What IS a good relationship anyway???

[AliceW]

Hello all!

 

I'm hoping to get some other perspectives on how to evaluate relationships. My first marriage ended in divorce when I was about 30, and now (a few years later) I'm in a new relationship that is starting to get pretty serious. Since I obviously chose badly the first time I got married, I am extra concerned about choosing well now.

 

It's a complicated story, but it basically boils down to this:

 

My BF is wonderful: he is warm, affectionate, smart, considerate, ambitious, and respectful. We have a lot of nterests in common, and our values and goals in life are very compatable. Our sex life is great. We enjoy talking with each other. We rarely fight, and when we do get into disagreements we are able to work things out in a rational compromise, and he is always very eager to fix problems that occur between us instead of running away from them. Also, in a more intangible way, we simply make each other happy--I feel very contented and good when I'm in his presense, and he says the same of me.

 

So here's the problem: while my relationship with my X had almost none of those good qualities, I did have one thing with him that I don't have with my BF...it is hard to put into words, but I'll try: basically, my X and I felt that we were soulmates....that we understood each other on some deep, wordless level...we felt that there was something sublime about our connection that would make up for all our other obvious, glaring problems (HA!). Obviously, it didn't--we got divorced.

 

So. Here's the problem: I don't feel that kind of sublime connection with my BF...we're simply in love with each other and we get along marvelously well. We have plenty of chemistry and passion..I was totally giddy about him for the first 6 months or so, and I am still very much in love with him now (we've been seeing each other for more than a year)...that's not the problem. And I do definitely feel like he "gets" me and respects who I am...it's just that in certain ways we are quite different, so we don't have that stay-up-all-night-talking/I've-found-my-long-lost-twin feeling about each other.

 

(I also wonder if maybe I feel/felt differently about my X and my BF because my X was my first love (I met him when I was 15) whereas when I met my BF I was a divorcee in my thirties...)

 

So should I be worried that I don't feel that sublime kind of connection with my BF, or it that a bad, narcissist thing to base a relationship on anyway? Should I just shut up and be happy that I have such a great relationship with such a wonderful, sweet, interesting guy and leave it at that? Or should I break up what is definitely the best, most functional relationship I've ever had, one that really makes me happy and that works so well for both parties in order to search for some abstract, indefinable quality in someone else?

 

Can anyone offer thoughts about this???

[Barby]

I say if you're happy in every other sense mabybe your this doesn't have as much importance? I know exactly what you're saying though...I've been married and divorced (well almost completely divorced still in the process) by the age of 21 (haven't seen the ex since then) and I didn't have that connection with my ex.

 

I have it now with my current BF that we've been together 2 years almost. We were born 4 hours apart on the same night, same year, and we have gone through so many similar things though he was in mexico I was here.....we have so much in common and believe/feel the same way about things, I could go on and on...but exactly as you said it's like a long lost other half of myself that I finally found though I didn't realize it was missing, we talk for hours and hours about nothing and never get bored...ect ect ect

 

Well I hadn't felt it before and I have it now but don't get me wrong, we fight, we've split a couple of times, we're both very passionate people but on the important things (comm, faithfulness, beliefs, goals, ideas on life, ect) we are sooo much the same...so we "work" or "click"

 

I think if I had to choose a perfect relationship w/out the "connection" because this relationship went real bad and we couldn't work it out then yes I would rather have the good relationship over the "connection" but hopefully it'll never come down to having to choose....

 

Just my 2 cents!

[quankanne]

a good relationship is knowing and utilizing the arts of communication and compromise.

 

it's being able to be with your SO -- and knowing you want to be with him even as your desire to pinch his head off threatens to overtake you because he's being so danged bone-headed.

 

because you know that even the worst problem you face just can't top the depth and meaning he's brought to your life, even though you may not label him your soul-mate. sometimes, it just goes deeper than labels or words, you know?

 

I wouldn't necessarily worry over the fact that your guy isn't the kind of "soul-mate" your ex had been, because it's comparing a candy bar with an Oreo blizzard from Dairy Queen: you like them both because they're tasty treats (the food, not the guys ... unless ... ). but, you find that as you get older, your tastes change and you redefine your idea of the ideal dessert.

[moimeme]

that we understood each other on some deep, wordless level...we felt that there was something sublime about our connection that would make up for all our other obvious, glaring problems (HA!). Obviously, it didn't--we got divorced

 

Given the eventual outcome and the 'obvious, glaring problems', I'd say that whatever the connection was that you had, it was not 'soulmates'. You had a 'thing' you decided to name 'soulmates' but since nobody can tell you exactly what being with a soulmate is like, you misidentified the feeling and called it something it was not.

 

I just have never understood how someone can be a 'soulmate' and then not be. To me, the very definition of 'soulmate' would mean you'd be bound, heart and soul, always.