Relationships

I've been thinking a lot about relationships lately. I've been thinking a lot about what I want and what that means for my life. I've reached a certain level of success in my education and career but I haven't been successful in a committed relationship. I'd like to have a committed relationship, yet I've never been able to commit. I've been thinking about my inability to commit a lot lately.

Interestingly enough, a lot of things have happened in my life in the past week to make me think deeply about relationships. A friend said to me, "I wish that when I was in my 30's, I had simply found the nicest man around and stayed with him. I should have just found a nice man." She said all the other stuff (looks, success) doesn't matter. I got the distinct impression that she wanted companionship and wished she had found it long ago.

Having Autumn and Ky living with me for the past couple weeks has also had me thinking about their relationship. They've both made sacrifices for their relationship, but it's what has kept them together. And they both make it extremely obvious that they get a lot of happiness and peace in life through their relationship. I can remember when Autumn moved to El Paso to be with Ky. I thought she was crazy to leave her exciting single life in Austin to move to a border town like El Paso. Now, over 4 years later, it's obvious she made the right choice. She and Ky have a wonderful relationship together and they have a beautiful baby boy.

I started reading a book called Unhooked Generation, the Truth About Why We're Still Single, by Jillian Straus. Straus started looking around at herself and her friends and wondered why everyone was so successful yet so single. She decided to study my generation to determine why we have such an issue with commitment. At this point, I've only read the first chapter of her book, but I think she's totally hit the nail on the head.

Straus writes that there are "Seven Evil Influences [which] are external influences that bring about in us internal inclinations that, in turn, stand in our way of finding the love we are seeking." I'm going to list her seven topics and summarize them in my own words. I'd encourage you to pick up the book because she says it far more eloquently than I do.

1. The Cult of I - We're a very selfish generation. We think love will come to us and we don't have to work for it. We want to benefit from the relationship without having to sacrifice anything.
2. Multiple Choice Culture - We have access to too much information / people. We think our choices for finding someone else are endless. Isn't that what internet dating is all about? Just keep looking through profiles long enough and you'll find the perfect person.
3. The Divorce Effect - We grew up with so much divorce around us, we're skeptical of marriage. But it also inflates our expectations of marriage.
4. The Inadvertent Effects of Feminism - Feminism changed male and female roles in society. We still haven't figured that out completely. Our expectations for each other often conflict.
5. The "Why Suffer?" Mentality - We feel that relationships should always make us feel good and if they make us suffer, we should get out.
6. The Celebrity Standard - The media makes us think we should all be living fast- moving, exciting, and fabulous lives. No exactly consistent with the reality of a life-long, committed relationship.
7. The Fallout from Marriage Delay - We're waiting longer to get married, which means two things. First, we have more relationships that have failed and made us more skeptical and have raised our standards. Second, we are more set in our ways and less inclined to change.

I'm guilty of being influenced by all of these seven things, but especially by the "Why Suffer?" Mentality. I don't like to be in pain and if a relationship has caused me any pain, I simply run away. I'm also plagued with the fallout from marriage delay. I can remember first talking about that with girlfriends in Dallas. We were all in our late 20's or early 30's and discussing how independent we were. The general consensus from the group was that it would just be too hard to change in order to make room in our lives for a relationship. We were simply too set in our ways.

This book is fascinating and certainly poignant for me. Straus is verbalizing things that I've known and felt for years.

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