Assuming a healthy, loving relationship:
Advantages
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You always have someone in your corner. Someone who will stand next to you and face whatever comes. Someone who will listen to your fears and anxieties, and reassure you. Someone who can take one look at your face and know that you need a hug, or a tickle monster attack, or a cup of tea.
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You have someone who considers you vital to their happiness. You’re the person in their corner. You get to love, support, and nurture them just as they do for you.
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You have a built-in partner for things like camping, traveling, going to trivia night at the local bar. Someone who will bring you a beer when you’re too lazy to get up from the couch. Someone who you can make smile just by bringing them coffee in bed.
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You can be yourself! They love you just the way you are, you lil weirdo.
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The stability that comes from a relationship with mutual respect, cooperation, and negotiation is really comforting.
Disadvantages
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You lose some spontaneity for doing things solo, because you need to check with your partner to make sure you don’t already have plans.
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Sometimes you have to hide snack foods if you hope to get your fair share. We have a drawer in our fridge that didn’t get much use. I started squirreling away cans of sparkling water in there because if I didn’t hide them, they’d all be gone by the time I decided I wanted one.
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You can get into a rut, but neither one tries to change it on the assumption that the other one is happy that way.
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Sometimes they toot in bed 😡
- You can get into a rut, but neither one tries to change it on the assumption that the other one is happy that way.
So true!
I wish someone had warned me about that.
I specifically wish I had learned the power of the phrase “how is this working for you?” sooner.
You lose some spontaneity for doing things solo, because you need to check with your partner to make sure you don’t already have plans.
This isn’t really inherent to relationships unless you count “friendships”, too.
Not all relationships are deeply entangled. I have a partner that makes their own plans without checking with me. We use a calendar to keep track of like “we’re doing such and such Friday” so we don’t double book or forget, but that kind of “loss of spontaneity” would happen if it was “trivia night with the guys” or “dinner with friend”
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That’s a working model, but I think there are different types of relationships. A type of relationship would be an element of the power set of {
friendship,romance,sex}.One person might only like relationships without
sex, another might dislike the wholeromancepart,…Each of these aspects of a relaionship has their advantages and disadvantages. The relationship as a whole is just the sum of them.
Using coding markdown to explain types of relationships? Yyyyup we’re on Lemmy, baby. And I wouldn’t have it any other way ❤️
You’re the first person I’ve ever seen use the concept of a power set to describe what kinds of relationships there can be and I wish more people knew what that was so I could preach this like gospel.
That said, our relationship is
Øbut it could quickly become {friendship} if we ever met
Nice to have a fulltime friend
It tends to change what you’re free to do every day
They might want you to shower and clean your flat - clear advantage. Disadvantage: you may be expected to tell other interested parties that you can only engage in casual sex, since your heart is already taken. Also: fucking without a heart-on is not as satisfactory as making love.
I would not consider cheating to be an upside or downside of a healthy relationship, because it shouldn’t be a part of one at all.
i didn’t talk about cheating
Engaging in casual sex with other people is, in most relationships, cheating. Wishing it could be more is cheating in the rest.
If you are in a (romantic, personal) relationship, then it is not transactional. Cost/benefit analysis is not really applicable.
Pro: Never alone
Con: Never aloneAccurate.
A thing I didn’t understand before getting into a long term commitment with my partner was the money impact:
- Our combined expenses are lower than our individual expenses were. I have happily slept next to this person in a small tent, even though I hate tents. This effect scales to making all kinds of little things more tolerable and somehow cheaper.
- An accountability partner has made me both stick to my budget more often, and cheat on my budget at better, more memorable times.
I had always heard that a spouse and kids were cost, cost, cost. I was surprised to learn how much money shared expenses saves.
Kids are still really fucking expensive, though. They didn’t lie about that.
One of the things I look forward to when we eventually move in together is that we will be able to cook for two more often. It leads to far more reasonable recipes and portions with less food waste. Most cooking for one is either you end up having to freeze a lot of stuff, or you make single serving but low nutrition meals. Instant noodles and frozen dinners just make more sense than cooking something real when you are flying solo
One of the things I look forward to when we eventually move in together is that we will be able to cook for two more often.
Yes. It absolutely lives up to the hype.
Losing your virginity, sex and reproduction for what I’ve seen.
The need to put up with other people’s shit. Sacrifice your “me” time.
I find this perspective unfortunate. It is interesting to see how other people view relationships, but I’m not sure I like what I see. This doesn’t seem healthy.
Majority of things we do aren’t healthy. Also maybe for the fragile isn’t healthy, but for me it is. Be loyal to me, I’m loyal to you, love me and I’ll love you, belong to me and I’ll belong to you, that’s it. Why complicate things with more bullshit?
Very incel way of looking at relationship.
I don’t hate women. So no. I hate how that term is thrown if people don’t wanna accept your way of living.
Incel doesn’t exactly only mean hating woman, incel is basically why you’re still single, then you blame it on everything else other than you, hating woman are just a part of it. If someone doesn’t want to accept your way of living, then find someone else.
I’m not blaming anything. I’m well aware what an average semi attractive woman wants from a man. I will never be those things. That’s not me, I never cared about being those things.
I will never be those things.
Before I was in a relationship, I was 100% wrong about what “those things” actually are, for what that’s worth.
You’re a minority, women want most of the time chatting and socially active strong men able to carry a conversation, manly enough to create a home and have a decent amount of money but delicate enough to be romantic. I can’t do any of those things. Admit it, that’s the majority of women.
This is an incel attitude. The notion that “all women” want any single thing, let alone this caricature is gross. It’s insulting to women and men alike, and betrays that your mindset is immature, ill-informed, and toxic.
women want most of the time chatting and socially active strong men able to carry a conversation, manly enough to create a home and have a decent amount of money but delicate enough to be romantic.
That is also what I thought. And I was mostly wrong.
Everyone is unique. Stereotypes usually exist for reasons, but exceptions are much more common than I realized.
I am, genuinely, several of those things, at least a small fraction of the time.
But that’s not my secret.
I’ll share my key attributes that really worked:
- My current partner lived in a shitty situation. Physically shitty. I fixed a bunch of gaps in the walls with a can a “great stuff”. We were just friends at the time, and I wasn’t looking for anything. It’s just something I knew how to do, and my friend’s friend (now my long term partner) needed it done. I was fucking clueless how much this meant to them, at the time.
Presently, how I maintain my relationship:
- I’m sometimes really deeply shitty at talking to people, so I usually use few words and choose them carefully. My (valid) fear of fucking up is a kind of super power for avoiding dumb partner fights.
- I still fix stuff. I’m not afraid of getting dirty, and YouTube academy has been very good to me.
- I ask questions during any kind of physical interaction. Mainly “do you want to be touched there?” and “How does that feel?”
- I still follow a strict budget, even though I now make good money. I’ve heard money fights are a big thing, but making and mostly sticking to a written budget has let me dodge that bullet.
So, have you been in past relationships where you learned this or from some sort of observation (going on dates for example)?
See, that’s what i’m saying.
For real. Sex is great, sure. What I want for all of the parts of the relationship that aren’t having sex is mostly just someone I really like hanging out with
That’s you though.
You’re being downvoting because people believe in the “romantic ideal” and never analyzed how relationships really look like for a large number of people.
What you write about is not a good thing but unfortunately that’s how most people practice relationships.
Well “most” might be a too strong of a qualifier. Depends a lot on the culture. If you come from a culture where marriage is so important that’s almost mandatory, the above kind of relationship is inevitable.
Some of those cons could be true, but I think the bigger problem is that they only listed “sex and money” as the only pros.
What are you doing in a relationship if that person isn’t basically a really good friend that you can laugh with, do hobbies with, watch and talk about movies with, share music with, etc.
Sure you might have to hang out with mutual friends you don’t love (Though a good partner won’t force you to). You do need to spend time on their hobbies and likes if you don’t specifically share them. I’m not sure if I can vouch for the rest, though, those are some cons where you need to be really selective and find like minds to be with (don’t like to speak very often).
the other two (manipulated for sex, fear of divorce) are more like things you should go to therapy to learn not to tolerate or worry about, respectively.
Absolutely, I agree with you completely. And I actually believe finding a life partner is possible. There are good examples out there.
It’s just when you come from a, let’s call it heteronormative (word of the day) environment, you are constantly pressured into being in a relationship. With anyone. Doesn’t matter if you want it. It leads to awful mental health.
That and if the idea of being lonely frightens you or makes you sad it can be easy to want to latch onto anyone, that’s really easy to fall into.
Also, unless they meant fear of breaking up, there’s no need to fear being divorced if you just don’t get married. Not everybody wants or needs to get married, that also sort of falls into the “take your time and really assess the partner” idea
I’ve said this before, my mother and father weren’t friends. Yet they were married for 11 years. That’s more than many friends being married. Is not necessary.
It’s not necessary, no, but it can totally be a pro, unless you just don’t want to be friends with your lover.
Basically what I’ve said, some people don’t want friends.
So are you a loner or you don’t want a friend who is constantly around?
I don’t wanna people around besides my partner and I don’t want her relatives around me. It seems like these days is impossible to have a relationship that is just you and your woman, or you and your man and that’s it. There’s always someone else.
The need to put up with other people’s shit.
Put this on the positive list. Usually this makes you stronger and a better person.
Is not a positive, ESPECIALLY if you don’t want to. Also not everyone wants to be a better person.
OK, so it is a positive ESPECIALLY for the ones who just come out of a childish defiant phase… ;-)
Not funny. You really think you’re better than me only because you want to fit in? You thinking that anyone who thinks different than you is childish, IS CHILDISH.
Not funny. You really think you’re better than me
Bullshit. That was your intention.
You trade off freedom for companionship basically, but in a good relationship you can still have a good amount of freedom still (you just need to consider the needs of your partner too).
Relationships take effort and compromise; communicating can be hard (but it’s probably the most important thing in a relationship).
Not being in a committed relationship, it’s a lot easier to live without as many obligations.
Also, if you live together you can pool your resources both financially and effort-wise which can help a lot.
This is not a problem for the vast majority of people but I was always told that women don’t want to have sex but turns out that they do and this is bit of an issue as I don’t particularly enjoy that myself.
Another issue is that I like being alone but not all day every day but being in a relationship means I have to leave the house to be alone.
It’s interesting because one of the reasons I’ve never dated is because 99% of people on the planet want and need sex in a relationship. I don’t want sex so I figured why bother attempting to date. Well I found out about asexual dating sites and have been casually on them for a while now, but it’s tricky because no one has been close enough to meet. And I don’t know what the hell people do in LDRs if it doesn’t revolve around sex. Wishing you the best.
Thanks! I actually am in a relationship right now and it’s an open one so she doesn’t need to completely live without sex but I still can’t help but to feel like I’m not doing my part. It’s just one of those things that don’t really have a perfect solution to it. Not having sex doesn’t feel right but forcing myself into it to please her isn’t right either especially knowing that it’s what I’ve done in my previous relationships which only has made me resent sex even more.
Good things: you get someone to spend time with. Frequent sex. Someone to share your world with.b you tell your secrets, you trust them
Bad things: they have their own needs, even when it isn’t convenient for you. You have to accept that you’re a partnership, and their judgement is important. You trust them, whether or not they deserve it. You are open and vulnerable, which means you’re vulnerable. Sex can be mechanical and unfulfilling. Your growth needs to include them
Main advantage: You feel whole
Main disadvantage: You always have your plate full because you got a little more than wholeness
You are never alone…
This counts as both.
Advantage:
- You have someone to talk to
- You have someone to eat with
- You have someone to have sex with
- You have someone to pool resources with
- You have someone whose family is now your extended family
Disadvantage:
- You have to talk to someone
- You have to eat with someone
- You have to have sex with someone
- You have to pool resources with someone
- You have more fucking family you have to do things with
In a good relationsship, you don’t have to do anything like this, you do it because you want to.
- Talk - A good partner will recognize when you need space and leave you alone.
- Eat - You can eat at different times depending on your schedule, just remember to consider the other person when cooking and do the washing up after yourself.
- Sex - no, you don’t have to have sex with anyone you don’t want to, or when you don’t want to.
- Resources - no you can have separate finances, but it is usually beneficial to pool your resources.
- Family - not everyone has a happy family, or a family at all, this is not a given.
Just to clarify #1 - while it is implied under “will recognize” - that recognition may come from being told by their partner they need space, not necessarily from recognizing cues or intuition. And that’s okay, good communication is key in relationships.
Oh, absolutely!
Sex - no, you don’t have to have sex with anyone you don’t want to, or when you don’t want to.
Of course, as with most things, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t feel pressured to do something because you want your partner to be happy, and they want to do it. You always have the right to refuse, but “I don’t want to do X, but I know my partner does, so I do want to do X because I want to make them happy” is an intrinsic downside of a relationship. In turn, you should always be able to say no, and your partner should respect that because they know it wouldn’t make you happy, and that’s more important than getting what they want. “You can just say no” is true, but it also bypasses the entire point of the conversation around what makes being in a relationship difficult.
Nobody, so far, has addressed the physical intimacy bit, to my satisfaction.
There’s kinds of intimacy satisfaction that are only possible after years and years of practice and communication. That usually also includes sex, but it doesn’t have to.
There’s something special about being touched (and not touched!) at just the right time, in just the right way.
Those of us in relationships that are really long running tend not to talk about it, because it doesn’t make everyone who hears it better off, since there’s a ton of luck involved in finding a long term partner for it.
On the flip side, if your long-term relationship is not like what this person is describing and intimacy has dwindled to an occasional uninspired surprise, but your relationship is such an integral part of your day to day life that you are unable to make changes, then the whole thing kinda sucks.
So I’ve heard. From a friend.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been there. I was pretty sure we were headed towards divorce (my decision) because my partner’s sex drive just wasn’t a match. I was sticking around to setup my partner to be more financially stable when things started to turn around.
Tons of practice at (super awkward , at first, and always naked) communication is the main thing that helped us past all that.
Also, some natural life changes happened, like the kids getting older and becoming less effort.
It can get better with time and a lot of talking about it.
