Love above all. Everything else follows.
I believe love is an action, not an emotion. It follows a desire to see the best in who you choose to be with for the rest of your life. If action doesn't follow, it isn't love.
That said, however that has to be expressed is going to depend on the other person. My needs are best satisfied through physical intimacy, i.e. sex. Different people are going to put this on different levels of priority, but for me this is near the top. For me, sexual gratification (for my partner, not for me) is the main way of demonstrating her desire for me in the way I best understand in the form of a shared experience. It's a physically, emotionally, and spiritually unifying act.
Like I said, not everyone is going to crave or demand it, but I definitely think if you're not having sex, your relationship is in trouble. There are exceptions to that rule, of course, but I believe this is true for most couples.
Most everything that's going to top my list revolves around sex. I expect faithfulness and hold myself to the same standard.
The only other thing besides that I consider much more than a mere triviality is religion/faith. We have to be on the same page about God if this is going to work. Oddly enough, if you get this part right, pretty much everything related to love and sex will fall right into place. My wife ended up joining the church I'd been attending, so our differences in denomination became irrelevant. This was all before I was hired by that church, and I'd resolved to split our attendance between a church of my denomination and a church of hers. I honestly would have been fine with that, but her conscious led her elsewhere. Naturally I was delighted! But more so than where to go to church is where we both stand when it comes to God.
After that is what to do about children. We were pretty much in agreement on wanting children and were happy with the timing in which we started having them. A lot of couples get in trouble over this issue because often both will agree only for one partner to change his or her time, or they'll disagree on the timing.
Somewhere down the line is what to do about money/possessions.
I realize I'm talking more about long-range relationships and ultimately marriage. If you can't get on the same page on this kind of stuff before getting married, it's a mistake to get married. For ME, I'm looking for the relationship to take a turn towards marriage, so I'm going to be looking to avoid problems related to these issues. We're going to talk about it and make those decisions NOW and stick with them.
Someone who screams at me for every tiny failing is not showing me love. Someone who gives or withholds sex as a punishment is not loving me. Refusing me children?BIG problem. Dissing me in front of her friends?BIIIIIIIG problem. Dissing me in front of my friends?dissing my friends? Failing to understand that I need time for work, special interests, and that my involvement in such things facilitate our time together and thus MUST take priority over you? Unwillingness to come to mutually beneficial arrangements and insistence on "compromise?" The problem with compromise is everybody has to give up something to get anything, and whatever they get won't be ALL they wanted. While ONE person might be tenuously willingly to go with it, what typically ends up happening is one or both partners try to get everything they want, often at the expense of the other partner. Either you BOTH end up winning somehow or no freakin' deal and you get over it.
Those are the kinds of things that would kill a relationship with me. A lot of that kind of stuff comes out in the wash when the relationship turns serious.
There was a time when the thought of my partner being with someone else was a turn-on?and there was even a time in my life when if either of us cheated, there was little to be done about it over the long distance that separated us. That time has passed, however, and whereas cheating may or may not have been such a big deal, it's a HUGE deal now. I wouldn't necessarily file for divorce right away. However, I'd start planning for the worst. For me to take the initiative in divorce proceedings, she'd have to screw up BAD. I mean, abysmally bad. Like, have some other man's baby bad. I could forgive her, but she'd have to put the kid up for adoption. The reason why is that when you have a baby, you're obligated to allow the other parent to be a part of that child's life. That means your spouse has to share you, and once that child is born and you insist caring for that child, you invite the person you cheated with to be a part of your family. I, for one, am not in any way willing to share and thus won't stand for it. It's the baby or me. And I THINK I know women well enough to know what that decision would ultimately look like.
As for myself, I wouldn't forget my wedding vows, even if something that catastrophic were to happen. She'd have to leave, but I wouldn't get into another relationship or marry again. I'd still love her. But it's unfair to expect me to share. I'd rather live my life alone than have to deal with that for any length of time.
So?as far as the most important things in a relationship?there ya go.
09 Nov 2014, 5:22 pm
