Many times a relationship can go awry not because it’s bad but because the other person thinks they can find better and oftentimes they haven’t really defined what better really means. You hear it all the time, “we lost the fire” “we lost the spark” “the passion is all gone” so if you define the success of a relationship by infatuation then chances are you’ll never remain in a relationship for long or find what you’re looking for.
Some people say “oh you’re just infatuated, it can’t last” but I’m here to tell you that infatuation can last and go on forever and the key to kindling the fire and keeping the spark alive stems from a lack of expectations. Before I dive into that, let’s go back to why most relationships lose the fire, passion, etc.
Where’s the Fire Go?
When you meet someone new you’re just getting to know them for the first time, it’s truly one of the magic encounters in the universe, you literally have no expectations of this person. You don’t expect them to do your laundry, wash your dishes, have a job, stick to a schedule, go to dance class on Thursdays, go back to school, or anything really. This is an exploratory phase where you’re just content learning about each other and figuring each other out. This phase also does not have to end completely, whether or not it lasts forever relies on your incompleteness as a person and your ability to keep your energies separated as much as possible.
If you are an incomplete person you will be demanding, needy, and unstable always expecting the other person to fill some void in your life. As long as you are an incomplete person and unable to stand on your own without feeling the need to have a person in your life you will draw too much from the other person at some point.
If you merge your energies like I talked about in many of my posts, but especially in, how to flatline a perfect relationship, then you’re almost destined to fail. All energy can’t be controlled jointly, as people have a natural tendency to be free and uncontrolled. Nothing should ever be joint between two people, when you hear the word joint, it’s time to get ready to sacrifice some of yourself and most of your happiness to someone and something else.
What occurs then from people chasing the fire and passion is a cyclical anomaly where they cycle through person after person while never feeling satisfied. They will then tend to become cynical and at some level they are virtually undatable and have low self esteem, but the reason they become this way is because they are chasing something that they should already have within them. I can tell you that when two people can light each others fires that it can be a really beautiful and inspiring thing.
At some point these people tend to get hurt badly along the way and can never trust or open themselves up to another person again. They are so down trodden that they will simply say I will never be attached to anyone like that again. This is an automatic relationship killer. Love is about opening yourself up and trusting blindly. If you aren’t willing to do that you mine as well save someone else the heartache and stop trying to date other people. Some people like a challenge but not everyone wants to date a rubiks cube.
You have to open up to love and trust again. Think of it this way, the reward can only be as great as the risk. If you only risk a little you can only get a little in return, if you risk everything, you can get everything in return. The more protective you are the less return you’ll always get and you’ll probably see people avoid you or give up on you very fast.
Old Fling Vs New Fling
People that have been in a relationship for a long time or married, whatever the case may be, start to make a lot of mistakes. The first one is really moving in together, from that point on, expectations start to develop. You expect them to be there, to do your laundry, to work a job, or to be readily available for any joint activities you so desire. This is the first steps in unhinging your individuality, you mine as well hang it up for retirement. You take two people and make them into 1 person each of them functioning at less than optimal capacity.
So eventually, a lot of people just snap from the expectations because when expectations aren’t met it results in fights. People get angry and break up. They go off and find someone, sometimes anyone, who doesn’t have the expectations and all they can tell you is how magical it is and how much happier they are. And who wouldn’t be?
I mean if I was in a marriage with 3 kids, had a job, debt obligations, etc; and I just walked off and met someone new one day who had no expectations of me, I’d be in heaven too. But in my eyes, you’re kind of a failure for running away from the problems you created. An Old Fling with expectations can never compete with a new fling without any expectations, until, the new fling becomes and old fling and develops its own set of expectations. Oftentimes, years later, an ex will come back and tell you that they are sorry and made a mistake and didn’t know how good they had it. The only reason they can tell you that now is because the relationship they got into “normalized” and the expectations set in and they realize the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
Like I said above, there is a way to make both old flings and new flings last. The key is separation of energy, lowered expectations, more understanding, and more appreciation. Think about this in your current relationship. You can have the fire you had when you met if you’ll only smash your routine in half and drop your expectations. Allow things to be spontaneous and allow the people to fall where they do. I lost a wife and best friend because by the time I saw what we had done to each other it was too late to fix it. Now I have regret and it’s something I’ll have to deal with forever. If I had just dropped my expectations and stopped fighting over things that weren’t worth losing that person over then everything would be fine. But thus is hindsight, looking back I know what I could have done, but I didn’t see it then, and if you’re reading this, you still have a chance before it’s too late to do something great in your relationship. The problems I ignored or couldn’t solve in 13 years I can now solve in 15 seconds today. They were so complex then, now they are stupid and easy.
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