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ORIGINAL: lovingpet

I have never gotten the escape hatch mentality.  It is rampant in relationships of all kinds currently.  I am not looking for a way out of my commitments.  I look for ways to honor them instead.  Escape is a worst case senario and one that inherently should be difficult and require me to really want out badly enough to endure the consequences of even attempting.  Anything else reeks of human consumerism and I am not a fan of treating any person as disposable.

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Still there is something to be said for working through and keeping on through dark times.  It gives birth to greater intimacy and a stronger relationship.  Persevering has so much to offer those willing to take the hard road.  That is a choice too.  It's just not the kind of choice that looks like freedom to many.  To the few who have walked the road, however, they know differently.

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ORIGINAL: leadership527

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Porcelaine said:
It behooves me why there's a continued focus on cut off points, exit plans/strategies and otherworldly what if situations that may never (and probably don't come close) to anything the individual has experienced or has the possibility of undergoing save in the realm of their overactive imagination. What's really sad is the level of energy willingly expended by persons consciously acknowledging a desire to place themselves within another persons hand. The ship is seemingly damned before it ever sets sail.

Amen! I have to say that as I read this thread, I am very, very glad that none of it really applies to Carol and I. To read this, you'd think that we ought to be in some sort of adversarial contest with each other. Presumably, my goal is to see how abusive I can become to her before she leaves since that will provide the measure of my dominance. Her goal, I gather, is to see how little she can submit without pissing me off.

We don't think that way. Carol and I spend a lot more time thinking about what we can give to the relationship than what we can take from it.

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ORIGINAL: lovingpet

Again, my job is to keep the kind of company from which I would want major influences in my life to rise.  It is also my job to be as healthy and whole as a person myself as possible.  In other words, we can leapfrog all this nonsense by simply making good decision and using self discipline.  I don't have to worry about being abused by a quality partner.  I don't have to worry about being susceptible to an abusive partner by making sure I am healthy enough to tell the difference and self comfort in the absence of a significant other.  Self responsibility on the front end saves a lot of trauma and confusion on the back end. 

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Do I really think life is this cut and dried?  Nope.  It is pretty close to it though.  No person deserves to be abused.  Not every situation that requires and full and immediate escape has to do with physical harm or death.  Still there is something to be said for working through and keeping on through dark times.  It gives birth to greater intimacy and a stronger relationship.  Persevering has so much to offer those willing to take the hard road.  That is a choice too.  It's just not the kind of choice that looks like freedom to many.  To the few who have walked the road, however, they know differently.

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida

Just a general thought here.  I always see people comment on relationship break ups as though it's something done without excruciating thought and incredible pain and heartbreak.  As though it was the easier route to take.  This is totally disrespectful to those who have actually had to do it.  It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, but hey, I can remedy that.  I just think it's a really limited and incorrect view.

Choice or no choice...can or can't.  Whatever it may be.  A relationship ending does NOT mean people gave up easily.  It would be nice to stop seeing it represented as such.

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida

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Persevering has so much to offer those willing to take the hard road.  That is a choice too.  It's just not the kind of choice that looks like freedom to many.  To the few who have walked the road, however, they know differently.

It can give birth to greater intimacy.  Perseverance can offer much to those willing to take the hard road.  But then it might not.  I walked that road.  It doesn't always end well.  Just saying.

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ORIGINAL: lovingpet
My point was merely that so many give up WAY too soon or never are fully invested in the first place.

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Then again many, many more end as if the people involved are disposable commodities.  That's what concerns me. 

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Somehow happily ever after is a fearful proposition to us humans.  It is counterintuitive, but nonetheless true. 

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida

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ORIGINAL: lovingpet
My point was merely that so many give up WAY too soon or never are fully invested in the first place.

I can't possibly presume to know what is too soon or too late for someone to "give up" (or realize that it's not going to work), or what someone else's level of investment was.  How can any of us know?  Why is it so often assumed that an ended relationship means someone just "gave up" and didn't put as much as they could into it?

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Then again many, many more end as if the people involved are disposable commodities.  That's what concerns me. 

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Somehow happily ever after is a fearful proposition to us humans.  It is counterintuitive, but nonetheless true. 

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ORIGINAL: lovingpet

Nor do I presume to know.  I do know what I see both on forums such as these and in daily life.  I don't think it's too hard to note.  It is pretty obvious who tries and who runs.  I don't judge.  The pain is just as real.  I don't think an unwillingness to judge equates to a lack of a trend.  People quit on jobs, marriages, raising children, social organizations, friendships, and much more.  It's getting more frequent and more frivolous all the time.  I have seen people quit well paying jobs with full benefits because they didn't like the kind of shoes he had to wear...for his own safety mind you.

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Though there are those who go to the mat to make a relationship work, it doesn't mean the opposite doesn't exist. 
 

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Outsiders may not know everything, but they are not deaf and blind either.  Effort shows...even in the pain of it failing.  If someone states that they have tried everything and still were not able to make it, then I will not dispute it.

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I can't decide where the dividing line is for another, but I can promise there are plenty of things that don't remotely qualify either.  I don't judge, but I'm not an idiot either. 

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Like I said, I have done this very same hard thing and I know some say I should have stayed and some said I stayed too long.  I stayed as long as I got to survive it.  I know how harsh judgment hurts.  I also know how important unwaivering support is. 

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I couldn't begin to comment on this because when it comes to people, relationships, and love, I just simply not a realist.  I am a bleary eyed dreamer.  I admit it. 

lovingpet

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida
I don't believe this to be true.  Many, many more?  Of all the relationships I've seen end, ALL were horrendously difficult.

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ORIGINAL: leadership527
Again, I have to assume that to the person writing that, it was a very serious statement and so my challenge is to understand the viewpoint in which it makes sense.

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida

Just a general thought here.  I always see people comment on relationship break ups as though it's something done without excruciating thought and incredible pain and heartbreak.  As though it was the easier route to take.  This is totally disrespectful to those who have actually had to do it.  It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, but hey, I can remedy that.  I just think it's a really limited and incorrect view.

Choice or no choice...can or can't.  Whatever it may be.  A relationship ending does NOT mean people gave up easily.  It would be nice to stop seeing it represented as such.

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ORIGINAL: NuevaVida

I don't start a relationship planning for its end, or even thinking about its end. I do, however, enter a relationship being fully aware of all possibilities within it, and don't make "forever commitments" lightly.  I did not set out in my current relationship as a ship that was damned.  I set out knowing that I am fully capable of completely giving myself over, and knowing, from experience, how dangerous that can be if I am not careful about it.  And because the rug was once pulled out from under me when I was completely unprepared...because I was forced to rebuild or crumble, I now and forever have the knowledge that I am capable of making that excruciating decision of taking myself back again.  I plan for not having to.  But I know I am able to.

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ORIGINAL: DesFIP

For some of us, the walking away from a relationship was the easy part because all the excruciating pain came before that. Leaving nothing but the knowledge that there was nothing left to try nor any more desire to.

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We move on at different rates, we process grief differently. Doesn't make the one better than the other, pain is pain. It doesn't have to look exactly alike to know that it hurts.

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ORIGINAL: lovingpet

I do think there's a lot of truth to what you said, porcelaine, that people often blink when they get too close to getting what they think they want.  Somehow happily ever after is a fearful proposition to us humans.  It is counterintuitive, but nonetheless true. 

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ORIGINAL: porcelaine

Greetings NuevaVida,

In regard to possibilities, my mind leans toward the positive. If I've made the conscious decision to get involved in this capacity and believe the person is competent and capable of providing the level of ownership and companionship I desire, I have no reason to entertain negative thoughts. I believe we manifest our reality and allowing ideas that cannot be validated by the current situation to infiltrate my head is something I avoid. Recognizing and/or reinforcing my autonomy or ability to have such is diametrically opposed to the union I seek. I've crossed the threshold and in doing so I must lay the old self down and take on the new. One cannot have it both ways in my opinion.

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Yesterday is not supposed to be a continual reference point, but an opportunity to refine ourselves through the trials and experiences we've undergone. The knowledge and lessons learned haven't left our consciousness and if necessary they can be accessed. However, until I find myself confronting that reality there's little need to acknowledge the obvious. I don't believe that line of thought is conducive to the paring down that slavery institutes. It usually results in defense mechanisms and pseudo safety nets one creates to offset the perceived risk, fear, and pain that the past has imprinted on ones person.

Namaste,

~porcelaine