How do I commit to a partner?

The reality is that there's always someone 'better' in some way than your current partner in both your past, and in a potential future.

I don't at all believe in 'settling', not for a moment, but the part where people go wrong is looking for reasons it won't work rather than for reasons why it should. You need to put the work in, on yourselves and on your relationship.

Ironically, people work really hard on the wrong relationships and then are damaged, unavailable, or non-commital for the right ones. Safety, security, and respect feel boring when you're used to toxicity, especially of those positive things remain consistently available to you then you'll start to take them for granted.

When you're treated like dirt, you crave the intermittent validation and cling vainly to a bad partner because they weaken you and when you finally get a scrap of attention it is a huge rush - maybe theyve finally realised I'm worth it. When you are treated well, don't feel like an option, and have someone building you up, you get stronger and the validation is readily available, you start to think this person is boring, or below you, even if they're everything you once dreamed of.

Every relationship will get stale in some way, but invest in keeping the good one fun, not trying to hold the bad one together. You really need to be honest with yourself about how your partner is treating you, we all see the red flags of being disrespected but we ALL ignore them for the rush that comes when we finally exist for a few hours, days, or weeks, before going back to the same red flags and ignoring them all over again.

A good relationship is not without challenges, but is consistent. Consistent feels boring, but it's actually what you want.

That's human nature, but it helps to see it like an addiction. If you use the same drug, you get used to how it makes you feel and see it as your new baseline. You then crave more, even though it's actually harmful.

The person you'd like to be old with, when looks are gone and sex has faded, that you'd want a family (or life) with when all those superficial things are gone, that's the one to hold onto TODAY.

Being treated like a princess or a king gets 'normal' really fast, but once you leave that and go back to the 'thrill' nine times out of ten you're in for a shyteshow.

/r/relationships Thread