Agree | Disagree – COMMITMENT is a waste of your time!
- By JessInTheMoment
- 15 December, 2012
- 7 Comments
COMMITMENT is waste of your time!
(if and only if you are single, and you want to be married…)
by commitment, i mean dating one person exclusively…thereby shutting yourself off from all other prospects.
i know we are accustomed to a certain relationship pattern…
- you meet somebody
- you spend alotta time with that person
- you get into a relationship
- monogamy is the expectation, but cheating is not out of the ordinary
- you may or may not get married…but odds are, you prolly won’t
when the relationship ends (which they ALL will, until you get married), one or both parties often laments, What about all the TIME i put in…ALLLLLL theeeeeese yeeeeears i invested, etc, etc, etc…. the time wasted is almost as tragic as the hurt feelings. and if the break up comes after a number of years, i’m talkin 2, 3, fifty-leven years, the time wasted often trumps the hurt feelings.
*singing* “eee-leven years, i sacrificed…and you can leave me at the drop of a dime…swallowed my fears, stood by your side…i shoulda left yo ass a thousand times!” (ya’ll remember that song, don’t cha?)
so what’s the alternative to commitment?
i’ll tell ya.
mutual sexual exclusivity with the person you care about, while still meeting, dating, and spending time with other people.
i know this might sound radical, but when i think about it, many of my friends (men AND women) in relationships are doing exactly that (quiet as it’s kept lol). they are still meeting people, getting numbers, going out on dates… “i’m bout to have a drink wit my frieeeend….” mm hmm …chile please, that ain’t nunna yo friend lol.
but really, if you know you want to get married one day, should you really trust someone that you met 6 months, 1 year, 2 years ago, to not waste your precious time? should you really stop yourself from meeting people, flirting, making connections, having fun? i say hellllllllll naw.
i know some people might read this and think, When i’m really into somebody, i don’t *want* to date anybody else. i feel the same way, actually. but i also know the pain of a break up, too. i know the pain of giving all my attention to a situation that ultimately did not end in marriage. and i lived. and i learned.
i learned that one of the best ways to get over a break up is to date somebody else. it helps you remember that you still have the capacity to care for another person. and there are other people out there in the world that will and do care about you. and if you never stop dating other people, you don’t have to sit at home, bored, feeling sad and lonely. u can simply keep your life moving and let time heal that wound.
i also learned to put myself first and not stop my show unless i know that the man wants the same thing i do. love. marriage. kids. the whole sha-bang. and how will i know for sure? when he asks for my hand in marriage, of course! that’s the only way you can know for certain. and that’s when i’ll stop dating.
don’t allow somebody to put you “on hold” until they figure out what they wanna do. cuz at the end of the day, you only have one life to live. nobody owes you anything, even if you invest 20 years into a relationship. if you don’t get what you want, you only have yourself to blame. in the meantime in between time…get out there, flirt your ass off, and enjoy yourself! that’s what i’ll be doin! :)
but what about you? are you unmarried and in a monogamous relationship? if it doesn’t work out, are you ok with the idea that you may have been wasting your time? are you comfortable with the idea of dating and having fun with several people at one time, while being emotionally and/or sexually attached to one? are you comfortable with your boo doing the same thing? why or why not?
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"don’t allow somebody to put you “on hold” until they figure out what they wanna do." So this sort of sounds like the "open relationship" discussion. I know for myself if I date while in a committed relationship I will slowly but surely become detached from the person I'm in a relationship with. It's like going to the gym to get a great body but you still eat bad food: if you go to the gym and eat ben and jerry's then eventually you'll stop going to the gym because you aren't getting the results. My point is if you aren't fully committed to a person would you really get to the alter?
good question, danielle. i had to think about that for a sec. see, i'm not entirely convinced that it's actually commitment that gets you to the altar. i think *connection* is far more important. that "this person GETS me" kind of connection. and honestly…a premature commitment might actually get in the way of figuring out if the connection is strong. because now you're wasting time "doing the right thing" to honor your commitment. and you're not even married to the person! or you're not honoring the commitment at all, which people often do because they find better deeper connections with people outside the relationship.
What happened to believing that.you met prince charming?
What is the ideal relationship progression in the paradigm you've described?
1. Meet someone
2. Still kick it with others
3. Get married
Is the first time one is "committed" at marriage? Seems risky to make that ultimate commitment before knowing if one's partner can operate in a relationship that doesn't have the option of an easy escape.
Or is there some intermediate step between #2 and 3 ?
Also, what are the reasons for committing to an exclusive sexual relationship? Let's assume that everyone is practicing safe sex. Why doesn't the logic of the risk of a failed relationship with the "primary" justify an open sexual relationship as well?
it does justify an open sexual relationship, actually.
just not for me. sex tends to reinforce a strong emotional attachment for me. i know this about myself, so i cannot have a sexual relationship with more than one person at a time. but not everybody feels this way. so for those that don't, they shouldn't feel obligated to be sexually exclusive.
and yes, that sorta is the ideal relationship progression. and one that many (not all, but a significant portion) people already operate in, but dishonestly
and yes it is risky to make that ultimate commitment based on the relationship paradigm that i presented. but i don't think it's any riskier than spending a long time in relationship that you're not certain will lead to marriage. i mean…marriage is risky business, in general.
i think that when you have many options because you're dating other people, and you keep on "choosing" that one person…then, can't you feel more confident in your choice for a partner? can't your partner feel more confident, too? that might make marriage feel like a less risky investment. "i know my partner could have chosen several people to be with…but he/she chose me. he/she never felt obligated to be with me…we have a *real* connection here."
Hmmm…so a #1 man who fulfills all her physical needs and a #2 man who fulfills all of her social needs and is not at all interested in her body. If that existed, Monday Night Football would box it up and sell it at a premium price of many "50-Eleven Thousand" dollars.
There are women who would allow this. Thee are men who would allow this. But there is no blueprint for how to implement and that's where somebody is liable to get straight molly-wopped. I mean what are the boundaries. Is everyone privy to what's going on or are you just missing 3 times a week? How do I know that I'm the #1 and not the #2?