Life Partner

Dating getting evolved into marriage is incredibly scary now a days! I cannot even begin to explain the fear associated with married life I see around me. You see more and more couples delaying the big question in spite of having dated for years together. You also see a majority choosing short term hook ups because they are not willing to commit. Or the best of all, friends with benefits which is nothing but a hoax in my honest opinion! Simply because you are abusing both the relationships in this context - that of a lover and that of a friend. You can never cherry pick things, and may be that is why they land up alone in spite of having multiple relationships or feel inexplicably insecure in spite of prolonged dating. But there has to be more to it! If I ponder a bit on this I feel it lies in the lack of efforts to make things happen for you.

When you choose a life partner, you're choosing a lot more and very important things. This decision will define your life for the next 30-40 years at least. That person is going to share your bed, bathroom, kitchen and home. His or her habits are going to influence your sleep, hygiene, nutrition and leisure time. This person will significantly impact your relationships with your family and friends along with being a major part of your support system and a co-parent to your children. When you will have ups and downs in your career, this person will be your anchor who sticks through all thick and thin with you. When you want to take that break, he or she will be your companion who will make that break worth while! And when you will have wrinkles and slow down, this is the same person who will look up to you and feel that growing old together was a fulfilling experience! And if either of the above is something you are not okay with, can you imagine the rut you will render yourself into? This reality is much more intense than they can imagine!

I have my own doubts if such people can digest this intensity to begin with! They want a life partner who is all of the above but don't want to take efforts to become someone like it. I don't even think that they would ask these questions to themselves after a date, forget about while selecting a date! Then when it is too late, they will give into social pressures, get married and land up frustrated. If that doesn't happen, they will remain single and keep cursing the unreasonable expectations marriage brings in. The same people will have a list of things to say against marriage when it doesn't happen to them or breaks off pretty soon into it. Honestly, when you get into it for all the wrong reasons and when you look for all the irrelevant things in your partner, you can't really blame it on the marriage, you know!