Overanalyzed Relationships

I am always truly puzzled by people who overanalyze personal relationships. I see people who spend hours dwelling on which partner gives more to the relationship, or try to predict the long term future of a relationship based on present day indicators. And it saddens me because the people who do this suffer from an unquenchable grief - they seem to mourn the partner or friend they never have, because they've spent so much time on the issue that the idealized partner or friend they've conceived in their mind is as real to them as the flesh and blood people these constructs were meant to improve on.

Let me say this straight up - you can't change someone else, and you can't know the future of the most complicated interaction nature has ever produced. God gave us great intelligence so we can manage our interactions with other people, it is true. But this is the crux of it - we only have the ability to manage our own part in those interactions (unless you have a mind control ray gun.) There is little point in trying to analyze the role other people play in those interactions, in the hope of getting them to play the part you feel they should play. Each of us has an individual culture, a specific belief about how relationships of both the friendly and romantic kind work. And these beliefs are hard for any of us to shake. That is one of the reasons where mating is concerned that we pair-bond - in theory, we are picking like-minded, or at least compatible mates. All you can do is spend a lot of time recommending 1 Corinthians 13, the ultimate model of love, to people.

As for trying to plan the long distance future of a relationship? Well, it can be fun to try and pick out what cruise ship you're going to take at fifty. But spending too much time on the future sacrifices the present. I know of so many older people who spent years sacrificing for a future they were robbed of - I remember some neighbours my parents had at the farm. The husband died months after retiring, and they had spent years preparing for retiring.

I'm not suggesting not having savings. All I do suggest is not to get wrapped up in a future that may not come. And who knows? Your future may be far better than the one you have planned! (My future includes the next Star Wars movie. :)