struggling with, because a good partner isn’t perfect, yet they will love you, listen to your problems, accept your faults, and help you work on building a life together. Some days you’ll carry the heavier load, other days your partner will.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that a happy marriage takes effort from both partners, and even the most perfect couple has work to do. It’s important to be open about what’s important to you, especially if that changes over time. Everyone hits bumps in the road.
I can’t recommend therapy enough. For any reason. Life is worth living. It gets easier, and with the right support you can heal and grow.
It’s too expensive.
Do you mean therapy, a relationship, or both?
Therapy, unfortunately. Although relationships can be a little expensive, can’t they.
Indeed. Everything has an opportunity cost.
This entirely unironically. Life is better when you can share it with other people.
After being a few months away from being married and seeing it all fall apart I’ve realized that I don’t ever want to be married.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want a long term relationship but I don’t want to tie the knot and tangle up my life like that ever again. If we had gotten married then divorced my ex would have ruined me. I was too soft at that time and I would have let her use me as a doormat on the way out. I know better now but I still don’t want to deal with those complications.
*"Listen, happy endings is fine if they turn out happy,” said Granny, glaring at the sky. “But you can’t make ‘em for other people. Like the only way you could make a happy marriage is by cuttin’ their heads off as soon as they say ‘I do’, yes? You can’t make happiness…” Granny Weatherwax stared at the distant city.
shut up grandma. people are allowed to get to know each other before they’re married now. also they’re allowed to get a divorce so they don’t have to resort to slowly poisoning their spouse.
Wooosh
Do NOT talk to Granny Weatherwax like that.
Well, one more reason to be sad about being unlovable :/
same here. I should probably start blocking those types of posts. All they do is make my depression worse.
So this blew my mind, but once I got beyond the whole “my ex doesn’t love me, she ruined my life” the whole thing of single 4eva disappeared. It turns out, you, as an individual, need to love yourself first, before anyone else can.
Know why? Cause only you can advocate for all of your qualities and issues.
I’m discovering a lot about me. I don’t have the time or energy for a significant other right now, so I should be single. Sure I have physical desires, but with creativity you can get through that.
I bet it’d take one DnD session, night of drinking, or playing games over discord to find a hundred reasons you’re loveable. Lemme know if you ever want to game!
I don’t drink alcohol :/
That leaves two other suggestions in their comment!
I’m still not sure how that’s supposed to help in terms of being lovable.
The commenter was saying they reckoned it’d take one night of DND or a chat over discord to find a bunch of reasons that you are loveable. I know it can be hard to stay optimistic but I’m sure that, like almost everyone else, there are good things about you that people like
Surprised this isn’t the first comment. That’s lot of us here.
Just love each other. Problem solved
Love is an action, and it takes two. If you haven’t found someone to love you, keep looking.
Same.
I only really ever had two goals in life and I managed to fail them stupendously:
1)Not be the guy who’s miserable every day and doesn’t want to wake up to go to work.
2)To be in a loving relationship.
1 is making 2 even more difficult. On second thought it’s like an ouroboros, 1 makes 2 more difficult which compounds the misery of 1 lol
I’ve been married to my wife for 2 years, after being in a relationship with her for 6 years. Things weren’t always perfectly smooth sailing but we’ve managed to work things out. We sometimes have communication issues, which we’re working on, but at least we understand that it’s a weak point and any fights (which are hardly fights) don’t last very long.
She is quite literally my best friend, and I am so, so grateful to have her. We spend most of our time outside of work together and we never grow tired of each other. We always help each other out and cheer each other up when one of us has a bad day. Co-op campaign mode is a great way to put it.
I came out to her as trans shortly after we got married, when I suddenly realized how I felt about being the opposite gender. She was very supportive from the beginning, and although she was initially a little nervous when I started hormones, we’ve grown a lot closer and our love has grown so much stronger since I began to open up and be my authentic self. And for that, I can’t be grateful enough. Many couples I’ve seen where one comes out as trans end up splitting up, for one reason another, so I think I’m extremely lucky to have someone that can see past gender and love me for simply myself.
This post is going to make some people very sad and some people very happy and I guess I’m here for that. Life is alllll sorts of experiences, good and bad. Just gotta roll with it.
And some of us just, meh. Tried the co-op mode and found that the people I’m attracted to aren’t good for me. Now I’m just looking forward to retiring before I’m 50, and surfing. That and having tons of dogs that I foster and train to be good, and then adopt out. I’m not a good dog parent because I can’t see them as anything but needy toddlers. Therefore annoying. I can’t foster cats because I couldn’t adopt the cats out. The dogs are at least consistently needing the same repetition so that they become good dogs for some family out there.
At first I imagined actually getting into the fetal position and rolling on the ground, but then I realized that’s only my fetish… You were obviously talking about trains.
I’d rather just not tbh but I don’t want to leave a me shaped hole in people’s lives
I get that
