Infatuation, the most common excuse unhappy people use to explain people that are in happy and loving relationships. Some call it the honeymoon phase of a relationship that happens in the beginning when you meet someone new for the first time and you’re just getting to know them. And when this phase ends people will commonly say, “Honeymoon is over, time to come back down to earth!” What a great way to be a dick, don’t you think?
I’ve already written articles related to infatuation and how to make a relationship stay alive forever with that type of spark and magnitude in my article titled “old fling new fling” so we aren’t going to talk about the specifics of infatuation and how to make it last. What we’re going to talk about is how to identify infatuation, when it starts, when it ends, how to determine the real deal, and how to figure out if it’s no deal.
So you’ve been with someone for some period of time and you’re asking yourself. Is this the real deal or just a period of infatuation? How do I know the difference? Well, most likely you’re already making the mistakes I said not to in my article, so I’m not sure what can be done for you if you are but here goes nothing.
Infatuation is officially over the minute you have your first disagreement or argument. It doesn’t matter if it was a small one or you didn’t argue at all, the fact that someone said something that may have struck a nerve or bothered you in some fashion that caused you to think about it after it was said, even if you don’t say anything or fight about it, is a great indicator that you are no longer in an infatuation stage. When you are infatuated, there is nothing wrong with the other person and nothing bothers you, no matter what it is, big or small.
If you haven’t broken the infatuation stage, great and not great. Infatuation can last a long fucking time and if you follow some of the things I talked about in another article, it can probably last forever with the right person. So if you’re not out of the infatuation stage by my standards, then keep up the good work and enjoy yourself. But if you are out, read on.
The next thing you need to determine is if the relationship you’re in and the person you’re with is the real deal or no deal. It is quite possible to be in a serious long lasting harmonious relationship with someone without being infatuated. In fact, this scenario makes up the majority of relationships. There aren’t many people together who are indefinitely infatuated. When people see two people in that much love they either think they are crazy or faking it.
Unfortunately, to make any determination, you need to know what you want from this person. Do you need them to be your soulmate and share in every aspect of your life or are there certain areas and roles you expect this person to fill? From there you will be able to quickly eliminate people from your life that just don’t have what it takes and move on to find what you’re looking for.
So you’re attracted to this person physically, check. You have a lot in common, check. You enjoy each others company, check. So what could be wrong?
Well, beyond all the great sex, laughter, fun, and attraction, eventually you’ll want someone to share your deepest thoughts and desires with. This is where a lot of people fail. You may have common interests with a person but be at completely different communication and intelligence levels (places in your mind) opposite from your person outside your limited areas of interest. And it’s okay and expected for this to happen, but this is where defining what you want out of this relationship really comes into play.
Some things you might be okay with not discussing like religion, politics, money, and business. Or maybe you aren’t okay with not being able to discuss those. Maybe your person just has a hard time being interested in anything you talk about. Maybe you’re a philosopher and you talk about things in theory and instead of entertaining the thought they close it off and think it’s stupid and are unable to participate in the conversation. Everyone has different expectations for what they want in a relationship and you absolutely need to know where your hard limits are.
Maybe the person you’re with doesn’t understand your job or why you do things and bickers about it or complains and maybe that’s a deal breaker. Maybe they are too needy and not understanding and require things of you that you generally don’t want to do but you do it for them anyways and the one time you don’t do it, they ride your ass and put you down.
Maybe those things are cuddling at night or in the morning, maybe it’s having a discussion, maybe it’s just being next to each other even if you’re not engaged in active communication with that person, maybe it’s making breakfast; it could literally be anything. But if it’s a hard limit for you and causes you too much stress then it’s simply not going to work.
It shows a severe lack of respect for you when you go out of your way to do things for someone and they first take you for granted and then secondly, complain when you take a day off or stop doing it. If you partner isn’t capable of recognizing the things you do for them or has the attitude that you are selfish and don’t do anything for them at all, it’s not going to work. I’m sorry but relationships exist solely because you do stuff for each other, and if your partner thinks they do more or you don’t do anything, I’d open the door immediately and help them through it because they are honestly worthless to even suggest something as silly as that.
People in relationships always do things for the other person, if you don’t think your partner does or you think you do more, bring that conversation up. Find out what your partner thinks they do for you and you’ll very quickly find out that they don’t think you do anything and think they do more. The way around this is to establish expectations of what each other should do on a basic level at the very least for each person, or better yet, what roles each person plays in the marriage. You should never have to listen to someone say I work for money to take care of you or I do your laundry and clean the house, that’s crazy talk. Those are not things you’re doing for each other anyways, you’re doing it for the benefit of your joint relationship. Relationships are like businesses as I wrote about in how to flatline a perfect relationship.
If your partner likes to over generalize and the first time something goes wrong all of a sudden you never did this or never did that and a long list of things you did, said, didn’t do, or didn’t say follows; guys and gals, seriously, it’s not going to work. You’ll spend your entire life trying to make someone else happy.
You may have the perfect wife, perfect friend, and perfect person in so many ways, but I’m telling you hands down, if you cannot effectively communicate or if there are things that are very important to you that you don’t feel like you can discuss with your partner, you’re going to have a bad time and it’s not going to work.
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