There are a few things in this world that make absolutely no sense to me: math majors, cat people, jirts (jean skirts) and people who make obviously stupid relationship decisions given their wants, needs and place in life.
Guess which I’m going to talk about. I’ll give you a hint. It’s not jirts.
You know you have a friend who’s made a stupid relationship choice. In fact, you may have made one yourself. They’re universal because of the way people let their emotions take control a majority of the time in a romantic relationship.
If someone says that he or she doesn’t want kids or marriage and you do, then that’s a major issue. It’s true that the college age group is young and most of us aren’t even considering those things any time soon, but still, people have some idea of what they want out of their lives.
There’s a difference between saying you don’t want something and you don’t want something right now. These are serious questions that should be addressed in any relationship.
Don’t think, “Oh, if he or she falls in love with me, then they’ll want to have children with me.” That’s selfish and unrealistic. Your significant other shouldn’t have to change if he or she was upfront and honest with you from the get-go.
I actually know someone who got married in his late thirties after having a horrific divorce. He had two kids from that previous marriage and told his new wife that he didn’t want any more kids when they started going out. She almost divorced him because he wouldn’t give her a baby. Is that fair to him when he made it explicitly clear?
Poor relationship decisions aren’t just for those serious points though. They can be simple. Did you really need to start that fight over him not coming over to hang out with you when he was with his friends? Did you need to yell at her when a guy hit on her at a bar? These sorts of conflicts aren’t necessary and serve only to hinder what could otherwise be a happier and more successful relationship.
Trust me, I know from experience. I remember dating people and starting conflicts because I was bored and wanted the relationship to be better. Since nothing was particularly bad or amazing, I wanted to try to make it better. So I started pointless fights over things that I wasn’t actually that upset about.
Honestly, now that I’ve done more growing up, I see how dumb and immature that was of me, but I can’t change the fact that I made stupid relationship decisions. None of us can change our mistakes. We all just have to remember to learn from them.
When starting a relationship, think about what you need from someone, then think about what you want from him or her. Too many people will see someone that they want and forget about what they need.
Love isn’t finite. If you meet someone and find that you have major issues, whether those be marriage, kids, distance, immaturity or a number of other things, consider if that relationship is something that improves your life. If it’s not, don’t be scared to let it go. Get out there and love life; you’ll find that love is everywhere as are people to love.