A Relationship Needs More Commitment And Less Sacrifice

A relationship needs more commitment and less sacrifice. However, there are many who believe that true love requires constant sacrifices and concessions, and that the bigger they are, the more authentic the bond will be.

Taking on this premise can lead us to build unilateral power relations with a license for emotional extortion and the loss of one’s identity.

Not everything is true in love. Graham Greene said that we all came into this world with an authentic and noble notion of love, but at some point along the way, we ended up straying from it.

Maybe it’s all due to the classic model of romanticism in which we were raised, which made us believe for a long time that love and suffering go together.

We so intertwine affection with the idea of ​​sacrifice that we come to evaluate true love on the basis of these two ingredients.

Seeing him through this prism leads us to understand this feeling almost as a kind of god that requires great concessions and painful offerings so that we can be truly worthy of it.

Let us therefore avoid reaching these extremes. We understand that although relationships require, on some occasions, specific sacrifices, this practice cannot become the norm.

True love needs, above all, commitment. It should be a source of daily fulfillment and never a pyre of suffering into which we cast our dreams, identities and values.

A relationship needs balance

Sometimes sacrifices are necessary. On some occasions, we expect the partner to take that all-important step: leave their hometown or country to start a life with us, quit a job, postpone a project, etc.

There are times when, in fact, it is necessary to travel miles, pull up roots, mobilize homes, reshape futures, draw new maps of life…

However, these acts must always be performed of their own free will. More than that, the person must interpret them as a benefit, never as a harm. The perception of gain must overcome the feeling of loss. There must therefore be a clear balance.

The change must be interpreted as a useful act to strengthen the bond, a courageous decision that serves to further strengthen the commitment.

Sacrifice, on the other hand, does not always fuel the commitment itself, because what it often brings is suffering. There is a sense of loss and the experience comes at a cost.

A study carried out at the Universities of Toronto and Berkeley showed something important that deserves reflection:

• We often overlook the great impact these dynamics can have. The continual compromises and resignations completely erode our emotional fabric and our identity.

The Emotional Cost of Continued Resignations

The University of Berkeley Psychology Laboratory conducted the aforementioned study over three years. It had the participation of 80 couples and aimed to analyze the impact that sacrifices could have within a relationship.

• It was possible to see that most people who made certain sacrifices for the other tended to hide from their partner or partner the emotional cost that each concession or resignation brought them.
• By not expressing the price of this decision, the other person often considered that everything had happened with normality and complacency. Therefore, he did not hesitate to ask for more sacrifices over time.

When resignations were constant and people still did not express the emotional cost of them, they developed self-esteem issues and feelings of frustration and unhappiness.

love is not measured by sacrifices

We already know that a relationship needs more commitment and less sacrifice. However, we are  still conditioned by the idea that love and sacrifice go hand in hand. Therefore, it is common to choose to silence the weight of each resignation.

What’s even worse is that some people even rationalize these compromises thinking they’re the best choice, that they’re what should be done.

So, situations can arise where someone tries to tell themselves that leaving their job was the best choice, that leaving that hobby, that house, that project, that habit, that friendship is the right thing because, in the end, only love matters.

This reasoning may continue for a month or even a year, but there will come a time when the scales will tip.

The day will come when the losses will be greater than the gains, and frustration may arise, even accompanied by hatred. A hatred directed at the person for whom we cease to be ourselves.

We must understand that love is not making sacrifice a norm. Every bond must favor our personal development, not hinder it. Therefore, a relationship needs more commitment and less sacrifice.

We can do almost anything for the other that improves the quality of the bond. However, we must have clear limits: we can never do something that makes us someone we are not.