A
female
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:What is the point of having one partner for a life time? Why not change them for a younger/hotter/sexier model every few years?What is the point of staying with someone for 20/30 odd years? its unnatural? Deer and lions do not do that and yet we do. Opinions please from those in LTRs who want to stay with their partner even though they are getting older and fatter. Reply to this Question
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (22 May 2011): It is called love and it doesn't falter when someone ages and their outward appearance starts to change. Yours will be doing the same and hopefully they will still love you too.
A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (22 May 2011): You make a couple of statements which are worth looking at so I will address some of them separately. The point of having a long term relationship is different for different people, and it changes over time. It is also dependant on the culture you are born in, in western culture we place a big emphasis on love, but in others the driving factor has more to do with raising families, or in some cases protection, or even simply following cultural norms. As a result there can be a few reasons for staying with someone for 20 to 30 years, or a life time. One is to successfully raise a family. Another is if you are truly in love with one another, you aren't interested in being with anyone else in this case. Another similar reason is if your relationship is very healthy, helps you to grow and develop, to be happy, and to be true to yourself. In some of these cases, if your partner becomes less physically attractive in an objective sense over time, if you love for them is deep, your attraction to them transcends their physical appearance. Often, when you have been with someone for a long time, you don't see them as good looking or not good looking, you just see them as them, its a face you are familiar with and like looking at, and their attraction comes from within. The way you ask the question, you give the impression that looks plays the biggest part in your attraction to someone. That may be your experience, and there are many people in the world who conduct relationships like that, but when you fall in love, that becomes far more important, valuable, stimulating, and attractive.You also say that it is unnatural, that deer and lion don't do that. You are right that many instances of animals in nature don't partner for life, that they simply seek out the best specimines for them to have sex with and procreate, to ensure the species survives. However, there are also many animals that do partner for life, and in some cases don't re-partner if their partner dies. Also, no other animals in nature have the capacity for love like we do. Having the right genes and picking the right specemin is also important in human relationships, which is why attractiveness is still important to us, but our capacity to love can transcend this, and love is also an importnant evolutionary drive in humans. People who do not believe in the power of love often have not experienced it. Sometimes, people also use being in love as a reason to stay in bad, unhealthy relationships. Relationships are highly complex and are often driven by unconscious forces. It takes time and experience to figure out what works for you, I think finding a relationship that is loving, and that you can be true to yourself in, is a good place to start investigating the benefits of long term relationships.
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A
female
reader, maverick494 +, writes (21 May 2011):
The world simply doesn't work that way.
Also, you're a female, which means that you often don't get to exchange your partner for a younger, sexier one when you get older. So unless you take extremely good care of yourself, have genes on your side, the cougar game is not going to be a possibility. Because the younger, sexy guys have a lot of girls to pick from that are younger and sexier than you as well.
For someone like you, who --judging from your post-- values looks over anything else a person may have to offer, staying together with someone for 20/30 years does seem impossible. Just know that there are those of us who have learned to look beyond skin and appreciate people for who they are.
You are still young now. But by now you have probably noticed teenagers already think you're 'old' and that many models on the billboard ads are either your age or younger than you are. After a while you will find yourself belonging to the category of people you say should be ditched for a younger, sexier one.
The real question is: can adapt to life? Are you going to be one of those people who roll with the punches and adapts to whatever life throws at them? or are you going to be one of those women who go to get treatments for youthful skin, continues to buy clothes meant for teenagers and uses a lot of makeup to delude themselves into thinking they're still that 20-something? I can tell you now that the latter category is full of unhappy people.
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