By: Breanna Boutte
I cannot teach you how to be in a relationship, how to love somebody, how to know who is perfect for you and who is not, but I can explain to you my views on how relationships are now that we listen to different sayings about how relationships are supposed to be.
The “perfect” love is just another perfect name for a damaged relationship. There have been so many people in relationships who have abused one another. In fact, in the United States, there have been nearly ten million domestic reports every year. Most of them never get reported, so there is an estimate that over ten million people have or have not filed a domestic report against their partner. And understanding this alone makes people not even want to try for a relationship because you never know what that partner can do even though you’ve seen their ugly side.
There should always be some respect for how the connection should be coordinated in every relationship. For example, we ask ourselves, has chivalry ever died? Or are men not real men? Chivalry comes from the Middle Ages in Europe, where knights would use chivalry as a general courtesy due to being honest and showing courageous behaviors. In modern-day times, an example would be a man who opens and closes the car door for you; if it ever rains, he gives you his jacket to cover up. Generally, he tries his best to please you. Haa, I know “well, why aren’t people like this now?” But, trust me; if a man says he wants to be with you and shows you everything you are looking for on the inside, he will never let you do the “man’s work” even though you grew up not needing a man and please you the best way possible.
A relationship should never be one-sided.
The man should always show that he’s one hundred percent in you and vice versa. If there’s any doubt in your mind that this man is not giving his all, then you should not put yourself into these situations with this man. That’s like you showing love to a wall, literally, and I know we’ve all have had our fair share of the whole “50/50” idea, and in fact, some came out to be precisely that, and others didn’t. And when I mean by “50/50”, both the men and women should participate in showing love for another. I know what you’re thinking. Why should I keep my hand out for someone I don’t know will love me for real? You never know what love feels like until you try. If you are trying to show somebody that, they will either accept it or deny it, but it shouldn’t be hard to show your love if you are equally doing your part in the relationship.
Roles in the relationship
You should play specific roles while being in a relationship with someone. There are roles that men should play, and women should play. Based on history alone, we know that women were the ones who were placed in the position of being a housewife while their husbands went on to either fight a war or work day and night to keep things running for their families. Items may shift a little in modern times because we have women working a man’s job and men working women’s jobs. For example, we have women who are engineers, cutting hair and doing their car maintenance. We understand that women sometimes pull more weight than men or vice versa. In general, we all have that fantasy that if we want a relationship, we both have to have money and a lot of it because no one in this life wants a man or woman who doesn’t have their stuff together.
How does this affect how we investigate someone who is not mentally ok? This saying manipulates us into believing that if someone works on themselves together, they’d probably be together for a long time, whether finically or mentally. It states, “we grow together. We stay together”. This means that whatever trauma you are going through, whether it’s financially or mentally, let me be that help to get you out of that dark hole that you are in. Because at the end of the day, as you are in a relationship, you are not only loving each other, but you are growing to better yourselves for one another.
Intimacy Versus Love
Initially, if you were to fall in love with someone, you are supposed to get intimate with one another. However, that does not define what love is about in “real” relationships. Someone can have gotten personal with someone just for the fun of it. But, most of the time, you will not end up loving that person because either you don’t know them that well because you’ve been talking for weeks or because you know in your head that you will probably never see that person again. Now let’s say you are in a relationship, and you are genuinely happy, then, of course, it is expected to fall in love with knowing that the sex is just a bonus. Having this bonus means that you two are deeply in love and that you all genuinely care about each other.