There are stories where people say love fades, sex fades, but the relationship still goes strong for a long long time.
But, the thing is what make you fall in love with someone? To choose them as your life partner? What kind of assurance does one need to be totally free and secure mentally and physically in front of (with) one another?
Loving and liking someone are very different sides of the same coin in a relationship.
It is most important that you like your partner as they are and they do like you as you are. Everything else can be negotiated from that base.
But if you fall in love with someone and then think 'they are perfect except ... but I will change that.' you set yourself up for unhappiness from the get go. Same for your partner and worst if both have this idea.
Trust & respect seem to be functions of this little detail from my experience.
If you trust your partner to like you how you are you won't find a need to hide things from them, do things different or lie about things. Trust is easy with this base.
Critique born from disagreement about how you are or behave doesn't exist too then, so the accumulation of small bickerings and injuries over time, one of the biggest killers of relationships in the long term, does not happen (someone below linked the famous 'scar tissue' gist which is spot on here).
I am in a long term, open (but not polyamorous) relationship.
The open part helps tremendously with the sex not fading. Sex with your partner is just much better after you had sex with someone else. This is an experience I had in all my open relationships (not all my relationships were open though). And it is seconded by the conversations with my resp. partners and friends in similar constellations.
I won't go as far and say open is better for the long term, but if you have the kind of trust I mentioned above anyway, it is 'free' (no/little negotiation required) and it sure helps.
- Common life Goals (the WHAT. HOW can differ a bit and that's ok).
- Willingness to compromise (you can't have it all your way)
- Mutual Trust & Respect (the word "love" is overrated in my opinion)
Rest are just details.
The relationships you have as a young person are based on attraction, shared interest, love, etc. A few of these stay the course but a lot of relationships are transactional in one form or another.
Add other factors and dating can become a true nightmare: looking for a woman between 25 and 35 in the PNW who dates men and is looking for a serious monogamous relationship and never wants children can truly be an exhausting process. (I hear from my friends of all gender IDs and sexual orientations that the process is similarly nightmarish in this age+location cohort regardless of who one prefers to date.)
If that’s a hard requirement for you, date 40+ women who already had children or already know they can’t. Online dating really zeroed out women in this demographic, as they get mostly filtered out except for grandpa or fetishists.
Thanks for the input I guess?
Stereotypes anyone? In my circle of female friends that's not unique but rather the norm.
Hard and fast filters aren’t good for human relationships.
The point is change it up a bit. Online dating in particular is a business designed to get you pay for online dating. People specify people like they configure a laptop and establish an unachievable vision of the perfect partner.
Imagine discarding a person who was the perfect match for you because she was 5’8” (filter says 5’7” or less) and says maybe kids someday.
Height is a relatively insignificant matter - whoop de doo, an inch or three here or there, whatever.
Kids cost tens of thousands of dollars a year to raise for 18 years and completely upend what someone is able to do with their life - forever.
IMO it's one of the most important things to filter for - two people who want kids are compatible, one who wants and one who is ambivalent are probably compatible, but someone who never wants them (like yours truly) will never - ever - be able to successfully have a long term relationship with someone who actively wants children. It's a recipe for disaster for one or both partners (and if a kid manages to happen, probably the kid too - last thing the kid needs is to be a resented one).
Kids probably don't hurt. Samuel Johnson said that monogamy was so unnatural that it was all that the law could do to keep couples together. (And he had been happily married.) But married parents do offer stability to children--not always, but probably more often than other household configurations.
2. Accepting failures on the part of the other person as of they are your own.
Sexual Attraction is just the external facade, inviting you inside.
These things take TIME.
“What were the results? First, we examined the demographic variables. As it turned out, it makes little difference whether you're old or young, male or female, rich or poor. Education and religious affiliation were also unimportant. These variables appeared to have little or no impact on how happy or depressed the participants were, or how satisfying or conflicted their relationships were. The presence or number of children and the length of the relationship didn't seem very important either.
Some results were completely unexpected and hard to believe at first. None of our predictions about the pairings of husbands’ and wives’ attitudes appeared to be valid. There weren't any combinations that had anything whatsoever to do with the success or failure of any of these relationships. Instead, each partner's feelings seemed to depend entirely on their own attitudes, and not their partner's.
Which attitudes were the most important? Other-blame was by far the most important mind-set. People who blamed their partners (or people in general) for the problems in their relationships were angry, frustrated, unhappy, and intensely dissatisfied with their relationships. In addition, this mind-set accurately predicted what would happen in the future. Individuals who blamed their partners for the problems in their relationship were even more miserably unhappy three months later. Things were clearly going downhill for this group. In contrast, people who were willing to assume complete personal responsibility for solving the problems in their relationships, and who felt a strong commitment to making their partners happy, not only reported the most satisfying and loving relationships at the time of initial testing, but their positive feelings seemed to increase over time.
At first, I was disappointed by these results. The findings just seemed too simple. I had been convinced that certain patterns of interactions between husbands and wives would account for whether their relationships were successful or troubled. However, the study clearly indicated that this notion wasn't valid. The only thing that really seems to matter is this: Do you blame your partner for the problems in your relationship? If so, you may be in for a tough time. However, if you're willing to examine your own role in the problem and you feel that it's your job to make your partner happy, the prognosis for a rewarding, successful relationship is extremely positive—now and in the future. These appear to be the real keys to success in any relationship. It makes no difference whether the other person is your spouse, a family member, a neighbor, a friend, or even a complete stranger.”
Excerpt From Feeling Good Together. by David D. Burns, M.D.