Why is it so tough for relationships to last long nowadays?
When you make a relationship decision based on surface-level facts or temporary pleasure, odds are high that when the deeper-level truths surface, and they usually do eventually, things may no longer feel the same.
The biggest reason is that your relationship with your own self isn’t strong enough.
Our eyes and ears point outwards. When you meet another person, you usually first see or hear them. During such an initial association, some of their characteristics might seem attractive and may evoke a pleasant feeling inside of you. After a few such pleasant experiences, you decide to start a relationship with that person. But as time passes, things start to change and you may no longer feel very good about being with them. You no longer continue to feel that pleasant flavour or essence in the relationship. What could have gone wrong? Many possibilities. Here is one perspective.
If you do not possess a strong connection with yourself, if you haven’t had long conversations with yourself in order to get to know yourself better, chances are that you may not be aware of who you really are and what you stand for. There might be things that matter to you deep inside that you are not even aware of simply because you have been living a busy life that keeps you distracted or restless.
When, on the other hand, you do find the time to get to know yourself better, you are able to understand what will really make you peaceful, and hence are deeply aware of the characteristics you would want in your ideal partner. This also helps you see that before you deserve that right person, you first need to become that right person yourself. A relationship is not one-way traffic. You must put in the effort first.
Many people do not possess such clarity. They don't really know who they are, and who they are looking for. When you don’t have a clear internal reference point, the only way to make a decision is by focusing on an external reference point. Since you do not have a deep relationship with yourself, you do not really know what you really want and who you want it with. But you still want “someone nice” in your life.
So when you meet someone who displays certain ‘nice’ characteristics that please you temporarily, you mistake that short-term pleasure for long-term compatibility. You fail to look underneath that pleasant experience to see if something fundamentally strong exists because one, it probably doesn’t even strike you that you should look and two, you do not really know what to even look for because you are not very much in touch with yourself.
Most people lack that clarity not because they are incapable of knowing, but only because they haven’t invested the time and effort to get to know themselves better. They have spent many hours getting to know their friends and colleagues but getting to know themselves was never on the agenda. They are living their life on the surface and haven’t made the effort to look deep within. In many instances, this happens due to the environment you regularly operate in.
When you make a relationship decision based on surface-level facts or temporary pleasure, odds are high that when the deeper-level truths surface, and they usually do eventually, things may no longer feel the same.
You need to train yourself to acquire the ability to look within deeply, not get carried away by short-term excitement and have the patience and internal clarity to make the right decision - a decision that is right for you specifically. And how will you know what is right for you specifically if you don’t even know yourself well? And how will you know yourself well if you have not spent much time getting to know yourself? This is the right way to do it.
This way, the relationship will most likely last much longer, because you are deeply aware of yourself, who you want to be with and what you really need in order to maintain that pleasant flavour or essence for a long time. You might realize that, for instance, being the life of a party, the ability to offer clever answers spontaneously, being insanely successful financially, and many such other seemingly impressive factors may pale in comparison to certain other characteristics that really, truly, matter to you. And you will be able to realise that because you took the time to train yourself to look deep within.
A meaningful relationship does not start with trying to find the right person. It starts with trying to become the right person. It starts with finding yourself first.
