Bear Cub

For some reason or another, this concept popped into my head this morning. It's not a personal dilemma, it just peaked my curiosity.

Is it a valid notion to compare the timelines of former relationships to new ones, effectively setting checkpoints for certain things to take place?

On one hand, you've got the naysayers who will be adimant that each person and situation is unique, and that you should not hold a comparison between them and your former significant others.

On the other hand, you've got those who may argue that it's perfectly acceptable to do so, as it can keep you from rushing in and making foolish mistakes.

For example, say you had three long term relationships in the past. All three of them starting showing trouble signs after two years, and ended after 2 1/2 years. Suppose now that you've found your "true love", who after 1 1/2 years time you want to marry (throw in whatever time frame you really want here).

Would you think that you should follow your instinct and know that everything will work out for the best? Or is it fair to postpone certain events such as weddings, engagements, living together, etc, based on the fact that all of your prior relationships seemed to follow a set timeline, effectively creating hold points and go-ahead points in your relationship?

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Living in the United Socialist States of America.

snowy

So let's compare my two major adult relationships in my life, for shits and giggles.

Relationship #1: Together for 8 months. Had sex after 1 month--lost my virginity, in fact. Broke up because he felt it wasn't really going anywhere and didn't want to be permanent, yet proceeded to string me along after that for another 9 months--longer than the relationship itself lasted. Boy, did I learn my lesson big time; the guy was an emotionally manipulative tool.

Relationship #2: Had sex on the 1st real date, moved in together after 2 weeks, and we're celebrating our 3rd anniversary at the end of the month. We're still living together and planning on getting married in a year or two. Woo! Go us!

The only landmark I used from my past relationship in this new one was the day we celebrated our first anniversary and I realized that I'd been dating my current SO longer than my longest relationship had lasted. Everything else was irrelevant, and quite frankly, unpleasant to think about. To me, to use the first relationship to define the progress of the second seems like a form of blatant self-sabotage, especially in the example you gave, Bear Cub. My first relationship really has no bearing on my second, other than that every time I think of my ex I thank my lucky stars for my current guy.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

inBOIL

What happened to cause trouble in the other relationships? Are those issues applicable to your current relationship? If so, how do you prevent/fix those issues? These are the questions you should worry about, not the amount of time elapsed.

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And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

tinycities

Over the past few months I've realised how important it is, for my own emotional well-being, to just take things as they come, to not worry about why things have or haven't happened, or if they will happen at all. In my own experience, rumination upon such topics never achieves or changes anything.

Using benchmarks, timelines and comparisons to past relationships seems thoroughly unnecessary at the best of times and counterproductive at the worst. It's a potential source of stress or anxiety of things don't seem to be moving in a way in which you are familiar with (note: this is not necessarily a bad thing). It can make you try and fit square pegs into round holes. You can end up missing out on opportunities or alternative paths. In fact, I'm struggling to see any positive reasons for making such comparisons at all.

I also have a certain belief in the self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to these things. To use your example, if someone has a string of relationships with different people that have ended at the two and a half year mark, it's probably not coincidental and is fact down to some sort of behaviour or attitude as opposed to the time itself, and it's likely to be something that one or both people in the relationship have control over. It's not the passage of time itself that causes the breakdown of the relationship, it's one or both partners, or some sort of external circumstance. As all of these things are different in every relationship, it seems fruitless to place any weight on such benchmarks when it comes to future experiences.

Having said that, I'm not a believer in the concept of the "foolish mistake" and therefore don't have any desire to be overly cautious as a result of previous relationships. I can honestly say that I have never regretted anything, even things that in relationships have caused me considerable distress. This is because I think all experiences are valuable as you can learn from them about yourself, other people or the world in general.