Relationships are good. What is not good is allowing that one relationship to control our lives. I mean, after all, there ARE different types of relationships anyway. In marriage, our spouses are suppose to be our best friends. True, but that does not mean that we don't need other relationships, other friendships in our lives.
This is where my title comes in. I think some of us put too much value, too much priority on the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of the person we are involved with to the point that it literally damages the other relationships that we have with other people, some even to the point of destruction. This is a problem, if you ask me. I completely understand being considerate of those thoughts, feelings, and opinions but at the same time, we can't put so much weight on them that it prevents us from doing the right thing.
Sometimes, we care too much about how our decisions are going to affect THAT person, that we are not considerate enough of how it is going to effect our relationships with people other than our significant other. Making the decision that will make our spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, or whoever that most significant relationship partner is in our lives happy right now is not always the best decision for ourselves or those other relationships we have. No matter how important that significant other is to us, it is just as important to have people other than them that we can call friend because when our issue is with them, who will we have to talk to? When we just want to spend time with someone that is NOT that someone that we are always with, who will we have?
Like I said, it is good to have relationships but the romantic relationship is not the only relationship there is. Putting that person first does not mean doing whatever they want us to do just because we don't want them to be upset with us. Because when we really think about it, that is just one method that person is using to control us. If they know they can get us to do what they want because we don't want them to get mad, they will use it every time and eventually we will always be giving in to them and pushing others away in the process. Then who are we going to be stuck with? Yep... No matter how much we love them, we will indeed be stuck if we put too much weight on their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. I guess I am just saying be mindful of the motivations behind them because do we really want our lives to be run by someone else's trust issues or insecurities?
