Pro: Never alone
Con: Never alone
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.
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.
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
If you are in a (romantic, personal) relationship, then it is not transactional. Cost/benefit analysis is not really applicable.
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.
