All relationships are based on expectations. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship it is, or between whom or what the relationship is. It could be a romantic relationship between two people, a partnership, friendship, between businesses and clients, or for a few technical examples, relationships between two tables in a database, or between two computers trying to establish a TCP/IP connection. Either side, and there could be more than two sides or parties involved, expect one or more things from the other side in order for the relationship to be established and to keep existing. The relationship cannot keep existing if either side does not meet the other’s expectations, and in such a case has no use.

In this post I’ll concentrate more on romantic relationships, or relationships based on love. So when I use the word relationship, that’s what I mean from now on.

In my opinion, the only expectation that should exist in a romantic relationship between two people, is giving and receiving love. Any romantic relationship which is based on other needs is doomed to fail. This has always been my main requirement for entering into a romantic relationship with someone else. The only thing I would expect from her, is to love me and give me enough attention and anything that naturally comes with that. I wouldn’t expect anything else. And I would want her to expect the same from me.

These days people enter into relationships with all kinds of wrong motives and expectations. This is one of the reasons why many relationships don’t work on the long term. For example, you have women, usually in their late 20s when they feel like they have partied enough and want a more stable life now, looking for men “to take care of them.” You have young boys and girls wanting to be with someone to be popular, or to be able to feel like they are part of something. Relationships based on such motives don’t have a lot of potential to last long, simply because they are based on the wrong things. If a girl is with you because of your money, what do you think will happen when one day you don’t have enough of it anymore? If she’s with you because of your status, what do you think will happen when one day you lose it?

A relationship based on love, true love, has the most potential to last long. It doesn’t mean that it will always last long, but just that it has the best chances to last long. And here, I’m talking about a relationship between two people as we know it in the traditional sense, where they remain faithful to eachother and essentially agree to belong to eachother (with or without marriage). Even this relationship, even though it has the best chances to last longer, often doesn’t last very long these days. The reason why is because people and situations can change over time. Apart from the fact that people can naturally change over time, it’s often also the case that they were just pretending to be someone else at the start of the relationship, just to meet the other’s expectations in order to establish the relationship. You can’t pretend to be someone else your whole life, and sooner or later, the other person will start to see the real you. Apart from the fact that it’s not easy to pretend to be someone else your whole life, you can also never be happy being someone else and doing the things that you don’t like.

Another reason why such a relationship doesn’t last very long, is that it is often limiting to both people involved, and its duration will depend on the level at which both people are able to live with the limitations they impose on eachother. I wrote before about love and limitations, and I wrote back then that such a relationship is not natural. People naturally want to be and feel free. And so limitations in relationships, or with regards to love, will only cause trouble.

Essentially, what I’m saying is that relationships in the traditional sense (boyfriend-girlfriend, husband-wife) and love, don’t belong together. Why? Because it’s not natural, and anything that is not natural, will require a lot of (wasted) energy to keep going.