Its Time to Redefine Relationships

Lady Jayne
3 min readApr 9, 2020

When I left my marriage, one of the biggest surprises was the wave of people who confided in me about how much of a disaster theirs had become. I had what many people thought was the perfect marriage and the perfect life; I had become very good at keeping secrets.

Forever was an easier promise to keep when we all died in our 30s, but now it could mean 50 or 60 years! We change a lot in a decade and our values and needs change with us. Sadly, this means we sometimes find ourselves unfulfilled with our old friends and partners. Or our relationships face bigger issues, we find out things about our partners that our values can’t handle and we need to leave. But instead, full of oxytocin from having great sex or whatever, we once stupidly promised to stay with them forever, and now we must either suck it up or face very serious consequences.

Why do we do that? Is it a romantic declaration, society, fear of loss, or just laziness? The model of permanence diffuses most things when it comes to topics like passion, power and respect.

We know that passion is a raw reaction that burns off the unknown and the forbidden. It is sparked like a hunt by potential, fed by craving and accelerated by scarcity. This is a very difficult dynamic to maintain in a long-term monogamous relationship.

We know that mutual boundaries are maintained through respect and conflicting boundaries through fear of loss.

But at the same time, being in love with somebody, having a partner in crime to travel with and a family to come home to is one of the most soul-enriching adventures we can have. For some of us it’s the holy grail. (We have very expensive rose-coloured glasses)

So what happens if we remove the permanence.

Imagine a life where our relationships were agreed for a time period with the option to renew. I sign a contract with you for five years, or even 10 years. Our prenuptial conversation isn’t just a barbaric negotiation on splitting assets under a blanket of denial; it’s also an open discussion on what needs we want to explore, and what the rules are for our relationship during the time of the contract.

What is your definition of a relationship? Have you ever thought about what you really need? Do you feel strongly about gender roles? What are your deal-breakers? Perhaps monogamy is important for some for the first five years but then needs to be revisited after.

This would encourage people to be really honest with themselves about their curiosities and encourage them to discuss it. Its painfully common that as humans we dissolve ourselves in relationships to fit (what we believe to be) the expectations our partners have of us without taking any time to consider, or voice, what we expect in return.

When the contract comes to term, if the partnership isn’t working anymore each human could respectfully part ways without having to destroy the other person for the sake of their reputation. We could avoid the horrible conversations; the blaming from society; the wailing mothers. We could avoid the pain of failure.

Imagine a society where it was simply understood that yes, some people do stay together for 50 years, but others just match perfectly for 10.

My biggest hope is that we stop taking each other for granted. People treat their partners like they will never leave, this shouldn’t be the case. Finding a person that you truly have that deep connection with is rare, its special. If the partnership continues to be fulfilling, then we should want our partner to renew. We would treat each other so differently.

We need to accept that we can love somebody deeply, but that doesn’t always mean forever.

We need to accept that this doesn’t mean that we failed at the end of a relationship. Sometimes it just means that we changed.

We need to learn that the continuation of a loving relationship is something to be celebrated.

Love is valuable but it is also fragile. We need to give it a safe place to flourish.

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