A partner won't make you happy

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I was trying to work on my own issues & problems when I was single even thou it looked to others like I was just complaining. I find it's a lot easier for me to work on myself when I'm in a relationship.

But sometimes its just for a little while, or a long while and then get burned....I mean IDk maybe my parents would be happier if they had never met. It was kind of a nasty divorce. Not trying to put a damper on it but a relationship is not necessarily a thing that will make you happier in the long term...it can but plenty of people that get together don't stay together.

I'm not a neurologist and don't know the details but apparently loneliness and social rejection activate some of the same brain regions as physical pain. We are a social species. Expecting people not to hurt when they're lonely is unrealistic.
Physical pain protects us from staying in situations that do harm to our body and may kill us.
The rare person who is born without that natural response often dies in an accident. They're less likely to pass their genes on.
A need for social connection prevents us from spending our lives completely solitary.
A person who feels no need to interact with anyone is unlikely to have much sex. They're less likely to pass their genes on.
Both the capacity to feel physical pain as well as the capacity to feel loneliness are adaptive traits. They're not a dysfunction.

That said, I neither agree with the people on this forum who act like you can easily change anything you feel at a whim and feelings are purely a choice (I don't mean anything anyone has said in this thread specifically but some people who seemed to promote this idea have been around in the past), nor with the ones who think people can not consciously influence their feelings in the slightest neither immediately nor in the long run.
I also don't think that it is in general only possible to be happy if one is in a relationship or has the capacity to be in one, but of course there's variation between people both based on their personality as well as on their overall situation.
Not being in a relationship but having many friends and a supportive family is a totally different situation than not being in a relationship and having few to no friends and no close social bonds with one's family. In this regard the situation of people on this forum also varies widely.

Personally I am perpetually single and this has been a major contributing factor to my depression in the past. I've been free of depression for 8 to 9 months now though, which is the longest time in a row I've been fine in the past couple of years. I'm still single. I'm not trying to change that anymore and don't know if I ever will again. I know I'd still want a relationship (and later on children) if I had been born with a normal fully functional brain. I haven't. Being me instead of a more functional version of myself I am not sure anymore if I want a relationship. Being in a relationship may require me to change and pretend too much which is exhausting. It may not be worth the effort. Exhaustion and pretense do not lead to happiness.

I'm aware that I'm not in the exact same situation as some of the other perpetually single people on this forum though.
I'm fairly certain that I could have lots of casual sex if I wanted to. I could have it with fairly good looking guys too. Some of them really are not that choosy. As far as I know the only reason why I don't have lots of casual sex is simply that I don't want it.
If I had absolutely no standards I could also possibly get into a relationship. Someone who couldn't attract the women he actually wants would settle, maybe. It's even possible that the guy wouldn't be abusive and the problem would merely be that I'd not be able to love him. If I did that, I'd be in a relationship that made me less instead of more happy, however. And I don't want that.

I guess that can be true, perhaps a relationship can give some encouragement for that. So I wouldn't say you have to fix everything before you even try. But its more once in a relationship you have to continue working on issues rather than thinking now that you're in a relationship there is nothing to improve.

I mean some things are easier in a relationship, but some things are harder....basically you are not just dealing with your own stuff, you have to deal with their stuff to not complaining about that. But when you're in a relationship you don't have the luxuary of just worrying about yourself...you have to consider them to. Its like a double edged sword or something you get some benefits but there are still struggles.

I do worry that some people who obsess on getting a relationship may not realize that comes with its own difficulties and problems, and will they be able to handle that without shutting down, and becoming one of these cases that sometimes women come on here to talk about 'why is my aspie husband/boyfriend being such a jerk' usually consists of them ignoring them or just randomly cutting off all contact because they needed space but failed to mention it to their concerned spouse/S.O.

Like kind of sounds like maybe some of these guys were not prepared for the relationship and panicked and jumped ship the second there was any 'problem' rather than sticking around and trying to work it out they 'disappear'. And I don't mean to say its just aspies, I mean I had an NT guy do that to me and it was very hurtful because instead of talking about anything they just ran away. By the time he messaged me a year later I was over it and didn't really care much to see him again so I never pursued meeting up with him again. But point is if you're not ready for what a relationship takes, it may be better to focus on other things first that is what I had to do...so maybe this doesn't fit for everyone but that is my thoughts on it anyways.

Ouch, I forgot to mentioned you in that other thread.....

Me and my boyfriend do have some supportive family, but both of us have felt kind of lonely about not really having any friends. We even have a nicer apartment now that we could have people over, but who to invite....aside from my family members(his all live in another state).

For a while they did like each other and we’re happier together. With that attitude no one would get together or take chances.
I’d take few weeks of a relationship and feeling loved and happy over never having one, never feeling loved.

Reminds me of king of the hill episode with the smack a moe
Yeah you’ll probably get hit when you go up, but times you don’t the view is amazing that’s just the risk you have to take.

Honest with no meanness ment I don’t care wp about what you have to say on this matter any more then you would care about the Walmart family telling you more money won’t make your life better. You damn well know more money would make your life better. You could get a car, get a better place, afford more food and weed.
It’s hypocritical to say I should be happy alone and that a relationship won’t make me happy when you got happier with with relationship and are in one.

It’d be like me telling a homless person to be happy having a home won’t make your life better, I know so as I have a home. Yeah I sure that’d go over swell.

Isn’t for anyone in particular, you in this is the general you.

If you’re in a relationship and say it won’t make other people happy then do as you preach and leave the relationship. Show everyone they don’t need a relationship y leading by example
Same for wealthy people give up all your money if you say it won’t make others happy show it.
I don’t expect anyone to do as they preach.
It’s a haves bs have nots. Haves always try to keep the have nots in line.

We can’t tell someone to be happy a certain way anymore then we can tell someone to be straight. Many paths to happiness and non were wrong. Different isn’t wrong.

The problem I have isn't that I am single. My problem is that I can't get interest from women at all. It makes me feel like a hideous, worthless freak.

In my case I was in a 15 year LTR and my partner passed away several years ago. As I said before I generally happy now. Thus, my experience is based on before, during, and after a relationship. It certainly helps to have wealth.

I agree but it's better to get the friends, then the close friends, first. That way your social skills are good when you're interacting with a partner instead of you being needy and the partner being able to take advantage of your isolation. There's a reason bad partners isolate people from their friends and family. You need that support network and you also need to be aware of how to treat people.
It's like taking off your arm bands and diving into the deep end rather than learning to swim.

One of the reasons I function better within a relationship is because I have sleep disorders that act up when I sleep alone. Sleeping some nights alone here & there like while my girlfriend is spending the weekend with family is fine but I'd start having problems sleeping if I were sleeping alone regularly. The psych I talked about my sleeping disorders in the past agreed that I would probably sleep better if I were with someone. Sleeping alone was one of the worst things about being single for me. Not sleeping well can certainly negatively affect your mental health.

Edit
This Got posted here i dont know how then I deleted it out it in the proper area and it somehow came back 0.o

Last edited by sly279 on 30 Dec 2018, 6:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that if someone's been wanting a relationship for years and they've never had one, they'd be very happy to find them self in a relationship.