There’s a post on here asking about what lessons women have learned from men. 99% of them are bad. I get it. I really do.
I broke up with my boyfriend not too long ago and it wasn’t because he was a bad guy or manipulated me in anyway. He was honest through and through, but in the end we just weren’t compatible. It hurts.
With all that being said holy shit are there good relationships out there? Both men and women just bash each other and I’m really losing hope. I can’t keep reading these negative stories like in that post from earlier.
My ask is that if you have a happy relationship can you describe it? Even if you’ve just had good dates can you describe them?
I’m not in a good place right now. I’m full of tears. Miss him like crazy and I just want to know there is hope for genuine two-sided love.
Comments
If you want to know what happy relationships are like, for the love of god do not rely on Reddit… it’s a text-based, anon platform so people come here (not just this sub, but including this sub) to be miserable a lot of the time. Stay away from a lot of social media in general, is my advice – sooo much content out there is designed to grift, to be ragebait, to sow discord, et cetera.
I’m really sorry for your breakup, OP. The first few days/weeks are always the hardest. FWIW, my husband is like… the one true constant in my life, I guess. The world could be (and, well, rather is) burning up outside and I’d still feel safe and happy and at peace in his arms. No matter how bad other things get, the love we have for each other gives us both something to hold onto; we’re each other’s ports in the existential storm that is life. I could go on and on about all the ways we love each other but I think what it comes down at the end of the day is that I’m his person and he’s my person, and we’re both so eminently grateful to have found each other that we don’t take any of it (or, by extension, each other) for granted. We know we’re the lucky ones.
There are, but I think the older you get, the harder it gets to find someone who you are compatible with. I know I wouldn’t get into a relationship with a guy until I’ve known him as a platonic friend for at least a year. Rushing a relationship without really knowing someone well is one of the worst things you can do IMO.
I think most subreddits are just skewed to people venting about their issues/problems so it sounds like everyone has bad relationships. Plus, a lot of people in great relationships don’t often see a reason to post.
My marriage is my happiest relationship. We may have gotten together young but we have grown together over the years. He is the first emotionally mature guy who made me feel secure and comfortable enough to open up. It was hard for me to trust people easily but I’ve never had any insecurities or doubts with him because of how accepting and loving he is. We prioritize each other above anyone/anything else. He’s always approached everything from an us against them mindset whether it’s being sick, getting a promotion or making mistakes. I constantly feel loved, validated and secure with him.
My partner and I have been together about a year now and it’s the happiest, healthiest and most fulfilling relationship I have ever been in. We’ve found that we are just so compatible in so many ways.
Things are easy. We find it easy to be together, love each other, prioritise each other, have fun, combine our lives and families. It’s even easy to have difficult conversations with each other, navigate difficult times or work through life’s difficulties together. I love the way we resolve things and talk things through when we need to. We both make each other feel braver. When there are difficult things ahead, we’re each other’s biggest cheerleaders and we feel like we can get through things with each other’s support.
We’re a very together couple, but we are also individuals who value our solo time. We have similar hobbies, but we also have different ones. We’ve combined our friend groups, and also see other friends individually. I feel happy when I’m with him, but also calm and happy while we’re apart. We miss each other but still feel at peace when we’re not together.
We’re goofy and have so much fun. I love the times when we’re in bed, overtired, and we just can’t stop laughing about something small and silly. We love going out to gigs and shows or out to lunch or dinner, but also love staying in a cooking together. We love travelling together as well!
I love loving him and he loves loving me. I love how he is in our relationship and I love how he is with me, but I also love and respect who he is outside of our relationship. Like when I see him out in the world, doing his thing or interacting with people, friends, family. Just being him. I have so much respect for him and really truly admire his passion for the environment and how he wants to leave the world better than how he found it.
He genuinely loves my quirks, and I love his. We both just feel like we can be ourselves together. Being with him makes it easier to lean into myself and lean into just being me. I feel like the truest version of myself with him because he loves me and all that I come with. I feel the same way about him.
I have never felt so safe and loved. Safe and secure to grow and be myself. He’s so incredibly thoughtful and I love how hard we both work to support each other and make each other feel loved and considered. I have never before been able to just lie in someone’s arms and just tell them how much I love them, in tears, and have them tell me so openly how much they love me. We have such deep and intimate conversations. It feels so wonderful to have someone you can talk to about anything and everything.
We’re realistic about our future and don’t want to rush things. We want to be together a very long time and know that we want to take those steps together when we’re both ready. The pace feels right for us.
We love each other unapologetically hard. We put in the work, but at the same time it feels easy because we both want to do it. I’m so happy I’ve found my person. I didn’t think it was possible. We both feel so incredibly lucky to have found each other at the right time.
Edit: I didn’t even mention the sex (which is how we started seeing each other casually lol) – it’s mind blowing. And we can’t keep our hands off each other. We have high sex drives so it can be a lot sometimes. But… WOW.
This is such a great idea for a thread, I really hope people pull through and offer you some hope! I’m sorry you’re in the thick of it, but I think you have a really mature outlook and wish you the best.
I met my husband on Hinge just before the pandemic started. The first date was solid and he made concrete plans for our second date before the first one ended and we had a third date planned before the second one ended, etc. until we became official a month later and got married three years later.
I was perfectly happy being single. I told myself I would only allow a guy into my life if he added to it, and my life is better and easier in every way for my husband being in it. He’s a true partner. My burdens are halved and my victories are sweeter. I’m also the best version of myself since meeting him. He has his quirks (e.g., he doesn’t like things on counters, so everything has to go in cupboards), but they complement mine (too much clutter stresses me out). My marriage is just constant peace of mind.
People don’t come online to talk about how happy their relationships are. It’s important to keep this in mind. I know I struggle with perspective too when spending so much time online. I try these days to skip most relationship posts or ones that are clearly going to be a lot of venting frustrations about men. Might be good for you too.
The Internet is not representative of real life and we should always be reminding ourselves of that when we consume its content.
Yes, there are good relationships out there. I’ve been with my husband for 17 years and he has always made me feel loved, wanted, and as though I can get through anything with him by my side. We just click together in every way, and my life is a million times sweeter and lighter with him in it.
My first serious boyfriend (and the person I lost my virginity to at 22, I was a late bloomer) set a great standard for what I should expect/want from a relationship and I’ll always remember it fondly for that.
He was a very secure person, and I’m avoidant so that detail is important, but I remember feeling during our first date that he was a safe person (and my initial assessment was correct).
At that time in my life, I was much more introverted and insecure and he was always attuned to that and would make sure I was comfortable in social settings (vs running away with friends and abandoning me). He was a great gift giver and would remember the random things I pointed out that I liked. He was also adamant about “taking care of me” during intimate times, and I never felt like anything he did was from a patronizing place.
Ultimately, I broke up with him because I needed to explore more but I appreciated the standard he set for me and I think I’ve managed to avoid toxic/abusive/plain shitty relationships partly because I know what good feels like.
My second, and most recent, serious relationship was also pretty great except we didn’t have much of a sex life – that wasn’t really an issue for me but I understand that it can be for a lot of people, so I don’t blame him for ending it. I still think of him as one of my soulmates (I believe you can have more than one and they can be platonic!) we had great banter and enjoyed supporting each other’s creative endeavors, which I never had before with anyone. We definitely had a lot of love for each other.
So, I do believe good relationships exist and, in fact, I’ve only been in good ones, but oddly, I love/prefer being single 😅
Sometimes I think it turns bad when you’re incompatible and you don’t acknowledge it. Or one or both of you stop showing up. It can turn into resentment and becomes dysfunctional. Then people turn to Reddit to vent or get help.
It’s still fairly new but very good. We were friends for a long time first so he understands my core emotional needs because of that and vice versa and we try to meet them.
We give each other care while respecting each other’s autonomy. We laugh a lot. We make each other’s nervous system feel calmer. When he asked if I wanted to do something sex-wise recently and I said no (nothing weird, I just wasn’t ready), he held my head between his hands and looked at me and said, thank you for telling me, it’s always okay to tell me no.
When there’s conflicts, we talk it out without defensiveness. We’re never mean or cruel to each other, literally never in the ten years we’ve known each other.
We point out the good in each other, magnify and reflect it.
We take care of ourselves and also each other. Out of love, not dependency. I know that my wellbeing is more important to him than him getting something he wants from me or than us being together.
I truly wish I knew the answer to this. I would not turn down a good man to have a relationship with, I’d love to have someone to share my life with. I do think tech has damaged gender relationships. It seems like it’s men against women. Truth be told, i’m doing fine on my own, I have great friends do fun things but I’m afraid of getting into a BAD relationship. I had one bad relationship and it tore me down at the time. After having spine surgery, then cancer, I don’t have the fight in me if I find myself in a bad situation. I’m not sure I’d have the strength to leave.
I didn’t get into the first and only healthy, solid relationship of my life until my mid-30s. We’ve been together for two years and in those two years we have been through a lot (health scares, serious illness in the family that involved being a caretaker for a while, job changes, death in the family, a move, the threat of a year apart due to circumstances, grad school drama, etc etc) but instead of breaking the relationship it made our relationship stronger. We actively choose to grow together not apart by having the hard conversations rather than avoiding them. We choose each other every day and choose to put effort into our relationship. He makes me feel so safe, loved, supported, and understood and I do my best to make him feel the same. It’s hard to describe the relationship without just gushing about my partner indefinitely so I’m going to stop here.
You might benefit from this OP. Article is from 1995 btw.
https://www.spectacle.org/995/love.html