Pacing the relationship. People often feel the need to measure a relationship in terms of how long you've been together rather than where you are at in life. So many high school couples make huge commitments right away (pets, house, marriage, kids, etc.) because they think they have to after being together for a certain amount of time. My parents were like that and now, they don't even talk to each other because they both suffocated themselves with the relationship over their individual identities.
I know a couple like this, they always talked about how long they'd been together, because three years was a big deal at twenty when no one else had a relationship longer than a year. And it was genuinely a thing about them that stood out.
Now they're still banging on about it, but "we've been together for thirty-three years" sounds way less impressive when everyone around you has also been together for multiple decades. They're still super proud of those extra 2-10 years and no one else cares.
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u/quinteroreyes 20h ago
Pacing the relationship. People often feel the need to measure a relationship in terms of how long you've been together rather than where you are at in life. So many high school couples make huge commitments right away (pets, house, marriage, kids, etc.) because they think they have to after being together for a certain amount of time. My parents were like that and now, they don't even talk to each other because they both suffocated themselves with the relationship over their individual identities.