build a romantic relationship after romantic disappointments?
Are there any small and big disappointments in love? Can we talk about a scale of values, with things more serious than others, more vexing, more hurtful and therefore more disappointing? I guess it’s normal when you get together with someone, to be disappointed sometimes. Being together can be learned. There are some things that we accept without difficulty and others that lead us to review our tolerance threshold. Vis-à-vis the other.
A relationship. From the idea of the couple. How far can we go, what can we accept from the other without getting lost on the way? How to start a love story without staying frozen on a disappointment? Can we build a romantic relationship after romantic disappointments?
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Is it possible to start a story about a disappointment?
From small flaws in repetitive manias, from marked defects to hidden defects, we take it upon ourselves not to be too touched, not to feel vexed, disappointed or even hurt by certain behaviors, certain attitudes. To do with it. But sometimes it’s difficult. Because we would like the agreement to be total, complicity in the appointment all the time, but that is not how it happens. We know that; being with someone means accepting their flaws, clumsiness, our differences. And so take the risk of experiencing disappointments, big or small.
And what about when the beginning of a relationship does not seem obvious? I have been told at length in recent years not to remain fixed on criteria, not to bet everything on a total evidence from the first meeting, that this is not how it works, that love is built, that a relationship is balanced. I agree with all of that. It is by getting to know each other that we realize if the relationship is viable, that feelings can develop, mature. (build a romantic relationship after romantic disappointments?)
So how to do, if a malaise sets in following a disappointment, if the defects seem to erase the qualities, if we can not feel totally ourselves at the beginning of a relationship? Should we persevere, be patient, question ourselves? Is it serious to experience a disappointment from the beginning, or is it repairable?
Reciprocity is the basis of a relationship
There is a very beautiful and true quote that says, “Don’t make a person a priority in your life when you’re just an option in his.”
Indeed, there is no longer any excuse today not to give or take news of the other, with all the means of communication at our disposal. And above all, it seems natural to me when you want to see someone and be with it, to give ourselves the means. To take initiatives. Being with someone must be synonymous with envy and not a source of effort. How to create a complicity, a real relationship when it is only one of the two who takes initiatives, who proposes things, who organizes himself to see the other? There is no reason for one to change his schedule and turn his life upside down for the other.
Without reciprocity, a story is doomed to failure. (build a romantic relationship after romantic disappointments?)
So tonight I’m disappointed, I admit. For nothing surely in your opinion but it is stronger than me. We will say that I am no longer used to it or that I am too demanding. I don’t care. All I know is that without reciprocity I can’t live anything. Nothing to share, nothing to feel. So nothing dare. And that I shut myself up. One-way relationships, no thanks I’ve already given. I have no more energy to waste or time chasing someone, hoping for their time, attention or evidence of attachment. And then I’m surely bloody as well, as they say so often. That’s it when you’re whole, you feel things 100%, you take them too much to heart, you’re at the top of your game.
Questioning oneself without exceeding one’s limits
So I want to question myself, accept some of the other’s flaws and become aware of mine, revise my tolerance threshold, deal with the habits of the other, make compromises and concessions. Yes, I am happy to do so.
But is this the key to not multiplying disappointments? Is it normal to have so much trouble understanding each other, communicating well? (build a romantic relationship after romantic disappointments?)
It is as if we do not speak the same language, that we do not see things in the same way. Despite common desires and shared values, despite sincerity, stability somewhere, there remains this part of incompatibility that takes up a lot of space. Which creates misunderstandings then disputes, conflicts and then attempts at explanations, reconciliations. But that repeat themselves over and over again. As if the root of the problem were struggling to surface, as if we could not really tell the other what bothers us, what we reproach him for, what disappoints us.
And we come away with further disappointment and pain, and that is the most difficult thing. I know you can’t change people and that’s not the point. I know I won’t change, neither will he. Even if it’s his way of apologizing, of closing an argument. To say that he will change, be less clumsy in his words, that he will make efforts.
But here’s the problem, is that I don’t want him to make any effort, I don’t want to take away his identity, take away his individuality.
Absolutely not. Being with someone sometimes requires adjustments it’s true, compromises and concessions, but not endless efforts. It is as if we needed a user manual to learn to communicate, to avoid certain sensitive subjects, as if there were still an embarrassment, certain taboos.
Can too many disappointments born of a difficulty in communicating call everything into question? Is it character incompatibility or is it possible to find a balance to understand each other? (build a romantic relationship after romantic disappointments?)
Tonight I am lost. Before, the power of my emotions and the evidence of my feelings guided me in my choices, but have I always made the right ones? So today that feelings are not the cause of this accumulation of disappointments, that feelings are not yet at the center of the relationship, what to refer to, what to rely on to know what decision to make?
Give yourself a chance despite the disappointment experienced?
I have a lot of flaws but I’m not resentful. I do not keep in the corner of my head the disagreements, the causes of disputes, the past peaks and then use them as reproaches in a future crisis. I prefer to talk about it calmly once the spirits have calmed down and use it to learn from it, so as not to repeat the same mistakes. Can we do this work together?
If I take stock of all this, there are sources of disappointment as there are good times. Pluses and minuses as they say. But I’m not going to do two columns to see which one fills up the most in order to know what to decide. What worries me is this incompatibility in the communication which is at the root of the disappointments; every time.
So I think that if the problem is identified, maybe we can solve it? Or is it a crippling criterion, something that cannot be worked out?
I don’t know anymore. And then… And the feelings?
If they were there, very real, very alive, the rest would seem to me easier to solve, perhaps even secondary. So can we build a relationship on so many uncertainties, disappointments?
And to say that it is normal, that it takes time to understand each other, to tame each other, to complement each other? Love yourself?
I didn’t remember that love was that complicated. Maybe that’s part of the explanation; to rebuild one’s life, to regain confidence after a long time of celibacy, it is more difficult than it may be. We hope to find a man long after disappointments, we surely idealize a relationship but when we embark on it, it is other disappointments that await us.
