The biggest mistake people can make in their relationships is expecting everything to work out flawlessly. People tend to forget that relationships take a lot of work, effort, communication, and compromise, so some couples decide to let go when the relationship starts to get tough. The truth is, relationships aren’t always going to be peachy, especially for those who are still dating their high school sweetheart.
A lot of the time relationships don’t work out because people begin to grow apart, they realize that they want different things, or they become different people. As teenagers, young adults, and adults, we are constantly changing. Each day we grow and learn different parts of ourselves that we didn’t know before, and this means that we have to let go of parts of our past when they no longer serve us, and this sometimes includes people.
However, sometimes we are able to bring parts of our past into our future when we work at keeping them relevant to our lives, and this includes our high school sweethearts. As I said before, we are constantly changing, so for those of us who are still with our boyfriend/girlfriend from highschool, it is important for others to understand that our relationships with these people haven’t always just worked as easily as they may have seemed.
The reality of being with your high school sweetheart is that it is extremely difficult sometimes.
When you experience growth and change, you can turn into a different person than who you were when you first met, so you may find that you aren’t as compatible; however, some people believe that this loss due to you two no longer working together means that a breakup is inevitable, but this is not true! People need to learn to see this as an opportunity to find new activities to do together and bond over to help you bring that spark back
Although there may be disagreements about what you both want, people have to realize that this is a healthy thing. When couples open up about their opposing opinions, they are communicating, and this is what people forget that they need to do in relationships. Being with your high school sweetheart means that you have to open up about your opinions, worries, and desires to let your partner know what is going on with you. Then, you can work off each other to figure out what the best decisions are for both of you together as a unit.
Another issue that tends to happen with your high school sweetheart is distance. Sometimes distance is inevitable, especially after graduation if you are both attending different schools. It can be hard to work through these times, but this is another part of life where communication trumps all. Or, if you are graduating post-secondary and find you want to go to different places, this can cause problems too. If you truly love each other, you can make it work by staying in contact with one another. I strongly believe that there is always a way to make things work, but both partners need to be able to compromise to find common ground where both can be happy.
Now, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t positive times. Being with someone that you have got to experience so many parts of your life with is absolutely amazing. It can be tough, but being with your high school sweetheart means that you got to experience a lot of firsts together. You experienced high school together, you experienced the troubles of post-secondary school together, whether you were at the same university or not, you have been able to share your life with someone for so long that you may know them more than you even know yourself, and you got to relearn things about them when you both grew and experienced change in your lives. Overall, you grew together, even if you grew into different people, you learned how to make things work and how to stay compatible, and these are signs of a really strong relationship. Therefore, even though dating your high school sweetheart can be extremely difficult, you are experiencing one of the strongest relationships ever, and if you are careful, it can be a relationship with so much love, trust, and compassion that absolutely no one can break.
Featured image via Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash
Great article. 5/7.