Asking for a Friend is the Daily Emerald’s sex and relationship column. Em Chan answers anonymous questions about anything from how to date during quarantine to how to heal a broken heart. Submit a question here: https://forms.gle/AZgBBMD65ZepY3KRA.
“I’m in my first serious, long-term relationship with someone I met my freshman year. I love him and we’re living together now. We certainly feel like we’ll be together forever, but how do I know if that’s realistic if it’s my first ‘real’ relationship? Am I being naive?”
– Hoping for Forever
Dear Hoping,
Right off the bat, I have to say you’re extremely lucky. Frankly, not many people in college can say their first relationship got off on the right foot like that and lasted, considering how much growth people go through in as short a period of time as a couple of months. Especially in the midst of this pandemic, I’ve seen a lot of relationships deteriorate under the extra strain.
I find it a bit strange that despite not stating any issues with your relationship, you wonder if it will last. My question for you is: If everything has been peachy so far, why worry about if it’s realistic?
Society and popular media have many ideas and thoughts about what a realistic relationship should and shouldn’t look like, but all relationship dynamics vary couple by couple. There’s no need to see if your relationship “matches” with those ideas that everyone else has, because only you and your partner know how your relationship is going.
The funny thing about relationships is that you really don’t know what dynamics you do best in until you experience more — but if you have a wonderful relationship right now, don’t worry about the all-encompassing idea of Forever. Forever is a long time (we also don’t live that long, fortunately), and you two are probably in your twenties.
Honey — can I call you that? — we will never truly know if our partners are meant to be with us. I personally don’t believe in soul mates, but some people do. Whether you do or don’t believe in soul mates, your belief that your relationship will last forever is only naive if you expect the current dynamics of your relationship will stay exactly the same in the future.
A common occurrence I’ve seen in college relationships is seeing couples break up shortly before graduation or in the months afterward, since the paths both people end up on diverging too greatly.
I’m not saying you and your partner will break up around graduation, but I can recommend that you talk about the future and what post-grad plans look like for the two of you. If you’re serious about having him around forever, you have to take on serious topics about the future like living arrangements, the age for “settling down” and the idea of having kids.
The main thing in thinking about forever is considering if you two both want to get married down the line. This isn’t about getting him to propose to you but making sure your futures are aligned. If you’re not sure how to navigate that, I already have a piece breaking down having a partner that is dateable but not necessarily marriage material. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already had these talks, but again, they’re recommendations.
The biggest destroyer of relationships, besides overthinking, is doubt. Once you have even an inkling of doubt in him or the relationship, it’s hard to go on as you were before the doubt set in. There’s no way to completely dispel your doubts, but keep them at bay if there aren’t any red flags. If your relationship is as strong as I perceive it to be from your question, you two should be able to talk through this concern of yours to reassure you.
For now, enjoy what you have with your partner. The greatest asset you have in trying to make your relationship last forever is your belief in the strength of the bond. The keys to having a relationship last is having open dialogue plus maintaining appreciation and genuine interest toward each other. It is so easy to take for granted the things around us — I mean, look at how we’re still acting in the middle of a pandemic towards some businesses — and you’ll see that it’s only then do issues typically arise. Lack of interest also leads to boredom, which can hurt your relationship.
At the end of the day, remember why you continue to choose to love him. Be proud of him and the bond you two share, and put your full confidence into it. Remember, the relationship is between you and him, and the better you can work through issues and insecurities like this one together, the greater the likelihood that you two could end up together forever.
