Your Relationship

Relationships are complicated, but they don’t always have to be. Some of them are straight forward. High school sweet hearts are by definition that type of couple. They date each other from whatever grade freshman through senior year, and continue to date each other through college and eventually the rest of their lives. The rate of divorce from this type of relationship is actually pretty low. Sitting at about 50 percent when the couple gets married in their teenage years, and shooting up to almost 80 percent when they wait until the age of 25. It may seem shocking as it was to me, or maybe this is common knowledge but the real surprise is that less than two percent of all marriages are from high school sweethearts. This would mean that 98% of people globally are meeting each other in an adult environment. Whether that be work, vacation, a friend of a friend, online dating or any other possible way. However, the divorce rate at least in the United States has not significantly changed over the past few years. It still remains more or less at 50 percent. That 50 percent would come from the majority of relationships meaning out of that 98 percent of people who met in random ways, 50 percent will be divorced eventually. This puts high school sweethearts in a minority forcing the question “Is love at first sight better than love that was cultivated?” Yes it’s true that both can be developed, but the starting line is drastically different for each of them. One couple began their love the moment they met each other. There was passion, fire, commitment and a deep desire to do anything and everything with this person forever. That type of love has seen no hardship yet, but has perfect communication because the goals are mutual between them. A relationship that has a cultivated love is the exact opposite. In the beginning there wasn’t any love. They find each other through normal means meaning the only reason for the conversation is a lust filled one. After a couple dates or a couple sex sessions both sides start thinking bigger and further; usually understanding that this will either blossom into a beautiful relationship or be another conquest, adventure etc. If the answer is a relationship they now have to take off their armor and see what the other is made up of. The ups, and downs from there on out will either build a fortified love or shatter both of them into pieces. This type of relationship seemingly finishes at the start line for couples that have been in love since day one, but is also in the majority so it already has a fifty-fifty shot at never making it.

There are other reasons besides love that couples don’t make it. Infidelity is a big one, and can be the difference between happily ever after and never being able to build another relationship again. To be specific slightly less than half or forty percent of unmarried couples, and twenty-five percent of marriages see at least one instance of cheating. Those numbers tend to trend upwards for men and slightly decrease for woman, but in America the number of cheating couples is upwards of seventy percent. So, regardless of what anyone thinks about relationships and who they have we should all be more careful of our spouses and who they hang around. Not to say that we can’t be trusting of them (that’s one of the reasons arguments happen) but numbers don’t lie, and even in years prior (2018/2019) they were still in the ballpark of seventy percent. In addition to that it’s a known fact that men cheat more often than woman at about twenty-two percent admitting adultery versus woman coming in at almost half that at thirteen percent. Unfortunately, we can say that these numbers were skewed and potentially always will be unless they conduct them with lie detector tests. The stats come from people who are openly admitting it on an interview platform. Most people I know that betray someone don’t go around telling people what they did. They usually take the secret to the grave, or become to guilty to hide it anymore and leave the person without reason as it’s quicker to leave abruptly for no reason than to admit fault, and sit with disgust.

However, the number of woman cheating this day and age has been increasing. In the last twenty years woman have been cheating forty percent more. There are a lot of things to blame for this but first up would be the men. Males have been cheating on woman for centuries and outperformed them every year. Fortunately for woman there has been a surge of legislation that’s been leveling the playing field so to speak. Society today has told us woman can do everything a man can do and they are proving it. Woman don’t care what men think anymore, and have had to grow thick skin so they could move past men calling them sexual slurs like slut, whore and disgusting human being. Not only do they have access to the same applications as men, but they are a lot sneakier and have less of a chance of getting caught. One in six people have admitted to using a dating app for the sole purpose of cheating on their partner. The math on that is seventeen percent; meaning that as a species we are heading in the wrong direction for relationships as a whole, as those number keep increasing every decade. The next sensible question would be “Is it possible to survive infidelity”? The answer is a simple yes with a bunch of complicated no’s right behind it. It is possible to stay together after an incident, but it depends on what type of relationship is in place. To start, forty percent of Americans that have cheated on their partner are either separated or divorced from them; the flip side to that is only seventeen percent of those same Americans who have never cheated are divorced from their spouse. Now unfortunately gender does play a role in these stats as men who cheat tend to stay with their wives more than woman who cheat on their husbands. The numbers side by side are sixty one to forty four percent (men to woman) that are still married to their spouse, and thirty four to forty seven percent (men to woman) that are divorced or separated.

This statistic is shocking because this means men are less forgiving about getting cheated on than the woman they are cheating on. It’s interesting to understand that not only do men cheat more, but they have done so over decades of time and now when it happens to them they not only break, but dissipate under the pressure. It’s also good information to know that breaking up doesn’t at all guarantee long term success, a second, or even third time. If anything it increases the chance for failure; to put it in perspective imagine a someone dropping a piece of glass that in this scenario is their significant other. Now that glass says since It has been dropped it’s going to leave and find a new partner. The new partner now has to take on broken goods, damages that they did not inflict and fix them. Not only is it tasking for them, but every time the glass speaks it only talks about how it was first dropped, and how it doesn’t trust the new person because any day it could be dropped again. Obviously the end is clear correct? The relationship is new, but the problems are old and it will fail, and that cycle will continue again and again until the glass (person) has fixed themselves. Now there are some things like couples therapy that can increase the odds of staying together, but both people must come together and agree to put forth continuous effort to make it work. If not then it’s not worth the money nor the time and the two should split ways. The stats on this are daunting as well; twenty percent to forty percent of couples that go through couples therapy still break up. However, that still leaves sixty percent of couples that make it through, and it doesn’t account for couples that don’t consider infidelity cheating.

This type of relationship has been referred to as an open relationship or polygamy. Those who practice this type of lifestyle are referred to as polygamists or swingers. The loose definition of this lifestyle is having the ability to have casual sex with other people besides ones partner. Whatever side is right or wrong doesn’t matter, and that leaves us with the stats which say that in America only about four percent of couples engage in open relationships; while eighty nine percent are involved in monogamous relationships, and the rest are in non consensual monogamous relationships. Thirty four percent of those in open relationships admitted to being gay and the rest were either bisexual or identified as other. That stat should have nothing to do with open relationships, and it’s hard to see the correlation until it’s understood that fifty six percent of people believe being in an open relationship is morally wrong. Now it’s unclear if this fifty six percent is the same percent that cheats on their spouse or not, but it starts to make sense. Things start to become even more clear when sixty percent of woman would leave their partners to be in an open relationship compared to just forty seven percent of men. The same men who are unforgiving of their woman for cheating, or having a slip up as they did wouldn’t want their woman sleeping with other men (even if they knew about it). The key take away from this is about eighty to ninety percent of people are happier after engaging in a polygamous lifestyle. Adding to that seventy six percent of open marriages are better than average, or outstanding compared to their monogamous partners which could only mean what? Maybe we should stop forcing our partners to only be with one person; maybe we stop thinking of marriage as “settling down” as it only leads to separation and heart ache… The same people who detest polygamists are cheating on their wives or vice versa, and are upset because they want to live life a different way, but they can’t because they’re afraid. Do the math, if four percent of people are in open relationships and eighty nine percent are in monogamous relationships, but those that are with one partner cheat upwards of seventy percent (in America), and sixty nine percent are against open relationships, but eighty to ninety percent of people say they are happier being in one than not someones lying. A lot of people are lying, and whether that’s to themselves or their partner is a different conversation.

Now to open up the conversation to the rest of the world which is sitting at only two percent living in a polygamous household. This is can only be assumed because polygamous relationships are illegal in most countries, and have been banned by the United Nations Humans Rights Committee. They decided as a group of leaders that polygamy must be abolished because “It violates the dignity of woman”. How noble of them to finally think of woman who still don’t receive free menstrual products, or have full control of the babies that are growing inside their bodies. Also polygamy isn’t stated to be just for men. In the definition it just states casual sex can be had with other people besides ones partner which, would mean woman could have multiple husbands, and doesn't that seem more likely to be the problem? I mean were talking about a board of men after all who are in the majority of sixty six percent that would leave their wives if they got cheated on. Wouldn’t this just be another way of not only keeping woman down, but also keeping the global population unhappy forcing them into a monogamous relationship because it’s “The morally upright thing to do” who knows. What we do know is that most polygamous relationships take place in either Sub Saharan Africa or in Arabic communities. However, even in these groups the laws and regulations surrounding polygamy are strict.

Once again relationships are complicated, and they clearly take a lot of work to nurture and keep strong. I think dating is good, but we haven’t been able to date as we would naturally without our government telling us what to decide. Whether it’s one person or fifteen nothing should matter except each one of those individuals happiness. Although, unfortunately that’s not the world we live in and dating is terrible. There’s apps people can connect on, some people are ramp-id cheaters, and others have never been honest with themselves or their partner. A relationship could be as strong as diamond and crumble like sand the next day over something ant size, but that same relationship could shine brighter than a star because they look past the insignificant blunders. Who knows what the future holds for any of us; maybe in thirty years time people will start dating robots, and there won’t be a need for us to court with flesh anymore. It’s also possible there will only be arranged marital consummations instead of dating who knows. I don’t have an answer for any of it and that’s okay. I don’t think one way is right or wrong, but I do enjoy the facts, and the fact is I know that I have to do whatever I want that makes me happy. That is the biggest truth, and whoever doesn’t agree has lost their mind. We only have one life to live as far as I know so why not live it freely.