Desire & the End of NRE

[PinkPig]

On the "choosing blindness", I'm obviously not Refusnik and won't speak for him, but I was thinking something similar to what he (and some of the others) said. In my opinion, its not about ignoring someone's faults or bad behavior, its about seeing them, accepting the person as they are, loving them as they are, but not mentally focusing on those traits. What we focus our energy on colors our interactions with the person. Obviously this doesn't mean accepting unacceptable behavior. Nor does it mean not maintaining your boundaries. It just means watching where you put your mental focus. If the issue isn't a deal breaker or something your partner wishes to change about themselves, then focusing on it will just be a barrier to intimacy. For me, it also means letting go of expectations and resentments....both of which can kill a relationship.

I was with my ex husband over 25 years and with Blue over four. In both cases, my desire waxed and waned depending on life circumstances and how emotionally connected i felt with my partner. During one rough patch with my ex I started a gratitude journal focusing on my ex and our relationship. It made a huge difference in how connected I felt to him which made me desire him more. But then, our issues weren't related to desire or lack thereof....

 

[anamikanon]

This is heartening to hear. I like having hope.

And why not. Only constant of life is change. Neither of us are the same people we were 10 years or 4-5 relationships ago. We learn with each relationship, we prioritise our desires from a relationship differently with experience.

I knew the relationship would end over, so I guess I "checked out" sexually, maybe, for those reasons.

Makes sense. However, in that case, you probably should be looking closer at the lack of desire for husband, whom you do claim to like and want to keep - so whatever is causing you to check out, isn't conscious. Perhaps identifying addressing it will help you fix the situation (or, break it, alas).

But it has always been about a similar duration—somewhere between 2.5–3 years, like clockwork.

Is it possible that you pull of NRE for that long, and then after you are past wanting to see the best and the partners are past wanting to present their best only.... You start seeing other things that aren't as pretty? Possibly even stuff you noticed and dismissed earlier without investigation only to realize magnitude later. That would sound pretty normal.

In my world, kissing princes turns them into frogs, so once the hormonal high is done, it is pretty hard to remain impressed with the guy. I am also an intellectual snob among many other requirements like emotional literacy, political views, and what not - fine with ignorance or lack of interest in knowing something, but expecting me to dumb myself down or pretending knowledge you don't have kills a relationship like it were a switch. And there are many switches - cruelty/sexism/inherent unfairness/prejudice/exploitation/entitledness/dishonesty... Unethical behavior not just ends a relationship, will likely have me sneering and evicting. Staying impressed is a struggle for me, unless there are signs of a learning curve out of the deal breakers as well. Sadly, the things I lose respect over matter to me. So I can't unsee them. Not being emotionally dependent "need a man in my life" type, there literally remains no deterrent to near immediate dumping if I don't like. Then it is over.

What I am saying is that it may not be a "fatal timer", but simply the natural progression.

 

[anamikanon]

Staying impressed is a struggle for me, unless there are signs of a learning curve out of the deal breakers as well.

If my post struck recognition, one positive thing i can say on the front of the above sentence is that if a man recognizes the problem with whatever I had an ethics issue with and makes an effort to overcome it (as opposed to not caring or thinking I'm making a fuss about something that doesn't harm me personally, etc), it actually renews my interest in the relationship, because I see it as a commitment to evolving together.

Also, in a bizarre way, I respect ignorance in the sense of potential for learning. So doing something problematic out of ignorance is fine. Doing/defending it deliberately is the deal breaker. If I feel able to discuss it and he/we can work on it, I have found the partner HOTTER than before - in effect it is a new (and improved) relationship that is BETTER than the one we had.

On the reverse side, I also like a partner who will spot and state any problem they have with something I do so that we may discuss and understand each other's perspective and I may learn and evolve if opportunity presents rather than bottle it up and let it irritate him indefinitely.

 

[Reverie]

I think it's pretty well known that domesticity is a major culprit in NRE death. I still don't know why people clammer to live together and a one twue shared bedroom seems nuts to me. Esther Perel gives a fascinating Ted Talk on desire in long term relationships. She's done a lot of work around the topics of infidelity, relationships and what a fulfilling sex life can be.

Thanks, I will check the talk out for sure! God, I would love to have my own bedroom. Sadly, the rent here is so high that we can't really afford a two-bedroom right now. If I ever end up having to move out on my own, I'd need to find a roommate situation in someone's rent-controlled house or apartment where the room costs below market rate. Either that or do bankruptcy or something to get the rest of my bills down so a larger slice of income could to go to rent. Sigh.

In my opinion, its not about ignoring someone's faults or bad behavior, its about seeing them, accepting the person as they are, loving them as they are, but not mentally focusing on those traits. What we focus our energy on colors our interactions with the person. Obviously this doesn't mean accepting unacceptable behavior. Nor does it mean not maintaining your boundaries. It just means watching where you put your mental focus. If the issue isn't a deal breaker or something your partner wishes to change about themselves, then focusing on it will just be a barrier to intimacy. For me, it also means letting go of expectations and resentments....both of which can kill a relationship.

...During one rough patch with my ex I started a gratitude journal focusing on my ex and our relationship. It made a huge difference in how connected I felt to him which made me desire him more. But then, our issues weren't related to desire or lack thereof....

This makes a lot of sense. I also particularly like the idea of a gratitude journal with a relationship focus. I've done one of those generally for a while before and should probably do it again!

You probably should be looking closer at the lack of desire for husband, whom you do claim to like and want to keep - so whatever is causing you to check out, isn't conscious. Perhaps identifying addressing it will help you fix the situation (or, break it, alas).

Yes, I think I'll do some exploration into this when I have the time. Maybe some journaling in my blog on what all the possible causes specifically related to him could be, see if I can root it out. Maybe if I do some digging around in "what could be wrong" at the same time as I do a gratitude journal, it won't shift my focus to be too negative.

Is it possible that you pull of NRE for that long, and then after you are past wanting to see the best and the partners are past wanting to present their best only.... You start seeing other things that aren't as pretty? Possibly even stuff you noticed and dismissed earlier without investigation only to realize magnitude later. That would sound pretty normal.

I think that, at least in the couple of small things I mentioned here, it's kind of a mixed thing. In the case of Rider, I think I saw all of the "less pretty" things from pretty early on—definitely while still in NRE, but . . .

. . . some things were slightly bothersome but "eh, I can live with this" (which is still technically true but possible contributing now to problems?)

. . . some things weren't bothersome at all at the time, but I have grown and changed so that now they bother me.

. . . some things were slightly bothersome but he agreed to work on them, and has, to varying degrees of success.

But I don't think I started seeing anything new that was less pretty.

I will say that our stuff in common has dipped since NRE ended, though. In NRE, it seems we can get by with having mostly "we want to suck on each other's faces" in common. But we also wrote and played music together and did yoga and went night-swimming and did a lot of drinking in bars and him showing me around the city since I was pretty new.

Lately I've been kind of in a non-creative phase, so I'm not really writing new music (though we do still play in the band together). And night-swimming here isn't a thing (and Rider doesn't really like sunshine, so he'd probably tolerate but not enjoy a day-trip to the beach). I'm getting burned out on drinking in bars just for the fuck of it. Maybe we can try to make more time for yoga...

In my world, kissing princes turns them into frogs, so once the hormonal high is done, it is pretty hard to remain impressed with the guy. I am also an intellectual snob among many other requirements like emotional literacy, political views, and what not - fine with ignorance or lack of interest in knowing something, but expecting me to dumb myself down or pretending knowledge you don't have kills a relationship like it were a switch. And there are many switches - cruelty/sexism/inherent unfairness/prejudice/exploitation/entitledness/dishonesty... Unethical behavior not just ends a relationship, will likely have me sneering and evicting. Staying impressed is a struggle for me, unless there are signs of a learning curve out of the deal breakers as well. Sadly, the things I lose respect over matter to me. So I can't unsee them. Not being emotionally dependent "need a man in my life" type, there literally remains no deterrent to near immediate dumping if I don't like. Then it is over.

What I am saying is that it may not be a "fatal timer", but simply the natural progression.

Most of the things you've listed are also "switches" for me too. Rider thankfully does not possess the specific things you've listed, but I suspect I have additional post-NRE switches. Something to look into . . .

If my post struck recognition, one positive thing i can say on the front of the above sentence is that if a man recognizes the problem with whatever I had an ethics issue with and makes an effort to overcome it (as opposed to not caring or thinking I'm making a fuss about something that doesn't harm me personally, etc), it actually renews my interest in the relationship, because I see it as a commitment to evolving together.

Also, in a bizarre way, I respect ignorance in the sense of potential for learning. So doing something problematic out of ignorance is fine. Doing/defending it deliberately is the deal breaker. If I feel able to discuss it and he/we can work on it, I have found the partner HOTTER than before - in effect it is a new (and improved) relationship that is BETTER than the one we had.

On the reverse side, I also like a partner who will spot and state any problem they have with something I do so that we may discuss and understand each other's perspective and I may learn and evolve if opportunity presents rather than bottle it up and let it irritate him indefinitely.

I understand and totally agree with all of this stuff. A partner who is willing to admit a weakness and work on it, rather than doubling down or getting defensive, is SUPER hot. Hmm. Another area to put some serious thought into.

 

[Refusnik]

On the "choosing blindness", I'm obviously not Refusnik and won't speak for him, but I was thinking something similar to what he (and some of the others) said.

I'd say you did a much better job of paraphrasing the concept than I did. One of the articles I read that refers to the study that looked this as well as one other study that tried to answer why put it this way:

"When we first fall in love with someone, we tend to worship the ground they walk on and see them as the most attractive, smartest and accomplished person in the room. And while we might eventually take our partner off of this pedestal after months and years of being together, maintaining a sense of “love blindness” is actually critical to long-lasting passionate love.

A University of Geneva review of nearly 500 studies on compatibility couldn’t pinpoint any combination of two personality traits in a relationship that predicted long-term romantic love — except for one. One’s ability to idealize and maintain positive illusions about their partner — seeing them as good-looking, intelligent, funny and caring, or generally as a “catch” — remained happy with each other on nearly all measures over time. ​

I've known a few people that have had relationships longer than 30 years that still seem super in love with one another and this idea of "love blindess" definitely seemed relevant in that they were able to overlook things like past infidelity and other things that would typically torpedo a relationship.

I imagine that some people are naturally like this but I know that I'm not however by the middle of my current LTR I've found that through trying to be mindful of this outlook when I'm struggling to feel that love otherwise I can eventually turn it around and start feeling pretty lovey overall, particularly when I can see that the other person is really trying to make it work. Granted it's not quite same as that first flush of NRE but I'm really not sure if that can ever come back.


The larger question for me though is how to determine whether a particular relationship is worth the effort and mental focus that this takes. So far the only answer I've come up with is that I know things that would make me not want to try- assaulting me, severe substance abuse, stealing from me and a few other things like that.

 

[FallenAngelina]

The larger question for me though is how to determine whether a particular relationship is worth the effort and mental focus that this takes.

I'm thinking that it doesn't take effort so much as awareness of where you're putting your focus. You've got to focus on something, so why not choose something good? Perhaps it's a matter of practice more than a matter of effort. Maybe we can call this "accentuating the positive" instead of "blindness" and think of it not as making an effort to overlook the bad, but the choice to remain oriented on what we love about someone. My own parents are coming up on 50 years together and I haven't heard a complaint about the other, not even once. I'm sure they have complaints and I'm sure they've discussed them, but the overall vibe of their relationship is appreciation and joy of the other's company. I wouldn't choose their lifestyle in many ways, but in this one aspect, they truly do have the key to a fulfilling LTR. Just as it is with life in general, what we focus upon is what grows for us. I don't think that we have to make special efforts for only special people, we can orient on the positive in general and all of our relationships will blossom into all that they truly can be.

 

[Reverie]

Thanks, everyone, for the continued replies. There's a lot of gold in this thread! I'm going to take some downtime during my upcoming travels to really mine it and get some related reading done.

 

[Refusnik]

I'm thinking that it doesn't take effort so much as awareness of where you're putting your focus. You've got to focus on something, so why not choose something good?

I agree with what you're saying about awareness of where you're focusing however for me it definitely can take effort to shift that focus to a partner because I also really enjoy the work I do as well as some of my free time activities and so the struggle for me can be choosing to focus more on these selfish interests vs. focusing on a partner in the long term. In general I seek to balance it out but that can also be difficult because work often requires me to be gone and completely out of contact with the larger world for a week or two at a time.

 

[Ravenscroft]

Anna & I were together 12.5 years, married 9.5 of that. While it was not a great end, most of the trip was amazing. And I am entirely certain that my love for her restarted at least five times over the years.

In part this was due to our nonmonogamy. Seems like many monofolk get stuck into seeing the negatives of their spouse & making up all sorts of ever-inflating fantasy about "how it could have been" so wonderful with someone -- as in anyone -- else. Whereas I could come home from a pretty good date, hug Anna, & realize that we had a GREAT dynamic already going.

Of course, I'm not one to confuse "love" with "NRE."