Are we unrealistic when it comes to expectations of a partner?

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Luna

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#1. So often, I hear about the wife complaining how the husband has become dull and predictable over time - though an excellent partner - but how she craves and wants to cheat with the new colleague.

#2. So often, I hear about how the man who is married to a loving, giving partner, but still misses the ex that verbally and mentally abused him.

Switch the sexes around, and nothing is changed.

Why?
Why do people feel like this?
I understand that there are many factors and reasons involved, but a part of me...I guess you could say, is disappointed.

Disappointed that no matter how much love and kindness you can show to a person, they may never feel the same in return. They will stay with you in their physical form (out of convenience/ comfort, for the children etc.), but their heart is elsewhere.

It bothers me.

Bothers me that these two situations that I have brought up, are real.
Why?
I can't understand.
How the people, who are blessed with a loving partner, cannot treasure it.
How that they find the partner - who has worked with them through endless hardship - dull, boring, predictable over time. What do they expect?
After spending much time with another person, that mystery gradually fades.
Should it not be understood that the superficial craving for "mystery" disappears, and a deeper bond is created?

I understand that you can't control how you feel, but yet...I can't.
So lucky are these two people that I mention...blessed to have partners that love them deeply. They know it, and everyone else among them.

But yet, they can so easily trash what would be another's treasure...
 
well, luna, i empathize with your frustrations but its really not as simple as what you've outlined above. If you really want to find a good relationship, then put yourself in the shoes of the person leaving and come to understand and appreciate why they would do that. if you can do that, then you'll have a chance at not just finding your treasure, but more importantly, keeping it.
 
Yes: there have been studies done about this. I read in a woman's mag (shaddup, it was at the dentist) that romantic films and novella are giving people unrealistic expectations ... ironically, the grandmother of romantic fiction, Jane Austen, always has in her plots these flawed heroes who are often in places the heroine wouldn't think to look.

With guys, the situation is even worse. The advent of guy's mags has created a universal standard of beauty that means that a 27 year old model is starting to push it ... this doesn't prepare the kind of man who would buy a lad's mag for what a woman looks like at 40 or 50. Furthermore, just as cobblers who would fix your shoe so you don't have to buy new ones die underneath the onslaught of capitalism, so too do people's willingness to put up with the imperfect.

The single issue here is that people marry people they'd rather fresia than talk to. Modern daters look for the blonde or the guy over six foot rather than the person with something to say - the deepest people go is looking for kindness or a sense of humour ... kindness and humour can both turn stale, but what keeps people together is having minds that *interest* each other, so much so that even the flaws merely become a new dimension to them - with that kind of relationship, which is what my parents have, the "mystery" can never fade ...
 
my mother looked after my father for more than 15 yrs.. from when his back was constantly and periodically broken and he was completely bed ridden for months at a time, to when he had cancer and everything that that disease entails.. she was there caring, loving, nurturing and taking care of him..

after all this my mother gets ill quite seriously for the first time.. she had a bad case of shingles and asked my dad to stay and look after her for a little while (he had a habit of always being 'out')..

he didn't

he messed off to his new mistress's house because according to him, 'she is healthy'.

not all people are like you luna. not all people have a HEART. some are self centered, ego maniacal, self absorbed, lying, cheating sons of bitches with no sense of loyalty, commitment or real love.

the psychology of personality doesn't spend much time in the field of the narcissist, psychopath, sociopath.. etc. not much profit in it.. and these people can be very charming and cunning.. wolf in sheeps clothing. they prey on people that do have real emotions as they dont.

some people are truly garbage. sad but true.
 
I haven't read any of these relationship studies to say something smart here but to confirm Luna's idea.
I believe I'm one of the never satisfied people.
I'm scared to even think of a future with someone because i get restless just after a year with a person. At first I thought that it was my ex boyfriend's fault. Because he was harshly said.. boring person. No interests, no goals, no personality to point at.. niente. All he was doing was just being nice to me and soon I figured out how to boss him around and that later on led to a break up.
I was simply sure he wasn't the one and that was it.
I exchanged him for my current boyfriend who is just the opposite. He's not that stable as the ex was because he actually shows other feelings than just plain satisfaction with everything, he has hobbies (plays guitar) and he has his own life too. When we started dating he actually said that it will never get boring with him and I really found him a challenge. Lol those were really rough starts. I thought he was an arrogant dick at first.
But then.. after a year.. the signs of unfulfillment started to show again.
I find him too cheerful and too willing to live. The things I was desperately craving for when I was with my ex. Still, I wouldn't trade them back though.. I still find my current boyfriend an improvement but I guess it's not what I want now.
And i'm really bitter about it.
I'm sure that love just doesn't exist for me. That I'm unable to experience it. What is it like? To love someone,..cos I don't think I'm able to do it. That's sad, isn't it?
 
Luna,

Good question, from an idealistic heart.
Many of the relationships that begin as you describe do not sour.
You may not hear about these, as they have no external drama.

Many sour exactly as you describe.
I don't know why, either.

In many cases, over time, the people change.
People grow, people grow bitter, people have new dreams and goals and interests.

In some cases, people only really understand each other after a great deal of time, and cannot satisfy their own needs with what they find. Hard to believe, but true.
 
It's the "grass is always greener" syndrome, maybe?

Or the fact that lots of people don't recognize a good thing when they see it. They have all these ideas of what they want, and won't take the bait in front of them, so they condemn themselves to misery by obsessing over things that don't matter.

Really, it's just some people are too stubborn and unsavvy about their own lives..
 
they fell in love, with love. the same reasons why you think it wouldnt happen to you, is why it happened to them. finances, different careers, different aging and appearances, problems, issues, where they dont agree on the same issues. people need to be heading in the same direction, to partner. some people can adapt to other peoples lives to make a relationship work. but most often that turns them bitter, or even more commonly, it turns the person theyre with bitter. feeling like more stress is put on them to live their life to the fullest, since the other person gave up on their dream, to make their dream come true.
 
I don't think people are unrealistic about their expectations of a partner. I think they are careless in selecting one in the first place. As a massage therapist, I'm always getting clients who complain about their wives and then ask for "happy endings" to their massage sessions. I always wonder what sort of women they married. Did they look for somebody who would be a friend once the magic faded, or just somebody who would be great in bed? Some of the guys who see me are jerks, but I think a lot of them are just lonely. They're lonely within their marriages, but they're too comfortable to leave.
 
Love is not a prison....

Toxic relationships are totally retarded. If you stay you'll fucken die...and that's that.

Any recoverying co-dependent that managed to survived the fucken living hell will undouptly tell you the same story over and over again.
They stayed, They hope. They tired everyting under the fucken sun. They love. They care. They prayed. They endured. They are lonely
Many had died from strokes, suffered heart attacks, suffers from PTSD, depression and many, many illness that dereived from living in such
a conditions. Whatever morals or value a person tried to live by will not work in a toxic relationship. The fualt since of guilt, shame, manipulations will be used against you.

So yes...if you're involved with a partner that has addictions of sorts..
Whatever expectations you have is too much. It'll rip you in more ways then you can imagine.
People that had lived throught it. Experinced it first hand...don't need fucken experts to
explain it to them becuase no one came to recue or took notes when the living hell was happening. And it wasn't about ******* sex....

You can dance and discussed things on the surfface all day long..of the what is right , what is wrong, what is moral, what is good, what is bad....
Until you're willing to see truth and not live in denial and acknowlege the freaken elephant that's right in front of you, nothing will change.

There's plenty of treatment centers available for an alcoholic or addict....

However there's none for the family memebers or partners

Who the heck on here is willing to admitt there's a problem in your life?
Who's willing to break the cycle of abuse?
Who's have enough courage to stop playing the victim???
Who wants to be responsible at the core of one's own actions and happiness??
Who on here has the guts to do something about your life?
It's going against the grain of everything you thought what life would be...it'll rip you another
too.
 
yet somehow you are luckier than them, when you find love you'll appreciate it :p
 
I think it's one of those things you'll never understand until you've been through it.

Love is not the only part of the equation to a relationship and unfortunately all the parts are required for it to work.

To add, I don't think you should have expectations of a partner. Find someone that you like and you like they way they treat you etc. etc.

Putting expectations on someone they don't agree to isn't fair to them and is a common mistake among people in ALL relationships.
 

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