A relationship can, and usually will, take you down the same old road. It will start off being good - or perhaps a better adjective is: amazing! It will then slowly progress, without you even knowing it, into the exact opposite of amazing. Finally, it will either fizzle out or end abruptly and with a bang, and you will be left to clean up the relationship crap that’s left behind. Where and why does it all go wrong?
Butterflies in your stomach, floating on air, feeling alive, each kiss is memorable, each moment is magical! This is this the undeniable Honeymoon Stage. In the logical portion of our brain we know this phase cannot last forever; nonetheless, our hearts and libidos convince us that we are the only two to have ever felt this way. Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Issult, Beyonce and Jay Z… they’ve got nothing on us!
The Bad:
Cute quirks turn to annoying habits, sex is routine, life is routine, you have started multiple sentences in your head by saying: “I love him but…”, you look longingly back on all the things you wanted to do and didn’t, you convince yourself you’re happy. No, this isn’t a rut. This is the phase I like to call: Alive, but Not Living. Obviously, not all relationships take this route, but the majority of them do. You go from living your life for you to living your life for you two.
It’s a subtle shift that takes place over a long stretch of time. In the beginning, (the good) you were in the relationship for yourself. Believe it or not, you were selfish and the selfishness made you happy. Take a minute to think back on your current or past relationship. In those early carefree days did you ever do things out of obligation? At the start of the relationship, being with the other person - while doing no matter what - made you happy. You didn’t go to the baseball game to appease him, nor were your forced to barricade yourself in the basement for an Entourage marathon. You did these things because it felt fucking great! You sought your own happiness.
The dreaded “shift” occurs simultaneously with the release of your selfishness. When you begin to care more about the other person’s needs and happiness you stop focusing on your own. It’s irritatingly ironic that caring about someone seems to lead to our own self-destruction. Is compassion a flaw? Are we killing ourselves with kindness?
The Ugly:
Memories soon turn to nightmares, you wonder why you put up with that annoying habit, you’re embarrassed about the time you got in a fight over which restaurant to eat at, you’re relieved that you no longer have to convince yourself that the sex was good, you feel crappy about hurting them, but - despite all the shitty feelings - you’re alive again. This is the final phase where you Wake Up and Smell the Coffee! Suddenly, you see the relationship in a whole new light. It’s almost as if you’re a different person and you’ve just watched a really bad made-for-TV movie. You wonder where it all went wrong; you swear it will never happen again. (Yeah right!)
The underlying cause of “the ugly” is the not so subtle shift back into selfishness. The reason why it’s considered ugly is because selfishness is not typically an attractive characteristic. Selfishness is a tricky thing as it has very faint lines drawn in the sand. One needs to be selfish enough to get his or her needs met, but never selfish enough that they hurt someone else in getting those needs met (this in itself is a whole new topic). When you shift back to caring about yourself more than your partner this can cause some strain and stress. The end of a relationship is usually the result of one or both people returning to their previous level of selfishness.
Perhaps this is one of life’s little contracts that we unknowingly sign. Relationships will happen. Relationships will end. The likelihood that a new relationship will succeed is slim to none, and no matter how good the good is the bad and ugly will most likely follow.
