Depend on No One
To achieve true freedom in life and within your relationship
I was talking to my housemate the other day about how the holidays went. She told me she and her boyfriend of five years are currently discussing how and when they want to get married. Her boyfriend is one of those ambitious investors and my housemate wants to try to start a business in the future. She told me that they might go through the work to create a pre-nuptial agreement for their marriage.
In our conversation, we talked about our personal life goals and how we felt about marriage and life. I brought up a comment that I had read on Reddit in which someone stated that the people who are most successful at finding a long-term partner at a young age (20s) are those who don’t have grand ambitious dreams of travel or illustrious careers. I tend to agree with this statement as the more varied experiences I have, the more I grow as a person and the more likely my values could change, and therefore, the trajectory of my life could diverge from my partner.
What does Marriage mean?
My housemate told me that she had wanted to live a simple life and get married, yet she finds herself in one that is quite complicated. The more she talks about marriage with her boyfriend, she questions what marriage means to her. We both happened to agree that marriage is a commitment to doing our best within the partnership for as long as the relationship lasts. It’s a confirmation of the elevated level of feelings within the relationship. When someone is just your boyfriend, they can break up with you at any time; it could even happen over text or phone. There’s a decently large spectrum with levels of commitment, respect, and compassion. With marriage, this becomes more complicated with the divorce process. (That said, abusive marriages exist and partners can still cheat and have affairs.)
The lack of expectation
In a perfect relationship, I’d want a partner who is strong where I am weak, and I am strong where they are weak. We can be interdependent individuals within the relationship. Not everyone has the privilege of being with a partner who offers that interdependency. Thus, within the relationship, there is a certain level of distance and detachment.
This also applies to partnerships with ambitious and career-oriented people. The relationship itself is not a priority to the individual. It may be something that one wants or appreciates if it happens, but most decisions will be made without the partner in mind. (Mind you, this is directly in conflict with all of the relationship advice that states that a good partner will keep the other in mind.) Sure, short-term decisions that happen on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis may include the partner; however, for long-term decisions, a lot of career-oriented people primarily focus on the benefits of certain choices to themselves. (I will admit, that I am one of those people.)
Depend on No One
Because the decisions of career-oriented people tend to lean selfish, it is safer to go into the relationship with a mindset that “this could end any day” and to depend on no one else. When you depend on no one, then you are not obligated to do anything for others. When there are no expectations, there is a sort of freedom with whom you interact and foster relationships and how involved they are in your life.
Once I understood that there was nothing expected of me and nothing I was obligated to do within a relationship, then it gave me the freedom to not worry about “what I should do”. It allowed me to focus on what I wanted to do. It has made life a lot more free-ing, not having to participate in anything I didn’t want to do. If two people are mutually selfish within a relationship, it still works out. They simply have opted to define their relationship differently from the standard expected within society — whatever that is.
Is this pessimism?
Relationships aren’t quite black/white and there’s definitely some tolerance needed to foster a healthy relationship with a partner. I don’t think this is pessimism, as this mindset is one that allows you to let go of all pressures and fully embrace yourself and the relationship at the same time. I’ve found myself more able to enjoy my relationship with my partner and friends now that I have let go of all expectations.