Do Relationships Have To Last?

I have been a relationship addicted person. Sometimes i still feel like in order for me to feel secure, i need partner. I know that this is not healthy but this is how its always been for me. I figure i'll break out of this need in the future, but i am definitely not getting any younger!

I am lucky enough to not have been one of these types of people, however I have witnessed people who have been in these types of relationships. I feel that these people stay in these relationship because they most likely lack confidence and are afraid to be alone. They constantly need the attention from a partner, whether they love them or not, to feel worthy. This is very unhealthy and in the end this relationship will not last anyways.

I have been a relationship for four years until two months ago. Honestly I saw the relationship going down hill months prior to the official break up. I felt like I had to make the relationship work. I did not want to feel like a failure. There were many other reasons for me feeling like I had to stay in this relationship such as, embarrassment from my family, having to start all over again with someone new, and giving another women the opportunity to have my man who I know has improved in many ways because of me. Now she gets to reap those benefits. Eventually I had to realize that I had to let him go. Abdullah,NailahWPU

After my marriage of eighteen years, I have become much clearer as to what relationships should do, or what is its purpose. What resonates for me, from the book "The Seven Levels of Intimacy" is that the purpose of a relationship is for each to assist the other in becoming the best verson of themselves. It's not that our partners are responsible for our personal development, but any union, I think, should certianly facilitate or enhance the process. If you find you must compromise who you are to remain in a union, then we need to redefine it. It is not serving it's purpose. Too often we find our relationships held hostage by the expectations of others. It takes courage to act in our own behalf against such entrenched social conventions that relationships MUST last against all odds.

Relationships like most things get old with time unless something is done to change them. We become comfortable in a relationship even when it no longer makes us happy. Sometimes the fear of loniless can make us tolerate the most intolerable situations. We have the tendency to stray within our own homes, we stop sleeping in the same room, we eat at different times, and we do things and go places without our mates. To an outsider it looks as if everything is perfect, but on the inside the marriage or relationship has resolved. Even after we physically end the relationship and go our separate ways, we forget to mourn what we once had, and we begin to search once again for something we may never find. More then likely it maybe something that we already had.