Long-Term Are relationships only exciting while uncertain?

[orkie123]

It's now over 6 months after breaking with my ex and I still miss the idea of her. I don't miss her, but the feelings I had with her. I broke up with her because I had doubts which were later on confirmed that she was manipulating me the whole time. This was easy for her to do because it was my first relationship so I was naive and because it was long distance for certain periods. Her manipulation was that she was living a double life. I'm 90% sure she was either dating or trying to get back with her ex whenever she was long distance.

just under 2 weeks ago, I broke my dry spell, and few days ago, I slept with another girl. Ego is obviously getting a boost. The girl from my LR also agreed to see me again after the initial poor performance and the 2nd girl admitted she liked me and wanted something more. The result? I miss the feelings I had with my ex even more lol.

The weird thing is that, during the periods where the things were most stable with my ex, were also the times I started questioning whether I wanted to be with her long-term. When things became rocky again or we went long-distance again, the exciting feelings came back. While this seems like a common theme for the honeymoon period and toxic relationships, it has made me confused if you can have a relationship long-term that can maintain these exciting feelings.

While we were together, things were amazing as she does have this "enjoy life" vibe and is very kind and is up for going on spontaneous adventures, very intelligent, doesn't spend money on materialistic things, had similar mind to me etc etc. But even so, after a while I started feeling like "I need space".

I can feel that I'm more of a relationship person than someone who wants sleep around. I only want to sleep around so that I can become good enough with woman and confident enough to be able to get the girls I want to be in a relationship with. I like the idea of growing together with someone. But I wonder if Im not idealising relationships the same way I idealised my ex.

Can some people with more relationship experience chip in? How have long term relationships been for you? Did you used to be a relationship person but then changed? Or maybe you are currently in a long-term relationship and loving it because you finally found the right person?

 

[Police dog]

You are on a seducers forum, so questions about “the right person” are kinda misplaced. I doubt you will find someone who believes in love, marriage, etc here. Relationships exist to have fun, if you are bored you find another girl, and so on. The sweetest period is the first 3 months, then after a year it becomes kinda boring or at least not as exciting as if you would meet someone else and started from scratch. It’s not even about stability you just get used to it and it doesn’t excite you anymore. Someone recently posted here about medium-term relationships as the best tactic which I strongly agree with.

 

[Conquistador]

You are on a seducers forum, so questions about “the right person” are kinda misplaced.

Fyi Chase’s articles repeatedly discuss whether a girl is “the right one” to settle down with and have kids with.

I doubt you will find someone who believes in love

Depends what kind of love you’re talking about.

marriage, etc here.

Marriage is the best way to achieve certain goals, and to build a legacy.

Relationships exist to have fun

*pleasure
It’s an important difference.
Continuing relationships, by their nature, involve something that is continuing.

if you are bored you find another girl, and so on. The sweetest period is the first 3 months, then after a year it becomes kinda boring or at least not as exciting as if you would meet someone else and started from scratch. It’s not even about stability you just get used to it and it doesn’t excite you anymore.

This typically happens when you (and the man is primarily responsible for such things) fail to build something stronger than just romance. Which is fine if that’s what you’re going for, but to me it kinda defeats the point of committing (even temporarily) to exclusivity and all that jazz.

Someone recently posted here about medium-term relationships as the best tactic which I strongly agree with.

I think you misunderstood what that thread was about.
First of all, it’s not a “tactic”, but an objective. The topic of that thread is how to sell girls on it.

All that said, your ideas are still way ahead of the AFC who usually doesn’t have a clear idea of what he himself wants, let alone anything else.


Since I don’t have much first-person relationship experience, all I can say to OP is that all the strong lasting relationships I’ve seen were fundamentally different from the kind that don’t make it past the 6-month and 2-year hurdles.
The “right person” isn’t preordained. People choose to become the “right people” (or not) for each other through how they act within the relationship.

I believe Chase advocates fully committing to a girl slowly. If she shows her stuff through the six-month point, then you have something solid.

The fact remains, people have different goals for their relationships. There’s nothing wrong per se with a four-month arc, but I feel personally that treating that like an LTR is dumb and a little disingenuous. What Colt was outlining in the thread I bumped was perhaps more like an old-school “affair”, or a deep FwB setup.

Real LTRs, healthy ones anyway, are in many ways (not all) a whole different thing.

 

[Police dog]

Fyi Chase’s articles repeatedly discuss whether a girl is “the right one” to settle down with and have kids with.

Is he himself married and has kids though?

Depends what kind of love you’re talking about.

The one that pops up in a head of a regular person when they hear this word.

Marriage is the best way to achieve certain goals, and to build a legacy.

Until she divorces you then it becomes HER legacy given how courts work. I see how it might work though since I know a man in his 30s who greatly influenced my views on women, relationships etc, and he recently got married, but his wife is 20 yo daughter of a fucking former president of one of Asian countries who is a dollar billionaire. Apart from that nothing would ever convince me that it brings more legacy then takes away.

This typically happens when you (and the man is primarily responsible for such things) fail to build something stronger than just romance.

Even if you manage to get her really hooked for a prolonged period of time (as I assume this is what you mean by something greater than just romance) it will not entertain you much after a year and even if it still does, what is the point when there are so many other women who will give you much more pleasure just because they are new to you.

First of all, it’s not a “tactic”, but an objective.

Sorry, English is not my native language, to me its the same thing in this context but whatever.

Since I don’t have much first-person relationship experience

That explains a lot, you should have started with it.

 

[Conquistador]

Until she divorces you then it becomes HER legacy given how courts work.

Jaded, aren’t we? There are a bunch of ways to avoid that issue. Anyway, your argument assumes that you have the same odds of divorce as the general population statistically has.

Even if you manage to get her really hooked for a prolonged period of time

It shouldn’t be about hooking after a certain point. It’s about collaboration. If girls don’t feel locked in after a while, it’s a symptom of problems somewhere.
Hell, even girls with toxic partners will often stick with their man for some reason.

it will not entertain you much after a year

If all you want from girls is entertainment, then don’t get into an LTR. Lasting love is a growth-oriented partnership.

That explains a lot, you should have started with it.

Well, I’ve had a front row seat to several happy marriages (including but not limited to my parents’) for 20 years. So I’ve learned an awful lot from observation. How much do you know about how functional LTRs work?

 

[Will_V]

It's now over 6 months after breaking with my ex and I still miss the idea of her. I don't miss her, but the feelings I had with her. I broke up with her because I had doubts which were later on confirmed that she was manipulating me the whole time. This was easy for her to do because it was my first relationship so I was naive and because it was long distance for certain periods. Her manipulation was that she was living a double life. I'm 90% sure she was either dating or trying to get back with her ex whenever she was long distance.

just under 2 weeks ago, I broke my dry spell, and few days ago, I slept with another girl. Ego is obviously getting a boost. The girl from my LR also agreed to see me again after the initial poor performance and the 2nd girl admitted she liked me and wanted something more. The result? I miss the feelings I had with my ex even more lol.

The weird thing is that, during the periods where the things were most stable with my ex, were also the times I started questioning whether I wanted to be with her long-term. When things became rocky again or we went long-distance again, the exciting feelings came back. While this seems like a common theme for the honeymoon period and toxic relationships, it has made me confused if you can have a relationship long-term that can maintain these exciting feelings.

While we were together, things were amazing as she does have this "enjoy life" vibe and is very kind and is up for going on spontaneous adventures, very intelligent, doesn't spend money on materialistic things, had similar mind to me etc etc. But even so, after a while I started feeling like "I need space".

I can feel that I'm more of a relationship person than someone who wants sleep around. I only want to sleep around so that I can become good enough with woman and confident enough to be able to get the girls I want to be in a relationship with. I like the idea of growing together with someone. But I wonder if Im not idealising relationships the same way I idealised my ex.

Can some people with more relationship experience chip in? How have long term relationships been for you? Did you used to be a relationship person but then changed? Or maybe you are currently in a long-term relationship and loving it because you finally found the right person?

There are a lot of opinions out there about relationships, many of them premised on either naive optimism or bitterness, or, funnily enough, a combination of both. My best advice is to spend time understanding the reality of the experiences that you've had. There's a lot of practical data you can get from any LTR once you take a lot of the emotion out.

I've had a few relationships, lasting from a couple of months of whirlwind romance to 2 years of living together and slowly getting annoyed with eachother. I also study other people's relationships carefully as I like to understand these things. Over time I've become more of a believer in the idea that life-long relationships are simply one instable branch in the tree of possibilities that nature has created around sex. That means, they can happen, and can even be planned and successfully carried out, but they are not inherently more stable or fitting as far as the human psyche is concerned compared to other.
..
Something that I remember reading in one of @Chase's articles is how the most stable life-long relationships tend to be female-dominated. I didn't really understand how this worked, considering that the big problem with marriages seems to be the guy getting weak, the woman getting restless, and then things imploding in one form or another. But I believe (this is simply a theory) that there are two more necessary (or at least highly correlated) ingredients to the success of female-dominated relationships:

1. The guy ticks all the boxes of a 'great catch' - is relatively successful and high-status, at least compared to her social circle, if not the rest of society as a whole. This makes her think twice about the social repercussions of losing him, since he is admired by the people around her.

2. They have a genuine very close compatibility of personality, interests. This makes her think twice about losing the support and ease of the relationship, and soothes the ache of not having a man sexually and psychologically dominate her.

It seems to me then that these relationships work not because she doesn't want to or is prevented from cheating or leaving him, but because she learns to value the infrastructure of the relationship more than her sexual ambition or her desire for a very personally dominant man. In essence, she is dominated not by his frame but by the difference in her outlook between the two choices, and she learns to use the genuine connection to satisfy her intimate needs. And perhaps her dominant role activates her maternal instincts or something like that.
..
Can a male-dominated life-long relationship work? In my humble opinion, it is only really stable when it is socially unacceptable for her to leave or even entertain leaving, when the prevailing consequences are negative and harsh, such as living in a religious cultural society. Otherwise it's not clear to me that a woman would be able to willingly submit to his dominance for the rest of her life, that the relationship could be prevented from becoming too pale compared to other choices over enough period of time, or whether it could survive the times where his frame becomes too weak or her opposition to it too great.

What about introducing uncertainty? I don't know, it certainly works for a while, but the idea of maintaining an uncertain relationship for a lifetime seems like a red pill pipe dream to me, and I suspect that those guys who think they have it only believe so because that's what the woman decided to make him believe, or because they are simply deluding themselves.

 

[Skills]

It's now over 6 months after breaking with my ex and I still miss the idea of her. I don't miss her, but the feelings I had with her. I broke up with her because I had doubts which were later on confirmed that she was manipulating me the whole time. This was easy for her to do because it was my first relationship so I was naive and because it was long distance for certain periods. Her manipulation was that she was living a double life. I'm 90% sure she was either dating or trying to get back with her ex whenever she was long distance.

just under 2 weeks ago, I broke my dry spell, and few days ago, I slept with another girl. Ego is obviously getting a boost. The girl from my LR also agreed to see me again after the initial poor performance and the 2nd girl admitted she liked me and wanted something more. The result? I miss the feelings I had with my ex even more lol.

The weird thing is that, during the periods where the things were most stable with my ex, were also the times I started questioning whether I wanted to be with her long-term. When things became rocky again or we went long-distance again, the exciting feelings came back. While this seems like a common theme for the honeymoon period and toxic relationships, it has made me confused if you can have a relationship long-term that can maintain these exciting feelings.

While we were together, things were amazing as she does have this "enjoy life" vibe and is very kind and is up for going on spontaneous adventures, very intelligent, doesn't spend money on materialistic things, had similar mind to me etc etc. But even so, after a while I started feeling like "I need space".

I can feel that I'm more of a relationship person than someone who wants sleep around. I only want to sleep around so that I can become good enough with woman and confident enough to be able to get the girls I want to be in a relationship with. I like the idea of growing together with someone. But I wonder if Im not idealising relationships the same way I idealised my ex.

Can some people with more relationship experience chip in? How have long term relationships been for you? Did you used to be a relationship person but then changed? Or maybe you are currently in a long-term relationship and loving it because you finally found the right person?

I think you still have not fully over your ex, i have a post that you need to review in that post i talk about no making this type of assumptions post break ups on low momentum, also is normal post break up to compare new experiences with what you have with ex.... My advice is to give it time... To girl a girlfriend you need to be good with girls in general, to be good with girls in general you need to get girls... So it goes like this, you sleep with girls, a lot of the ones hopefully in your case you convert to fb, during that period you get rid the of bad, keep the good ones, and from the good ones you pick a gf...Since your ex you only slept with 1 girl and the performance was meh.... A lot of guys don't want to deal with the grind and hustle of getting girls or getting good with women, and rationalize the "girlfriend" stuff.... Also getting good with girls helps you avoid with what happened with your ex and get more solid relationships.

relationships have good and bad like everything else..... I personally go through stages of banging a lot of girls, then having rotaions, then from that rotation a gf/main, then break up, then rinse was repeat...

There is not right or wrong... do what you think is best for you and your situation as long as is not cope, but right now you don't have anything to show up for to make a determination on what is good for you.

 

[Police dog]

In my humble opinion, it is only really stable when it is socially unacceptable for her to leave or even entertain leaving, when the prevailing consequences are negative and harsh, such as living in a religious cultural society.

Nah, even then it won’t hold. You would be astonished how many women from strict Muslim regions cheat on their husbands, despite not just social condemnation but straight up death penalty which happen quite often if you read Arabic newspapers.

 

[Police dog]

Well, I’ve had a front row seat to several happy marriages (including but not limited to my parents’) for 20 years. So I’ve learned an awful lot from observation. How much do you know about how functional LTRs work?

And I watched Chris Bumsted’s arms workout so I must a be a pro at training them now and I also read few times Arnold’s autobiography, so I should be able to reach at least some of his success in life. Anyway, I assume you are very young since you never been in a relationship and cite your parents as an example. Some things only clear up when you experience them first hand and before that it’s just an image in your head. If you believe that your outcome will be different, so be it, good luck. I don’t want to argue.

 

[Chase]

You would be astonished how many women from strict Muslim regions cheat on their husbands, despite not just social condemnation but straight up death penalty which happen quite often if you read Arabic newspapers.

Women from strict Muslim relationships marry men their families arrange for them to marry. These guys typically have WBAFC-level game. We're talking guys who call phone numbers at random hoping to get a woman they can talk to, and who ride around doing the dumbest imaginable stunts in cars, getting others and themselves killed in Darwin-award-tier ways, trying to look 'cool' hoping to somehow get women.

We're talking societies with religious police who will literally not permit unrelated men and women to meet or interact in public at all.

We're talking a civilization where to preserve virginity couples have anal sex, and fertility doctors routinely have to educate newlyweds who come to them stumped, wondering why they can't seem to conceive that they need to stop having sex in the butt and start having sex vaginally.

We're talking guys who come to the US, utterly fail to get women because their game is so bad, spend all their time at strip clubs looking at what they can't have, and finally sign up to go blow up some towers as one last act of incel revenge.

If I was a woman I'd risk death to cheat on the average strict Muslim husband too. Almost hard to fault them...!

 

[Chase]

@orkie123,

The weird thing is that, during the periods where the things were most stable with my ex, were also the times I started questioning whether I wanted to be with her long-term. When things became rocky again or we went long-distance again, the exciting feelings came back. While this seems like a common theme for the honeymoon period and toxic relationships, it has made me confused if you can have a relationship long-term that can maintain these exciting feelings.

What is 'excitement'?

It is a state of not knowing, of things being up in the air, of doubt, hope, expectation, fear, anticipation, all mingled in together.

Your question seems to be, "Is it possible to experience a feeling of fear, hope, and doubt when you don't have any reason to fear, hope, and doubt?"

The answer: "Nope. If you want that feeling, and things are too stable, you're going to have to inject some fear, hope, and doubt."

Probably half the tradeoffs I talk about here boil down to some aspect of this:

8 Tradeoffs in Girls Men MUST Choose Between in LTRs

Choosing a partner for a long-term relationship presents tradeoffs. The more a girl is one thing, the less something else she may be. What will YOU choose? I’m a “have your cake and eat it too” type of guy. I do not like the idea of tradeoff much. If you’re having to make tradeoffs, maybe you...

www.girlschase.com

The rule of thumb:

• The fewer disruptions and more stability there is in the relationship, the less 'exciting' it will be.
• The more disruptions and less stability there is in the relationship, the more 'exciting' it will be.

Think of an action movie or a sports game. Compare a boring one with an exciting one. Boring one: the hero just beats up everyone, it is never in any doubt, he aces everything all the way / one sports team utterly dominates the other, and the losing team never even comes close. People file out of the stadium early because they're bored with it, or tell their friends the movie was just so-so, the hero was way too overpowered. Exciting one: edge of your seat thrill ride! The hero constantly swings between victory and defeat! One sports team always looks like it's just about to pull away, then the other suddenly overtakes it and looks like IT will be supreme -- then, another reversal! Then another!

I had a girlfriend who during periods where things would get very calm would sometimes say, "I feel a bit bored. I wish something exciting would happen!" and I would smile mischievously and say, "I can make things more exciting for you." Then her eyes would go wide and she'd say, "Actually, I like things how they are. Boring is good!"

Solutions:

• Date girls who are exciting. This is the one for me. I like girls with peppy, spunky energy. These tend to cause drama, which is annoying, but once it's resolved the relationship feels 'fresh' again. Without this I find I get bored with them very fast.
  
  
• Date girls who are TROUBLE. For guys with extreme excitement needs / abusive or neglectful upbringings. These relationships are totally toxic, but some guys are just wired to need this thanks to their personalities + early life experiences.
  
  
• Date girls who are calm/boring, but inject instability into the relationship in other ways. Some guys do open relationships / open marriage. The relationship ITSELF is very stable/boring, but they're both fucking other people so there is a bunch more fear/uncertainty/excitement mixed in again. Some just do a bunch of cheating without things being technically open. There is always the risk she finds out -- will you lose her if she does? You don't know! Fear of being found out, gratitude to have her when you return to her, etc. Excitement.

It's going to depend on your personality which of those appeals to you more. But every guy is going to tend to be drawn toward one of them.

There is no relationship where everything is totally placid for a long period of time and yet you feel thrills of electric excitement every time you see the girl. If there isn't something causing instability (drama, separation, unfaithfulness, etc.), it will get routine, and routine gets boring.

(also worth noting: different men have different levels of need for excitement. Some need very little, while some need TONS! This will influence the kinds of relationships they have with women too)

Chase

 

[Will_V]

Nah, even then it won’t hold. You would be astonished how many women from strict Muslim regions cheat on their husbands, despite not just social condemnation but straight up death penalty which happen quite often if you read Arabic newspapers.

This is an 'all else being equal' thing. Nothing can save you if you're a useless, disfunctional guy, nor is there ever any certainty that nothing will go wrong regardless, just reduced probability. I do believe that if you are a dude who understands and manages women well, and is a good leader and provider, having an ltr in a conservative/religious society has a much, much better chance of success.

Also, while it's tempting to entertain the extremes, what interests me are the societies where the norms are more about functionality and less about direct state or religious control - such as conservative Eastern European countries. Where family is a strong bond and it is more about the shame or repercussions from people you are close to than law itself.

I call this a 'humble opinion' because I don't know to what extent such societies even exist, or whether things like social media have changed them to the extent that this perspective is just a museum piece. It's hard to get a sense of the reality of someone growing up there even when you meet them. In any case, I don't think you only have two extremes to choose from - I certainly hope not.

 

[Police dog]

Also, while it's tempting to entertain the extremes, what interests me are the societies where the norms are more about functionality and less about direct state or religious control - such as conservative Eastern European countries. Where family is a strong bond and it is more about the shame or repercussions from people you are close to than law itself.

As someone who actually is from an Eastern European country, who grew up there, went to college and dated girls since high school, I can tell that for some reason westerns tend to have very distorted views about our girls and dating culture. I kid you not, American women (at least those that I been with) are more loyal and obedient than them at least short term. The Slavic triade, as we call it, Russia/Ukraine/Belarus has 80% divorce rate and majority initiated by women. THESE COUNTRIES ARE NOT CONSERVATIVE IN ANY WAY. And even if we put marriage aside, cheating and abuse by women is through the roof, our dating culture is extremely toxic towards men and many girls feel that they have the moral right to dump you simply because you failed to give them some ₽₽₽ they expected you to have. And when I moved to the US I told myself that I would never date one of them here. The only thing they have is nice looks, ngl, but I personally like dark girls like African or Latino or south Asian/Middle East much more, I don’t know why, so their looks are off the table for me. And don’t forget that you are expected to cover the costs of maintenance of such looks - hair, lips, brows, lashes, nails, waxing, they spend shit tone on that and expect you as a man to pay for it even if you a fucking college student - what, you don’t have it? Well then I am gonna fuck that 30 yo old guy on used bmw, sorry not sorry. And it’s not like a single accident - it’s super widespread. Yes, if you are an older guy who has cash then the dating world is yours, even just ons are much easier to get. But no, they are not loyal and there are no REAL social consequences when they cheat on a man, and in south Russia like Dagestan or Chechnya along with Central Asia (my last gf there was from one of those countries) things are not that much different either. Sorry for my mini rant, I just can’t really stand when people believe that somewhere else things and women are better than where they live.

 

[orkie123]

@orkie123,



What is 'excitement'?

It is a state of not knowing, of things being up in the air, of doubt, hope, expectation, fear, anticipation, all mingled in together.

Your question seems to be, "Is it possible to experience a feeling of fear, hope, and doubt when you don't have any reason to fear, hope, and doubt?"

The answer: "Nope. If you want that feeling, and things are too stable, you're going to have to inject some fear, hope, and doubt."

Probably half the tradeoffs I talk about here boil down to some aspect of this:

8 Tradeoffs in Girls Men MUST Choose Between in LTRs

Choosing a partner for a long-term relationship presents tradeoffs. The more a girl is one thing, the less something else she may be. What will YOU choose? I’m a “have your cake and eat it too” type of guy. I do not like the idea of tradeoff much. If you’re having to make tradeoffs, maybe you...

www.girlschase.com

Hi Chase, thanks for your informative answer as usual. I'll respond based on the trade offs article and with my ex as an example to what I think I'm looking for.

1) High Beauty vs Low Maintenance. I have a beauty threshold. Once it's passed that, then I don't care as much. However, I have noticed that some of my other priorities go down if her beauty is higher. So I don't think this one is a problem either way for me but I wouldn't go for the extremes, particularly not the extreme beauty, extreme maintenance.

2) Great appearance, low jealousy. This one depends. I don't mind getting jealous. But would walk away in a hearbeat if she cheats, is dishonest about important things, or lets guys get too touchy/invite her back to hers etc. If her great appearance just means she gets a lot of looks, and a lot of guys talk to her. I don't mind and actually think it's healthy. Plus, there is an ego/narcissistic boost of knowing all these guys want her but she is dating me. For example - I always told my ex to dress up more (classy or slutty) which she still had resistance to. I also told her to go topless on the beach and she loved that even though it wasn't usual for her.

3) Passion vs Drama. Me and my ex had a lot of drama while in long distance away from eachother, very little drama while together. This ties in well with the - the longer we were together, the more the excitement died down. However, we often went on trips/travelling. Whenever we did, the passion was always there. "You can't always be on trips/travel" - A big part of my life setup is to enable me to travel the majority of my life - digital nomad style. So my view is that while even this will get old/boring after a while, that passion can be created via new experiences. Public sex in new locations with my ex will probably be some of my top highlights of my life in terms of excitement. Not cos we could be seen, we choose locations where it was very unlikely, it's just the freedom of it. I want more of those experiences.

4) Vivacious spirit vs submissive. My ex was a traditional rebel. You couldn't easily get her to submit, but she was open to persuasion, especially if it was put as a good way to her. I would say that I'm very good operationally so I would prefer a girl who is more on the submissive side. I like planning trips, I like spontaneous adventures, so as long as she is willing to join me, I rather her let me do the planning. My ex loved that as she likes adventures but isn't the best at planning. She's not bad at it, but if I had to wait for her to do anything, it would be last minute and not as good as if I had done it...

5) Self-starter vs follow your lead. Similar to above, I rather she follows my lead more because I love adventures, doing fun activities, and also know how to deal with finances/serious stuff. Basically I'm a very good at googling and finding optimum info for most stuff.

6) Fertility vs experience. While my ex had experience, I think I actually prefer fertility. My ex having more experience helped me as I was inexperienced in relationships, but now that's not as important.

7) Malleability vs Pre-training. Doesn't bother me much either way

8) Independence vs need. This is a hard one. My ex was fairly independent in most things but also lost without a guide on the bigger things in life and I quite liked that. I.e. she liked her time alone and knew things she wanted to do on her own, but in the big life picture she asked me to guide her. I do think I need to be needed to feel loved so probably more inclined in the need.

There are a lot of opinions out there about relationships, many of them premised on either naive optimism or bitterness, or, funnily enough, a combination of both. My best advice is to spend time understanding the reality of the experiences that you've had. There's a lot of practical data you can get from any LTR once you take a lot of the emotion out.

The problem I have with my ex is that the data got polluted when I found out how many things she lied about. So while I know what I like and what I don't, it's hard to see what is realistic. E.g. Was the passion only there for quite a while because my instincts always told me something seems fishy and thus there was drama? There are lots of useful things I learned, but a lot of unknowns still.

I think you still have not fully over your ex, i have a post that you need to review in that post i talk about no making this type of assumptions post break ups on low momentum, also is normal post break up to compare new experiences with what you have with ex.... My advice is to give it time... To girl a girlfriend you need to be good with girls in general, to be good with girls in general you need to get girls... So it goes like this, you sleep with girls, a lot of the ones hopefully in your case you convert to fb, during that period you get rid the of bad, keep the good ones, and from the good ones you pick a gf...Since your ex you only slept with 1 girl and the performance was meh.... A lot of guys don't want to deal with the grind and hustle of getting girls or getting good with women, and rationalize the "girlfriend" stuff.... Also getting good with girls helps you avoid with what happened with your ex and get more solid relationships.

relationships have good and bad like everything else..... I personally go through stages of banging a lot of girls, then having rotaions, then from that rotation a gf/main, then break up, then rinse was repeat...

There is not right or wrong... do what you think is best for you and your situation as long as is not cope, but right now you don't have anything to show up for to make a determination on what is good for you.

To be fair, it's not the breakup that I'm not over, it's the ideal relationship that I seek. Even before my ex, I was feeling like this. Being with her when in the same location was more or less exactly what I was looking for, or at least good enough for me. We were both growing and continuously doing new things, both together and independently. So really, If I could find someone who has similar traits without the lying part, and we found a way to maintain the excitement, that would be ideal for me. At least for the next 3-5 years.

But I can see that my skills with girls are not consistent enough to get what I want reliably. So I agree on your priorities.

I call this a 'humble opinion' because I don't know to what extent such societies even exist, or whether things like social media have changed them to the extent that this perspective is just a museum piece. It's hard to get a sense of the reality of someone growing up there even when you meet them. In any case, I don't think you only have two extremes to choose from - I certainly hope not.

I don't have first hand experience, but I know a lot of EE couples who may not be the ideal relationship but will stay loyal and committed to each other till death for good or for bad. I imagine that if two such people are open to growth, then I do believe there can be some amazing long-term relationships, even if they become "plain" for long periods.

 

[Will_V]

As someone who actually is from an Eastern European country, who grew up there, went to college and dated girls since high school, I can tell that for some reason westerns tend to have very distorted views about our girls and dating culture. I kid you not, American women (at least those that I been with) are more loyal and obedient than them at least short term. The Slavic triade, as we call it, Russia/Ukraine/Belarus has 80% divorce rate and majority initiated by women. THESE COUNTRIES ARE NOT CONSERVATIVE IN ANY WAY. And even if we put marriage aside, cheating and abuse by women is through the roof, our dating culture is extremely toxic towards men and many girls feel that they have the moral right to dump you simply because you failed to give them some ₽₽₽ they expected you to have. And when I moved to the US I told myself that I would never date one of them here. The only thing they have is nice looks, ngl, but I personally like dark girls like African or Latino or south Asian/Middle East much more, I don’t know why, so their looks are off the table for me. And don’t forget that you are expected to cover the costs of maintenance of such looks - hair, lips, brows, lashes, nails, waxing, they spend shit tone on that and expect you as a man to pay for it even if you a fucking college student - what, you don’t have it? Well then I am gonna fuck that 30 yo old guy on used bmw, sorry not sorry. And it’s not like a single accident - it’s super widespread. Yes, if you are an older guy who has cash then the dating world is yours, even just ons are much easier to get. But no, they are not loyal and there are no REAL social consequences when they cheat on a man, and in south Russia like Dagestan or Chechnya along with Central Asia (my last gf there was from one of those countries) things are not that much different either. Sorry for my mini rant, I just can’t really stand when people believe that somewhere else things and women are better than where they live.

That's interesting. I planned to go on a Europe tour before covid and then never got around to it. So a lot of my perspective is not firsthand - and even when I go I'm sure it would take some time to absorb the actual reality of things, as people in conservative countries seem to be good at maintaining appearances on things. I'm surprised that you say these societies tend to be toxic toward men, that wasn't what I expected to find.

I've noticed in the relationships that are the most stable and long-lasting that I've seen firsthand (in Australia for example where I live), there tends to be a strong family structure and a somewhat loose but still-present tendency toward conservative values, with for example regular trips to church but no actual religious zeal of any kind. But they also tend to be female-dominated, with the man an upright, fairly successful, and highly dependable citizen but very much following her lead.

My hypothesis is that a dominant man tends to end up at odds with a liberal society, since his desire to exercise his ambition and control put him right against the modern narrative, so that the more he tries to dominate things, the more he contrasts with society, and because women always measure men against society rather than by any absolute values, this creates a lot of instability whenever he tries to exert his dominance.

So I thought then that some sort of conservative society must be necessary as a foundation for him, because though he might be very skilled at managing women and people, there is always a weak or difficult point sooner or later in a relationship where the grass on the other side suddenly looks a bit greener for a while, and that's where a society that is too liberal tends to facilitate a fracture that cannot be reversed even after the storm is over.

The problem I think that exists right now is that there are very few if any conservative societies that are at the forefront of civilization, most of them seem to be half left behind, full of disfunctions, and riddled with inferiority complexes that even idealize the West and its liberality. Is this necessarily the case? I don't know, but finding the right environment to grow a relationship that has the most long term potential, where I am very much the leader of the household, is something I'm interested in.

I don't want to derail the thread any more but I appreciate the input.

 

[metalbird]

I would recommend reading the book Mating in Captivity: Reconciling the Erotic & the Domestic by Esther Perel.

Also, I think most people have a set level of risk-tolerance/risk-seeking which applies globally to all aspects of life. Healthy people moderate this risk by taking calculated risks when they have the capacity for growth, and reducing risks in some areas of life when other areas become more uncertain. After all, you don't want everything crashing down on you at once -- you'll wind up a like an old country song, "I lost my wife, my car, my house, my friends, my job, even my dog left me..."

Uncertainty in relationships falls under this umbrella, and it gets a lot of attention in modern developed societies because there is relatively little risk in other aspects of life. Most people will not be interested in stirring up drama in their relationships if food, safety, or freedom is in jeopardy, except in the case where (a woman) stands better odds of getting those needs met by doing so.

Look at the polyamorous/Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM) lifestyle for example. Many individuals who practice this go to extreme lengths to reduce uncertainty around certain aspects of dating, or with certain partners, by putting very rigid rules around how they get their sexual risk-taking dopamine rush. The most committed ENM partners I've seen are more solid and bound then any monogamous couple I've ever met; I imagine one has to be to maintain the mutual respect and boundaries needed to make such a relationship work long-term. By the same token, such ENM lifestyles often take more work and demand more attention than monogamous ones, which is why monogamy is still a good choice for people who want to maximize their capacity to take risks and devote energy to areas of life outside of romantic-sexual relationships.