Don't set sail in a relationShip part 3

Build something that won't sink when things get rocky

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been attempting to articulate the shortcomings of relationships. How a ship of relating is not a great metaphor for the connection you share with the people you love. Why? Because sharing a life together isn’t always like sailing a ship together.

This can be a tricky topic to grasp, but is a very valuable one. It’s tricky because its a word and concept deeply embedded in our psyches. It’s deeply embedded because its a term and a concept that has come into common use because it arises from the foundations of our culture, it’s values, and it’s worldview.

Trying to grasp why relationships don’t serve you that well it is a bit like trying to look at yourself without a mirror. Not really possible right? This article attempts to become that mirror for you.

It’s a valuable topic because relationships are a core concept in our modern world. They are the de facto norm in terms of how we perceive a key aspect of our lives; our long term connections to important humans in our lives. Conceptually and perceptually, “relationships” fundamentally shape our experience in a huge way.

If you’ve been reading along, I commend you! That means you are interested in how things work on a deep level. It may not seem that easy to digest or approachable at first, and I hope you’ll stay with me because when it does start to click I promise the insight will be profound. If this is your first article or you need a refresher, check out the previous first and second posts from this series.

Continuing, let’s look a little deeper at relationships before moving on to alliances of love. Here is the Oxford English dictionary definitions of a relationship:

The state or fact of being related; the way in which two things are connected.

Relationships are about a state of connection and are more neutral in tone. By metaphorical implication, a relationship is a relatively small enclosure intended to get it’s passengers from A to B. It therefore limits the perception of people in relationships metaphorically in the ways that passengers of actual ships are limited physically, mentally, and emotionally.

A ship is large sea-going vessel designed for long distance travel. It’s therefore comparable to a long term committed relationship. Nonetheless, a ship is still relatively small. If you’re on it for a long time it tends to feel confining compared to the sense of freedom you experience on land - hence the term cabin fever. Similarly, many people feel confined in their relationships and seek some sort of out. A quick internet search shows a wide range of studies indicating a high average level of infidelity. Averaging roughly 30-40% in unmarried relationships, and 13-25% in marriages.