What is your relationship failure rate?

B_Hung Jon

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I'm adding voice to the chorus of people who say permanence has nothing to do with relationship success or failure.

To me, a relationship is a failure if somebody is harmed, or prevented from growing, or does not have their needs met.

If a relationship lasts 50 years or 50 days, as long as it meets each partner's needs, then it is a success.

If you end it after a while because you grew apart or realized you were not compatible, then don't call that a failure. Just call it a learning experience. You now know better what kind of person is not going to be a good partner for you. After a few learning experiences, you become adept at finding out who is a good partner for you. Then when you meet somebody who is compatible with you, you can say "Yes" to that person with greater confidence in creating a long term successful relationship.

On the flip side, just because a relationship lasts "til death do us part", does not make it a success. If one or more partners are abused, stifled, or not allowed to meet their needs for sex, intimacy, companionship, and security, then it is a failure. And a tragic failure for lasting so long.


QuietGuy, you are extremely wise in your view. I would add that some people may not want to be in what is considered "a long-term stable relationship". I know for me I don't go along with what seems to be the societal norm in this regard. I would ask a more fundamental question: why is a long term relationship of any value anyway, unless the people involved think it is? It's all quite relative to me.
 

D_Edwin Eatser

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Had two failed marriages and 4 other serious relationships that have all failed, plus many relationships when in teens and early 20s that I thought were based on love but were really just about sex. Enjoy the relationship you're in while you can is my advice.
 

AlteredEgo

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My very first relationship, the one with my high school sweetheart ended precisely as we predicted. Within days of its beginning, we acknowledged that we would never marry each other. We were in love, but it was an immature love, and when the novelty of an interracial relationship wore off for him, and when his traits that I once saw as cute quirks became obnoxious, we split up. We're still friends. I see it as a success. Sure, it ended, but it was always meant to do so.

My next relationship was a sham. He lied about his age (by 16 years!), and he raped me. So, I'd call that one a failure. It wasn't my fault, but it still had no redeeming factors. Sometimes, I don't count him when enumerating my relationships and sexual experiences, even though we had many "consensual" encounters.

My next relationship failed. Utterly. I will never understand fully why we couldn't make it work. One thing I would do differently if I had it to do over: I'd avoid that one bad sexual encounter we had after we broke up. That was so very awkward.

My next relationship was very successful for quite a few years. It has greatly influenced the direction of my life. Eventually it ended painfully. I'm still friends with the man, after a period of time in which I hated him, and probably wouldn't have taken the time to spit on him had he caught fire. Now, I value his friendship, and the demise of our romance is pretty funny between us for many reasons. It's come full circle. Is it a failure? I'm not sure. It seems to me more like the nature of it has changed. It taught me more about how to select a man. We began dating when I was 18, so I can't imagine it was ever meant to last forever, even though I originally believed it would. A few years ago I'd have considered it a failure, but now that we are very close again, I see it as successful.

My marriage: so far so good.
 
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deleted556573

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Relationship 1: On again/off again. He was an eliteist, and no matter what I did, I was never going to be good enough for him (He was in banking, I was a mechanic working up through the ranks). I was no angel in this relationship, as he was very clingy and after repeated attempts to get him to quit suffocating me, I ended things. We got back together 6 months later, but he was very bitter and was a complete asshole to me, even though I did everything in the world to try to satisfy him. When I'd finally had enough and quit answering his every beckon call, he started softening up a bit, but it was too late at that point. I couldn't let go of the hell he put me through, and we eventually broke up. I was 24 and he was 20, so I think immaturity on both parts played a role in this. I definitely consider this a failure, because I wanted nothing to do with anything related to sex or romance for a couple of years afterwards. Results: FAILURE

Relationship 2: If you want to call this a relationship, anyways. I met him when I was 28 and he was 19. (I don't want to hear about the whole age difference thing, I've heard about this REPEATEDLY over the years). It started off as just sex, but he expressed an interest in dating, so I accepted. He yanked me around and I was constantly on an emotional roller coaster for several months. He's very manipulative and I gave him a lot of money that nearly sent me into bankruptcy. We had a nasty split and didn't talk for 2 years. I loved him from the time I met him, and still do to this day. He resurfaced in 2008 and we started talking again. More emotional roller coaster, and more money is what he wanted, and of course I caved in and gave him some, but not nearly as much as I did in the past. In another thread on here, a poster described this guy to a "T" when making a comment about being a Sociopath. After reading his description, then researching the term, I realized that this is entirely him. As much as he claims to (or claims to have in the past) love me, I'm nothing more to him than a source of money, and a pawn. That's a harsh truth to face, because he's the one and only person that I've ever truly loved. I never got "over" him, even though he doesn't deserve my love. Results: FAILURE

Relationship 3: I met him a year after Sociopath and I split up. He was very charming, very smart, artistic, intelligent, and was exactly what I looked for in a guy. After just under 2 months of dating, he moved in with me. Shortly after that, he lost his job, and remained unemployed through the next two months. I was stressed, as all of my money was used up because he no longer had an income. I had an opportunity to move to Seattle to take a job with MUCH better pay, and he was excited to do so. I went to Seattle and found a place to live, came back a week later, and things were fine. A few weeks later, I found out that he had cheated on me while I was gone, and fucked some random guy IN OUR BED (that's inherently wrong, in my opinion). I immediately ended things with him and threw him out. I still moved to Seattle, but he didn't go with me. I later found out that, literally, EVERYTHING he ever told me was an elaborate series of lies and deceit. Nothing he ever told me was true, and I honestly don't think he ever loved me. Results: FAILURE

Obviously, I have a horrible track record with relationships. I've never had what one would call a "good" relationship, but I honestly don't think it should be as hard as it has been in all three of my relationships. It'll be a long time before I attempt to get involved with anyone, though, as I'm currently working with professionals to find out why I attract these types of people, and why I let them do what they do to me.

Sorry for the novel.
 

Bbucko

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Obviously, I have a horrible track record with relationships. I've never had what one would call a "good" relationship, but I honestly don't think it should be as hard as it has been in all three of my relationships. It'll be a long time before I attempt to get involved with anyone, though, as I'm currently working with professionals to find out why I attract these types of people, and why I let them do what they do to me.

Sorry for the novel.

Certain types of personalities seem to attract sociopaths. My last two abortive attempts ended when they proved to be nothing but opportunists and liars. One I still see out now and then, though we avoid each other and travel in very different circles. The other, more recent one, lives a few hundred miles south down in the Keys; he was definitely looking for a "daddy type", but when the reality of my financial situation really took hold (and my disinclination to furnish him with drugs), his true colors came out and he just took off.

They left me feeling like an old fool and have left permanent scars on my psyche: never say never, but the minefield of "dating" here in SoFla is exhausting and, so far, fruitless.

PPS - having just read Bb's post, and Nudie's before, I have to say that I find the way Gay men have relationships, albeit given the many problems that society dumps on them, more representative of how men would prefer to live their lives, than the formal monogamous matrimony that is the traditional lot of the Str8 man. Perhaps some married str8 men hate them for that freedom, for better or for worse.

Quite possibly, DW. Having lived the vast majority of our lives in the company of men (more or less to the exclusion of women, at least from an emotional perspective), gay men of our generation (Nudie's and mine) had/have a unique opportunity to explore our careers, life goals and relationships in an exclusively masculine context. Taking women out of the picture inevitably distorts our reality, at least from any heteronormative perspective.

We also grew up believing that, as gay men, we not just had the chance but the responsibility to live our lives outside of monogamous matrimonial considerations. Much as I support marriage equality as a principle, I myself have no interest in the institution whatsoever, preferring to clear my own, unique path. The fact that younger gay men really are so hell-bent on aping straight relationships confuses me a great deal.
 
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deleted3782

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I have to agree with
nudeyorker, for I have never thought that any of my former relationships have been failures...on either of our parts. Things change.

I have a very good friend who says "Your lovers are your teachers, and your friends are you lovers" ... meaning, her lovers are more or less temporary, but teacher her valuable things about herself, passion, life, etc. However, she loves the friends in her life...and her friends stay with her for the long term.

I am not sure I subscribe to her philosophy of love and friendship, but I appreciate her standpoint of the temporary nature of lovers in comparison to the intimacy of some friendships.
 

helgaleena

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In retrospect, I have made tons of relationship mistakes and that is why I was in so many liaisons that did not even make it to the relationship level.

But I say 100% success because when I saw a problem, I did something about it, most consistently. The caveat is, it sometimes took me unbelievably long to notice the problem. I am no role model, rather a roll of cautionary tales...
 

D_Tim McGnaw

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My relationship success rate is 100%. Every relationship I've ever had was uniquely perfectly as it should have been or is as it should be. Whether or not those relationships are defined as successful by other people, or by some arbitrary standard is completely unimportant to me.

I am content with the perfectly imperfect person I am emotionally and psychologically, my relationships have formed that person to one degree or another, and I wouldn't be anyone else but myself, for all that I am a work in progress, therefore my relationships have been 100% successful in producing a person I am happy to be and contribute to a process of developing myself into someone I shall also be happy to be.
 

rob_just_rob

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Ha. I once deliberately pissed off an ex girlfriend by saying "when we break up", instead of "if". When she called me on that, I calmly pointed out that every relationship I had been in before her had ended, and every relationship she had been in before me had ended, and that it therefore seemed like a reasonable assumption to make...

Depending on how you define a relationship, I'm batting somewhere between .050 and .100. I'm married now.

So far.