Why A Long Relationship Isn't More Successful Than Short One

Do you judge yourself for only having short relationships? Are you staying in a relationship because you don't want it to be viewed as a failure? This talk will help you to follow your intuition about how long to stay in the relationship instead of making choices based on the false hierarchy that a long relationship is more successful than a short one.

Transcript

Hello,

I'm Noah Elkrief,

And today I'm going to share with you why long relationships aren't more successful than short relationships.

And the reason why I'm making this is because I often see that people judge themselves for having short relationships,

That it would be more successful if I was in a long one,

Or I'm failing in some way if I'm in short ones.

And also finding that oftentimes people don't follow their intuition in leaving relationships because they want to have a successful relationship.

And if it's long,

Then I did better than if it's short.

Yeah,

I failed again if the relationship ends.

So if you can resonate with either of those problems,

Then this video might be really helpful for you.

So the first thing we want to talk about is this old myth or adage that a long relationship equals a successful one.

So if you ask someone how long you've been together,

And they say 40 years,

You say,

Wow,

What a successful relationship,

Good job.

Or we've been together 20 years or 50 years,

And just based on that one data point that they've been together 10 years or 20 or 50,

We say,

Yay,

As if it's successful.

It's such a successful relationship because they made it a longer duration of time.

And that is very,

Very naive because what is success?

Success means we achieved a goal.

And is the goal of relationship to make it until you die?

Is the goal of a relationship to make it as long as possible?

No,

Unless you're totally following like old school programming or religious programming,

The goal of relationships is not to make it as long as you can,

Or until you die.

The goal of a relationship is some sort of experience,

Whether the experience is happiness or love or care or closeness or intimacy or stability or evolution or evolving,

Opening your heart more,

Becoming a more mature person,

Fulfillment,

Joy,

Whatever it is.

Or even if the goal is to get away from your loneliness,

The goal is always in experience.

The actual goal is not duration.

So if you hear someone say they've been together 10 years or 20 years,

That is not enough to say whether it's a success or not.

All you know from that is that they didn't leave each other.

But is the simple fact that two people didn't break up signify a success?

Not at all.

So if there's two options,

A couple is in a relationship for 20 years,

But they're absolutely miserable,

Or a couple has a one year relationship,

And they were so happy and then it ended because they felt like new adventures or new something.

Which one is more successful,

The 20 year miserable one or the one year relationship or the three month relationship that's really happy?

Which one would you say?

I'm not there.

Part of me was asking you waiting for a reply,

But you're not there.

Well,

You are there,

But I just can't hear your answer.

So from my perspective,

A happier relationship is way more successful than an unhappy one,

A miserable one.

Or put differently,

Maybe you value something instead of happiness.

Maybe you value growth.

So if a couple stays together for 20 years and they barely grow,

They don't evolve,

They don't grow,

They don't resolve their issues,

The same issues are there from since the beginning,

They just avoid each other,

Same triggers,

Same everything.

Or you have a three month relationship or one year relationship or something like this,

And you grow a tremendous amount.

Which one is more successful?

Well,

If your goal is evolution,

If your goal is becoming more mature,

If your goal is developing more qualities,

If your goal is to resolve more triggers and pain from within you,

Then the shorter one would be have been more successful because you grew more,

Evolved more,

Matured more.

So it's about coming out of this really ridiculous idea that the length of a relationship,

The duration of a relationship somehow has anything to do with the level of success.

It has nothing to do with it at all.

Success is determined by your goal.

And so the goal might be some emotional quality,

Love,

Freedom,

Whatever,

Like I said before,

Or it might be growing in some way.

Or it might even be escaping your emotion,

Which is fine,

Escaping some sort of pain.

But we want to be clear in the goal.

And then we measure our relationship based on that,

As opposed to just the duration of it.

Yeah.

So if someone is in a long term relationship,

20 years,

50 years,

Five years,

Something like this,

It could be because they're really happy together.

It could be because they're growing a lot together.

It could be because they find stability in each other.

It could be from some beautiful reason.

And it could also be because they're both really afraid to be alone and afraid to leave each other.

It could be because it goes against their religion to leave.

It could be against they're afraid of being shamed by their society for getting divorce.

It could be because of so many different reasons.

They're afraid of leaving the other one because they've victimized the other one,

That the other one can't make it without me.

So I have to stay.

Or I can't make it without them.

So I have to stay.

Yeah.

Plenty,

Plenty,

Plenty of relationships that last a long time last that way out of fear,

Out of avoidance of shame or out of convenience,

As opposed to because I actually want to stay because it actually makes me happy,

Fulfills me,

Gives me more beautiful qualities,

Or because I'm actually maturing,

Growing,

Evolving.

Yeah.

Longer relationship does not signify somehow more successful.

So whatever is more successful for you depends on what you want and what you value.

Right?

And if your goal is to sort of grow and evolve,

Yeah,

Then it's kind of like if your pattern,

If your pattern is codependency,

If your pattern is fear of being alone,

If your pattern is looking to someone else to get away from your loneliness,

Then it might be more valuable to leave a relationship.

Right?

So if you're in a relationship,

And your pattern always in relationships is to stay,

Then it might be more growth and evolution and leaving because then you're facing your loneliness,

You're facing your,

Your fear of unsafety of not having a partner,

You're facing your shame of being single.

Yeah.

Whereas if your pattern tends to be that you avoid discomfort,

You avoid difficulty,

You avoid commitment,

You avoid stability,

You're just always seeking the next high,

Then there can be more growth and evolution and staying in a relationship long term.

But to just say straight up that longer is better than shorter,

Or more successful,

Just doesn't make any sense.

We're all unique.

We all have different wounds,

Different traumas,

Different beliefs,

Different desires,

Different intuitive pulls in a given moment.

So it's not a failure to leave.

It's not less successful to leave.

It's just like it's not successful or better or more mature to stay.

Sometimes it might be more,

More mature to stay because you're just running away from pain,

Running away from connection,

Running away from intimacy,

Running away from responsibility.

Could be.

And it could be you're just staying because you're running away from loneliness or insecurity or shame or whatever else it is.

So we can't say whether someone stays or leaves,

Whether it's a long relationship or a short one,

That that determines the success level.

Yeah?

Are we clear on that?

So yeah,

So it's basically when entering relationship or staying in a relationship,

The question is what is my goal?

What is my goal?

What do I want to feel?

Do I want adventure and excitement?

Then probably short-term relationships are the right fit for you,

Right?

Or finding a partner that's very adventurous.

And if you want more stability,

Maturity,

Growing together,

You know,

Raising kids,

All this type of thing,

Then yes,

Maybe a longer-term relationship is more valuable.

But it doesn't mean you're worse if that's not what you want in this moment or if that's not what you want ever.

Yeah?

We can have phases where we want a five-year or a ten-year or 20-year and you can have phases where we want a few week relationships or a few month relationships.

That that's okay.

There is no hierarchy that a committed monogamous relationship is somehow better than than having short flings for weeks or months or whatever the case may be.

Because it's totally possible to have amazing experiences in a short period of time that's really valuable that you're not going to have in a long-term one.

You can have growth with new people.

So every new partner you have,

You can develop new qualities because you're in connection with a new type of person.

Or you can grow in ways because there's new type of triggers and you're interacting with a new type of human.

So there can also be a lot of evolution and a lot of growing both of into good qualities that you sort of get through connecting with a new person with different qualities and also the growth and maturing that happens from new types of triggers.

Yeah?

So I hope that clarifies it so you can just follow your intuition of what you want to do in terms of romantic relationships instead of following some prescribed idea that staying in a relationship means it's more successful or you're bad if you want short-term ones right now or end up in short-term ones right now.

It doesn't make it any worse.

And you can stop comparing yourself to people who are in long-term relationships as if they're somehow more successful.

They might be absolutely miserable.

They might be or it just might be their path.

They might be really happy but that's their path and that's what they need.

They value different things than you and that's okay.

So yeah,

I hope that helps to relax the comparisons and the sense of insecurity or shame around whatever it is you desire or whatever it is your relationship life is working out.

So please share with me in the comments how this impacted you.

If you have any resistance or questions I'd love to hear them.

And yeah,

Like,

Subscribe,

Share with people if you feel it would be helpful.

Have a beautiful day.

Reviews

Loved this ❤️