A Thought on Marriage; Further Thoughts on Relationships

Marriage has several different claims of definition and depending on the culture it involves different requirements. Typically, it is the recognition of a contract by a group or larger society of beings (often a governmental entity is involved) in which two or more persons agree (or not) to remain obligated to one another for the purposes of love and love making. Often it involves procreation, but to many a man's relief such has failed to become a reality.

Relationships: During break-ups I have often heard a proclamation that follows some where along the lines of "well, I guess I didn't know who you really were." I think most people can relate to a situation in which they have heard some one voice their reasons in such a way. However, it is my intention to decode and dismiss such lines of reasoning because they are fallacious.

When two people meet, they match up, and they fall in love they develop certain expectations of one another based on their interpretations of past experiences they have had with each other. That isn't the end of the story though. Those expectations people develop for one another are based on the expectations each person involved has developed through out their lives experiencing the world and drawing conclusions based upon patterns they have perceived, that is, how their mind interprets reality. Good relationships are like a climax of all the most important expectations a person has for what they believe will make them happy.

Most relationships don't work. They don't work for several reasons. People aren't born unto this world equipped with all the knowledge that is conducive to living a happy existence. Most relationships don't work out because people are getting together at developmental stages in their lives in which they are often very fickle. Each person that exists is constantly taking in new information based on experiences they have in the world and they use the information to develop a logical construction of what reality is, but this construction is always provisional because the information that drives people to develop their personal theories about how reality actually is relies on input that is constantly being updated. People change.

Every person should be viewed as a being that develops ideas based on a provisional understanding of reality, that is, a being that operates on ideas which can change according to the discovery of elements fundamental to their understanding. This means that every person is a person in progress (whether you think they fit the bill or not) they are constantly experiencing the world and ADJUSTING their developmental frameworks about what they think is the best road to happiness.

So, now that any person should utter any phrase that reasons along the lines that "a person is what any other person expects" should ring fallacious. All we have are our experiences to use to develop our ideas about what we think reality is. We use these concepts to develop our understanding of people and we consequently develop expectations based on those ideas. Every social entity should realize that every being is influenced by their environment such that WHEN their environment changes significantly a significant change in the expectation of that person should logically follow.

Formula: The following is a formula I will use to represent the fundamental idea I am attempting to convey...

You meet Dave. You and Dave develop a relationship. That relationship grows. While you remain mostly the same Dave's circumstances change significantly. He develops expectations based on his new circumstances. Those circumstances may or may not be conducive to the health of you relations with Dave and consequently your expectations of happiness WITH Dave. Dave changes to adapt to his new environment; you either adapt to that change by adjusting your expectations of Dave or you do not. If you do not you and Dave will be in misalignment and the relationship you share will suffer.

People are afraid of the unknown sometimes because they don't know what to expect and part of having a healthy relationship with someone depends on being able to expect certain things from people. Everyone has circumstances in their lives that push them away from certain relationships. Think all the way back to your childhood. Your emotional attachments to others are derived from expectations you have placed on others and their attachments are based on their expectations of you. To think of others as unchanging is fallacious such that saying "I guess he/she wasn't who I thought he/she was" is wrong. Everyone changes. Finding someone whose change is conducive to your own gets harder as more time passes.