How About Fixed Term Relationships?
When starting a new romantic relationship, some people have the ambition to stay together forever. Others just go with the flow and with a “let’s see how long it lasts” attitude. Either way, the relationship usually is open-ended and of undetermined duration.
How about having a fixed term relationship? A relationship that comes with an expiration date. A commitment limited to a fixed amount of time. Renewable, of course.
I have decided to try it out. My wonderful man (those of you who receive my newsletter already know about him) has accepted to play along, so we are now in a renewable very romantic <3 one-month relationship!
It seems to me that such a fixed term relationship has lots of advantages.
There’s no way we could take each other for granted. We’ll have to seduce each other all over again every time. That makes it more lively, more sexy, more fun.
I love the idea of renewing our commitment – or not. It makes the choice aspect of the relationship very clear. That makes things more dynamic and exciting. And also more conscious.
In a relationship of undetermined duration, we can try to not take our partner for granted, and we can renew our commitment from time to time too. However, the default still is “we are together” and “we want it to continue”. Whether we want it or not, this makes our attitude lean towards apathy. In fixed term relationships, there is no such default.
We will have to regularly check how we feel about the relationship, see if there are any unsolved conflicts or issues, and clear them. That’s a great way to make sure no misunderstandings or resentments remain unaddressed and accumulate over time.
It fosters frequent, honest and open communication. Communication is absolutely vital in relationships. I love the idea of sitting down together every month and asking “Okay, what’s going on between us?”.
Of course this is also possible in open-ended relationships, but here we will just have to. No way we could ever neglect the relationship for an extended period of time, as it often happens when people have been together for quite some time or when they are challenged in other life areas.
It could make breakups less traumatic. If a breakup happens, it won’t happen out of the blue or in a dramatic way. It will just be the result of discussing things out and one or both partners deciding not to go for another month. It makes leaving the relationship what it is: a choice, nothing more.
I want to make this relationship truly outstanding. I like to see it as a project and want to set goals for us as a couple. The fixed term relationship model will, I think, make sure that our relationship remains healthy and exciting at all times.
These are just my ideas now. I’ll know more after trying it out. What do you think?
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I think you should just take it day by day rather than lay down fixed terms and borders.Love is something you can’t measure it is eternal.The church and state invented marriage, and turned spirituality into a business so the clergy gets paid.Jesus was a good man who travelled light and with few possessions he had no church no borders and no books and fancy statues.Buddha also lived eternally in the moment.If you are truly in love there are no borders no rules there is only love.Love renews itself everyday just as the sun shines.When your truly in love you will not even think about fixed terms.Also relationships evolve change and sometimes fade you have to let it take it’s natural course.Feel don’t think.You can’t measure things like a scientist.Forget about fixed terms it’s bullshit.Who knows tommorow you may fall in love with the man of your dreams and send your current man packing or would you miss the chance and stick with silly rules.That is the beauty of life and love.Things can change in a moment.Although scary life is a gamble like love.To really love is a risk.Setting up a contract like a marriage contract is silly.Even with marriage there is always divorce.Nothing is written in stone.That is why true love is such a risk.It needs no golden ring or permission from a preacher who is paid to be spiritual.It does need dressing up in a suit or wedding dress it is eternal -between two lovers and if it ends only those two lovers will have shared that however long or short.
My current man IS the man of my dreams. ;)
I don’t think my idea is in contradiction with what you are saying. :-)
A partnership is not only spiritual love, it also entails mundane things, such as decisions to make, daily life matters, and all that. I don’t see our experiment as a contract or a rigid rule. I just think it is an interesting concept to try out, in the frame of our very human experience.
In my eyes love is not a risk. :)
But yeah, maybe that’s the left-brained facet of me surfacing. ;) I get your point.
Much love to you Jason,
Rosine.
Love is a risk. People risk lots of thing for passionate, romantic love. They risk their time to be with you, they risk strangers and friends yelling at them, saying that is not the person to be with. They put their hearts at risk for a heartbreak by giving each other their undying passion into you in hopes it will not be thrown away or ignored.
Is it a worthwhile risk? In my opinion yes. But others see it as not worth the heartache and never step in for the wild ride.
Best wishes to your partner and you.
Hi Andrew,
maybe I’m being really left-brained tonight, because I am going to split hairs. I would say entering a *relationship* might be a risk. As you pointed out, there is the risk of having your heart broken, the risk of social disapproval, and lots of other risks. (But if you ask me, even those risks are not really risks, depending on how you see reality and how you define a risk.)
But *love* is never a risk. Opening your heart and loving someone, without any expectation or attachment, is a wonderfully beautiful thing, it is always worth it, and it only leads to good things. The more you love, the more you get love reflected back from the Universe, and your whole life becomes so loving. That is no risk. :)
What you wrote is very beautiful.
Love,
Rosine.
Brilliant idea! Why didn’t I think of it hehehe.
I think you’ll learn a great deal about yourselves and relationships with this.
& it just might be a great pick-up line, “Wanna be my partner for 30 days?” ;D
Also, love the new direction of the site. Much love. :)
P.S I think if one lives a simple life with very few possessions then one has more time to focus on what is important.The mundane is left behind.
It is stupid to moralize against a couple sitting down, and having a thorough chat of reason. A couple doing that each month, is great! :)
Ofcourse, with love, one feels and doesn’t think. But for a relationship to work one needs to think. There’s lots of couples who love each other, but can’t be together, because they’re not good enough with the talking and thinking bit. Communication is vital, and love deserves that. :)
Communication is vital.Communication is a natural part of love.Love doesn’t deserve communication because love already has communication imbedded within it.For a relationship one needs to feel not think because then one can be resposive to the other. People can’t be together because there simply not in love thats why they can’t communicate.
I tend to agree with Tarjei that loving feelings do not necessarily imply that people are able to communicate with each other in a healthy and effective way. There is so much that can temporarily come in the way, like fears, emotional issues, past pain… We are not *permanently* *fully* conscious, aware and perfectly connected with love. Managing a relationship also entails dealing effectively with such suboptimal states of being.
You can do this only on the fly as it comes up (we do that too of course), or additionally also in a more systematic way. To each their own, I guess. :)
@Warping: Technically it’s a new site, new URL, new RSS feed… Nice to see you. :) Have you quit smoking? ;) Much love to you too.
This is the same concept in alignment with Handfasting sometimes, which is basically marriage without the documents.
Definitely not a new concept for many hand-fasters, who marry for a year and a day, and then revisit whether they’d like to renew their vows yearly.
Interesting, Angela! I had never heard of handfasting before. But yeah, that’s basically what we do. :)
We just renewed our relationship which had ended, hehe. ;) The conversation we had was very touching. So far we are both loving the concept!
I’m immediately adopting this concept.
We still are in a one-month relationship and still loving it. :) I love the monthly relationship status talks. I find it very fun!