The Cart Before the HorseThe seeds for your failure existed even in your happiest successes. The course of any relationship is tough to predict. Some of the most well-matched couples you ever meet end up broken up in a matter of two years while some of the oddest arrangements you’ve ever come across end up standing the test of time. And while every relationship is its own beast, there is at the very least, one factor which often shapes many relationships: You’ll fail the course if you put the cart before the horse. Especially in long distance and online dating arrangements (for reasons we will get to shortly), perhaps the most culpable cause of relationship disaster is jumping too quickly into too deep a romantic situation. You introduce sex or serious physical intimacy before one or both parties are ready, you move in too soon together, you get engaged too soon, kids too soon – any time you two end up in too serious a position too soon, you run the acute risk of a relationship heart attack. And it won’t happen overnight. Oh no, the type of failure you set yourself up for in these circumstance is a much more monumental, brewing sort of cataclysm. In all likelihood, you two will surmount your issues in the short term. After all, it’s some sort of crazy hot connection you two share that set the timeline on “Immediate” in the first place – that heat alone will take you for a few months, maybe a year even. But the doom for you two is as the doom for anything often is – impending. The structure that you have set up for your relationship is doomed to failure in the same way as a house built on too haphazard a foundation. Especially us dreamers in the world, we are the ones who seem to crash at the feet of this pattern over and over again. By dreamers, I mean those of us who continue to put ourselves out there online and hold onto long distance relationships when they pop up; those of us who keep up a hope for true love in the face of repeated failure. Yeah, we tend to have problems with this one because our long quest makes potential mates seem like such rare fish in such a huge ocean that we can clutch a little too tight. Look, it’s OK to get excited about your blossoming connection. It’s OK to move forward and for you to feel nervous about big steps. What you don’t want to end up doing is putting yourself in a position where too much hinges on a single action or decision. What is too much? Moving in, kids and intermingled assets are three easy ones, but there are more. As with all things in love, you have to be the one to decide what will and will not work for you. And when you do start progressing into these big place of parenthood and marriage, just make sure that you do one at a time. Instead of getting married, moving and having kids in the same two weeks, go slower, more methodical. Move in and let that sit for a year. Then think about marriage. Because the last thing you want to do is ruin a relationship only because you wanted it to work. |
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