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Success! Why Not Every Breakup Means a Failed Relationship
If you’ve spent your life thinking every relationship you’ve had was a failure because it ended, it might be time to reconsider.
“I’ve had many successful relationships before now.”
Those words were spoken by a man I once dated, and at the time, I thought he was crazy. Every relationship had ended, so how on earth could he consider them successful? They were the very definition of failure, because they had ended in breakups!
It took time, but I finally grew up enough to understand his point. Unfortunately, it’s one I think a lot of people probably don’t get. And yet, if they did, it could make a world of difference not only in how they look at past relationships but also how their current and future relationships unfold.
The success of a relationship isn’t defined by its length or the fact that it ends at death rather than in a breakup. Consider the number of abusive relationships that last decades — would you call them successful? I certainly wouldn’t.
But if it’s not relationship length or how it ends that defines a successful relationship, what is it then? How do we determine whether a relationship was a success?
