I’m in my fifties and have been married over ten years. I had many failed relationships before my marriage. My marriage has been through some serious tests (bereavement, illness, financial). It’s still survives through a combination of effort and what I consider luck.
To me it feels like it is almost impossible to find a partner and it to last. These are the things a relationship needs to start in the first place and last, and I just don’t think it’s an achievable thing:
- You have to fancy the person. But even if you start off doing that the changes of that changing are high - body changes, aging teeth, no teeth, bad dress sense
- One you might suddenly want to drink more or less that is add odds with the other
- You have unequal wealth/salaries. Or you start if the sane but one gets wealthier and this causes issues
- You have mismatched sex drives and even if you start off the same, menopause is going to shrivel your bits and turn your love canal into a strip of sandpaper
- Every family has a dickhead in it, or disordered toxic person giving somewhere. Long term one of you just can’t tolerate them any longer.
- One is a safer and one is a spender. Problem.
- One likes hot weather and one likes cold. Problem.
- One listens to hip hop the other listens to classical music. Problem.
- It’s hard living with an extrovert if you are introvert and vice versa.
- In every couple, one is cleaner and tidier than the other.
- Even if you defeat the odds of all the above and meet, survive for years, you can get your bottom dollar your partner will announce something like ‘I’ve always wanted to wear your knickers” on your 30th anniversary or something.
It’s a miracle we find someone that matches us in the first place, and an even bigger miracle if it lasts long long term. AIBU?