Ten Reasons Why Being In A Relationship Sucks

May. 16, 2011

By Ryan O'Connell info

Ryan O’Connell is a 25 year-old writer based in the East Village, New York.

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  1. You have to be super sensitive to someone else’s needs all the time. “Babe, are you ok? Babe, I feel really distant from you right now. What’s going on?!” You’re slightly paranoid all of the time. Their highs are your highs. Their lows are your lows. It can just get…super exhausting.
  2. Someone has power over you. They have the ability to make you sublimely happy and they can also make you feel super depressed. You lose slight control over your moods. When you enter a relationship, it’s as if you sign a contract that says, “I give you 70% of my feelings. I acknowledge that you can play with them, make them feel good, and I also acknowledge that you can fucking destroy them.”
  3. You worry you might lose yourself in the relationship. You could simply become a +1 and just start to have no other identity than “I’m someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend.” It will go on your tombstone: “Sarah Taylor (Tom Smith’s girlfriend. The one with the blonde hair)” and that will be that. Because you’re so afraid of that happening, you’ll have to designate certain evenings as “girls night” or “boys night” and you’ll constantly be worrying about your friends being mad at you and feeling deserted.  You’ll feel sad that you even have to do this, that you can’t  just see them without labeling it as “This is the time I see my friends.” Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. It all depends on the person and the relationship.
  4. The fights that never seem to go anywhere or get resolved. One minute you’re laughing together and the next you’re threatening to break up. Once these fights become recurring, you know the relationship is living on borrowed time.
  5. Realizing how crazy you can be. Becoming consumed with jealousy, hacking into emails, questioning your lover’s whereabouts. You take a step back and think to yourself, “Um, who is this person? Why is love making me act like a psycho nightmare?” Relationships can make you become someone you aren’t—someone who is slightly terrifying and needs to know everything all the time. “BABE, WHERE R U? HELLO? BABE!”
  6. You have to like their friends even if they’re terrible. Their best friend might even hate you and you might just hate them, but you still have to put time in and hang out together. You realize you might be chained to this best friend forever. If you get married to your significant other, this person  will be showing up to your fiftieth birthday party with a smirk on their face. And you’re just thinking to yourself, “I didn’t even want to know you for one day, let alone 2o years.”
  7. The fear that the sex will become routine and mechanical. There was a time when you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. Their body was brand new and you couldn’t wait to discover every nook. Now it’s become like a treasure map with frayed edges and smudged markings. You’ve seen all of it. You’ve done everything you can to it and now it just sits there looking old and familiar.
  8. The cold harsh reality of cheating. Wondering if you could ever hurt the person you love the most if you had one too many cocktails one night. Four margaritas + one person you’re attracted to = one irrevocable mistake.
  9. You’re worried that one day your lover will break your heart. They’ll spend years nurturing it and letting it grow. Then one day they’ll destroy everything in a moment. You won’t recognize the person who broke your heart. You’ll question whether or not you ever truly knew them. One day they have a face that you know and love, and the next they look and feel like a stranger. This is something that everyone experiences at some point but when it happens to you, it will be the most bizarre foreign experience of your life.
  10. You’re worried that one day you’ll break their heart. You’ll just wake up one morning and decide you’re over it. Or maybe it will happen more gradually like a sickness that’s building in your stomach. Their jokes will stop being appealing and their body will look sallow. And you almost wish they could be the one to dump you. Because if someone falls out of love with you, there’s someone to blame. But if you’re the one who ruins them, you have no one to blame but yourself . TC mark

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image – Married With Children

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

    Well, another one is when you ask for titties, they ask you “Why?” It's never a picture of titties. It's always a question asking why. I just want pictures of your breasts, dammit.

  • Rachel

    #dark.

  • Hanna

    This just make me sad.

  • JP M

    Loves it.

  • Dude-

    What is going on with you??

  • http://www.facebook.com/jonathanharty Jonathan Hart

    Yes

  • http://brianmcelmurry.blogspot.com/ Brian McElmurry

    damn…

  • http://twitter.com/simbelsim simbel

    This should be re-titled. “Ten Reasons Why Being in a Fucked Up, Insecure and Immature Relationship Sucks”

    The reasons described have nothing to do with a relationship that is actually worth having. You know, the kind involving love, and communication, and mutual respect.

  • Katgeorge

    Yes because the kind of relationship you're talking about happens to everyone, every single day.

  • Katgeorge

    You need to get drunk. Want to get drunk?

  • Katgeorge

    I like to wager my breasts for porn, like this: “hey boyfriend, sure you can have as many pictures of my titties as you want. Want to film me giving you a blow job? Or film us fucking even? Great so in that case you don't need to watch porn anymore.”

    And we have ourselves a deal.

  • http://www.facebook.com/TomSmizzle Tom Smith

    Me and Sarah Taylor are like /this/, man

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=300901223 Nicolette Beach

    What is this 'communication' you speak of?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=300901223 Nicolette Beach

    Ah, you're one of THOSE types.

  • http://twitter.com/nuclearcabbage Nive

    pffft

  • kzspygv

    …everyone with a modicum of self-respect and independence, yes.

    TC is starting to read like some undergrad's LiveJournal : /

  • http://profiles.google.com/mopeyprincess mopey P

    Girl right on, I love letting some guy have potentially embarrassing sextapes of me, especially when I'd have to act nuts and scour their internet usage to make sure they keep their end of the deal. Adds spice!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

    Yeah, apparently you've never had a boyfriend who actually understands the reasons-that-may-be as to why you'd break up with said boyfriend. I have pictures of previous girlfriends naked. They haven't seen the light of day since I cried looking at them last night.

  • Pixmate

    Wow. Spot on!  I related to all 10 reasons from my last couple relationships. Happy in single-hood!

  • Sam

    Bullshit.

  • shammy

    he's still watching porn.

  • Adorablemama

    All true and mostly good reasons to go find someone who actually has a life and a good character to boot.

  • http://twitter.com/LadyBlueShame ✔ Lady Blue

    This was quite good and real. I rarely praise other Thought Catalog contributors… but hey there's a reason why you help run this place!

  • Eric

    ur doing it wrong

  • sidebar

    Ryan has finally given up, no I mean, accepted singledom!  Congrats…

  • http://twitter.com/thedavidou David Ou

    I would agree with you simbel, but ryan makes really good points. A good relationship is the one where the benefits outweigh all of his reasons. I'm sure at one point he didn't even think about this and just enjoyed unconditional time with another person. 

    Once these fights become recurring, you know the relationship is living on borrowed time.  (he shouldve ended it there)

    But now that it is over, lets just all get drunk and forget about it.

  • http://twitter.com/nanabuuui Anna B

    I like the whole idea of the piece, but was disappointed with the ending. Where is the profound meaning of it all?!

  • thich

    relationships aren't perfect. this statement is obviously true and is what this piece is about. seems like everyone is 'fucked up and immature' to some degree. what the fuck is wrong with people who think they got things figured out they are the most myopic people in the world

  • kzspygv

    I didn't say they were perfect, but they're complicated, and this flood of debbie-downer, relationships-suck posts are grating in their abject pessimism and failure to make any sort of point. One might say…it's myopic?

  • Claire

    Does no one realize that he wrote a point and a counterpoint? Calm down, people. 

    This is beautiful. I'm currently in the depths of number 9 and don't know how to get out even though I've been through it before. What you said about them becoming a stranger brought to mind one of Carver's best poems:

    I said, “A forge, and a scythe.”
    I talk to myself like this.
    Saying the names of things—
    capstan, hawser, loam, leaf, furnace. 
    Your face, your mouth, your shoulder
    inconceivable to me now!
    Where did they go? It's like
    I dreamed them. The stones we brought
    home from the beach lie face up
    on the windowsill, cooling. 
    Come home. Do you hear?
    My lungs are thick with the smoke
    of your absence.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Yesenia-Santos/100000691834963 Yesenia Santos

    You’re dating the wrong people.

  • Nickialani

    “You won’t recognize the person who broke your heart. You’ll question whether or not you ever truly knew them. One day they have a face that you know and love, and the next they look and feel like a stranger. This is something that everyone experiences at some point but when it happens to you, it will be the most bizarre foreign experience of your life.”
    Wow. I really can not think of a more accurate way to put that. It gave me chills.

  • Hero_hollis

    quite insighful! yet i think there can be some pretty decent ones out there…. I hope!! Check out my newest blog entry on embracing being single… :) thanks scribingsfromvenus xhttp://scribingsfromvenus.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/how-to-become-the-anti-bridget-jones-and-love-it/

  • Happy

    I am sad and single, then I hear my neighbors yelling and beating each other.   I remember being single isn’t so bad. 

  • Ana

    This is a list of reasons of why not to become dependent on someone. Being in a relationship with someone does not mean you have to lose your individuality and conform – a relationship, in my opinion, should enhance your life and not suffocate it. Also, communication and trust, communication and trust! We lie and/or get angry at the truth when really, if both partners would do just the opposite, would create a beautiful bond.

  • Green0988

    Quite insightful and woefully written! This describes my relationship from the past 5 years; I am in this exact tornado

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