That’s what I strive for in any relationship: staying together purely because we choose to. I don’t want someone to stay with me for any other reason, and I want my partner to know that I choose them. Not out of obligation or necessity, but because I truly want them close to me. It’s simple but meaningful.
It’s also okay to fail. I agree with that as well. I just won’t see a relationship - marriage or not - as a failure if it brought two people happiness for a while until they amicably decide to end it. It’s only a failure when it makes them miserable or when they end it by needlessly hurting the other person. But… that’s still okay if they can at least see what they did wrong and learn from it. We all make mistakes.
I see it mostly as a legal contract and legal status, but with a lot of extra baggage heaped on top. It’s an overloaded concept that tries to cover too many things at once, making them all suffer. Separate out the legal business and you’d lose the need for an explicit declaration that this union is to exist in perpetuity until cancelled by either party. Sure sounds full of romance when stated that way, doesn’t it?
But realistically, we all know you can get divorced. While we might hope it’ll be forever, we also know we’re still not gonna stick around if things get too bad (nor should we). Nobody has the shocked pikachu face when marriage isn’t forever after all. No matter what the vows say, in practice we pretty well accept that it’s a big commitment, but not a permanent one.
I think it definitely applies to relationships. It does you and any of your partners a disservice to say your relationship was only a success if one of you died.
A person isn’t a thing you possess. They have needs that grow and change with them. If those needs ever stop being compatible with the relationship, then the relationship should end. That’s not failure. It’s wanting the person you love to be happy.
For me it comes down to how you use language. Mental health is important to me and I recognize the power of words, so I care more about the impact of language use. No matter how much you reassure people that it’s okay to fail, failing still feels bad. It makes people feel like … a failure. That seems counterproductive and unnecessary to me. Why make people feel bad when they did nothing wrong?
You can specify exactly how and why it’s a failure if you want, and you’re not technically wrong. I’m just not principally concerned with being technically correct in the first place. I’m reframing the standard narrative because I hate to see it go unchallenged. So for anyone who’s hurting and reads this and feels like shit, this time I’ll be the one to say something.