This past year has really humbled my heart. I've learned a lot about relationships, both through my own personal account and through my friends and family's. We've gone through it all: starting new relationships, mending old ones; we’ve announced engagements, weddings, babies, and even divorces. If there was only one thing you’d read from what I wrote, at least read this: please be fair to each other, be kind, respect one another, and appreciate love when you have it. In this world, this is truly rare to find.
Some people laugh at relationships and claim that humans weren't made for monogamy. But I don't think that it matters what religion you believe in, or rather, if you believe in any sort of organized religion at all--humans are more than just mindless creatures; we have the ability to think, and with our minds we can have good judgment. We undeniably have feelings and are affected by them. I don't think that showing commitment to one person is unnatural. Staying committed is simply remaining loyal to someone you care about. When we love someone, if it is real, we must be sincere and genuine in our words and actions. We become devoted, because it is only fair to hold truth to what you promised. Loving someone requires vulnerability, and that doesn't mean being weak or revealing all emotions at full disclosure, it just means that you are putting yourself out there, and are trusting the other person to not take advantage of your heart at it's weakest points. Not only has a broken heart proven over time to be one of the deepest, hardest hitting pain, no one has a cure for it--that is what why loving someone is the ultimate vulnerability. That’s why it’s so scary. And that’s why we have to hold our loved ones in the highest regard for loving us back.
For a long time, I questioned what exactly "cheating" really means. We can all generally agree on the definition of physical cheating, but when emotional cheating comes into play, the line grows fuzzy. But now I see, cheating is hard to define if you limit its definition to individual actions. In truth, cheating is simply acting dishonestly or unfairly to gain your own advantage. And I think that when we cheat in relationships, we're really only cheating ourselves. Once the obvious act of cheating can be pinpointed to infidelity, it is already at the late point of cheating. When you want to cheat outside your relationship, you should actually realize that there is a problem in the relationship itself. The reason why this is cheating is because you're allowing yourself to sneak around the actual problem, and it’s wrong because it’s at the risk of everyone’s hearts—including your own. Instead of facing the problem, you avoid it; you seek for a solution outside of it, or you push matters aside with the distracting dreams of something else. The true deception here isn't whatever you can pull off behind your significant other's back. It is actually the trick you're pulling on yourself to believe that you could have it all and get away with it, that somehow you could avoid the pain, yet receive the gain without any consequences. Somehow, you figure, you've cheated the system.
Sometimes we think we've fallen in love with someone, but we’re too afraid to admit that it had been infatuation all along. Or sometimes we did love the person, but we could not stay in love with them longer. And sometimes in the end, people just grow apart. Relationships do end, and that is okay. It is unfortunate that we must break up with someone we had shared so much with and that we must face the pain that incurs with leaving them. But the truth is, relationships only move forward. That is life, and we must live it, because otherwise you'd only be cheating yourself from the honest life you deserve. Each promise you make in the next step is only stronger than the last. You'd be a fool to think the person you're progressing with would ever change to be the person you are only imagining you'd want them to be. Love them and see them for who they are, and expect the same in return. So be honest to yourself and to the other person. Take your time. Make sure your words are true to whom you can be true to. And when you do make a promise, stay true to it. Follow through with your words. Be loyal to yourself and the person you love. Because the whole point of a relationship is that you're both in it together—not you more, or you less. Be fair.
