24 votes

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4 comments

  1. Grimalkin
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    Finding a person you love and want to be with all/most of the time is a good thing and can lead to amazing fulfillment. It can also lead to brutal heartbreak (depending on circumstances) but you...

    Finding a person you love and want to be with all/most of the time is a good thing and can lead to amazing fulfillment. It can also lead to brutal heartbreak (depending on circumstances) but you are a human being so that's going to happen at times regardless.

    As far as we all know, this is your only life. You're only young once, you're only you once, and if you found a person you like enough to put all your other/previous partners on the back-burner you should embrace it (and them) and enjoy the moments you have together. We never really know how long we have for anything, so live life while you can.

    7 votes
  2. Grendel
    Link
    Honestly the risk is part of what gives the relationship value. The fact that someone cares about you enough to take that risk is incredible meaningful. It works the other way too, knowing that...

    Honestly the risk is part of what gives the relationship value. The fact that someone cares about you enough to take that risk is incredible meaningful. It works the other way too, knowing that you are willing to work through insecurity for this person means that they are important to you.

    Given time, the risk aspect is reduced as you build trust. But, while risk decreases, vulnerability increases (or at least it should) which is an entirely new but rewarding challenge.

    7 votes
  3. patience_limited
    Link
    So, your story parallels mine in certain ways. I played the field for a long time, a couple of "committed" poly relationships, but no massive chemistry with any one person. Spouse and I met, and...

    So, your story parallels mine in certain ways. I played the field for a long time, a couple of "committed" poly relationships, but no massive chemistry with any one person.

    Spouse and I met, and it went like sinking into really nice quicksand. Both of us were terrified of failure; we'd been through breakups multiple times before.

    We're still together 26 years on. We've learned to grow together through chaos, trauma, career changes, distance, poverty and wealth, major illnesses, triumphs and defeats. We've just survived the move to a home we mutually redesigned, that we're hoping to live in until we're too feeble to care for it.

    The net you're worried about falling through is reinforced by shared experience, mutual choices, and the confidence that arises from having tried a broad enough range of experience to be certain that we're each other's "The One".

    Many people look to reinforce their bond through bearing children; we didn't go that route. We can take joy in each other's friends, ideas, passions, charity, and community endeavors. We do live in some fear of losing each other to time, and tend towards over-protectiveness. Nonetheless, it's a pattern I hope you'll find in your life.

    4 votes
  4. skybrian
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    In my limited experience, insecurity is normal at the beginning and security comes with time, as you learn to trust the other person to be themselves. (But that's just one scenario.)

    In my limited experience, insecurity is normal at the beginning and security comes with time, as you learn to trust the other person to be themselves.

    (But that's just one scenario.)

    3 votes