11–20 of 418 posts
I can imagine that if you state to your partner that they are number two and always will stay, it might already put a strain on the relationship: In a sense a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Surely for different purposes, different people matter differently. E.g. My spouse doesn't ride a bike (not like I do). For that activity she's nowhere near the 'center' of my life.
Kids are the center of your life. They are a lot easier (especially during the younger ages) to raise with a committed partner.
They take over everything in life, work, hobbies, passions, sleep. Its so god damned hard to raise them, yet extremely rewarding. There is really me before kids and a different person afterwards, envying the previous guy all the freedom and cool stuff he did, but not really wanting to switch place.
The thing is, they eventually leave the life to forge their own path, maybe a bit and maybe almost completely moving away, while partner and friends are for longer and closer.
I would personally not be OK with this setup with a romantic partner (neither as one who would see a friend as my number one or if the romantic partner did with someone else), but that's obviously not supposed to limit them in any way, since I'm not part of their equation.
All relationships could do well with clear boundaries, understanding, and a ton of communication to continuously maintain that as relationships evolve.
Euro perspective: sounds like an american problem of people moving halfway across the country instead of usually settling down nearby with their highschool friends doing mostly the same thing.
Depends on what your ambitions are in life. Which goes back to first sentence.
Euro perspective: sounds like an american problem of people moving halfway across the country instead of usually settling down nearby with their highschool friends doing mostly the same thing.
People in the past did not consider themselves to have sexual orientations, to be gay or straight or something else. Even someone who was committed to a same-sex romantic relationship wouldn't have, or want, the terminology to describe and identify themselves in those terms. It was... behavior. Passions.
So it's not difficult to see that this lack of labeling and identity would also be a lack of barriers to intimacy and romantic talk without necessitating or implying sexual behavior. If a bro is too proud to sit next to me on a bus bench today because he needs his personal space, perhaps he's afraid of being labeled or branded as something he doesn't like.
I like the fact that the subjects of this article have gone beyond "best friends" terminology and come up with some neat new terms. "Boot-camp besties"! Yeah!
I'm looking for something deeper, as this article shows, a monogamous romantic relationship. I would like to have many children too. I don't think humans are built for multiple deep friendships. It also invites jealousy with the romantic partner. Being religious, "till death do us part" being expected out of marriage, I doubt these deep friends would go that far without the benefits of marriage.
Marriage and kids seem to be the center of life in this otherwise busy world
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i'm not saying you will - but you might be surprised about that friendship after you broke up.
So far I lost more friends in my life than spouses, but I get your point. If it ever comes to that, I at least hope any break will be more or less amicable. No huge interest in finding out so!
Societies are so far off from what's truly important in existence, that I fear we may never collectively reach that day where we truly get it right.