For Those In Committed Relationships

Recently I got thinking, on and off, if there were a magic formula for living "The Good Life" after finding a suitable someone.

You know, the type that goes happily ever after, few fights much joy, beautiful babies and manicured nails lawns?

Some worldly-wise friends advised looking for wealth ("since money doesn't matter then, it leaves the real thinking for the real issues!"), some advised looking for That Feeling ("gotta have the zing"), and some advised looking at how the other person treated them ("what's most important is how they treat you!").

While these are great ideas, none of these indicate much in the prediction of future romantic satisfaction. How do you even tell in this time and age? A wealthy person could very well come with their own caprice - not to mention wealth's own plethora of gold-digging fancies - That Feeling could fade and become something else and a person could treat you like the queen today and let you down tomorrow.

Truth is, we never know whether a union will work out because people and situations change.

Some reason and say that yes, that's why we live today and let tomorrow worry about itself. Today is all you really have. Yolo, basically.

Fair enough, but what if it were up to you, today? What if it were up to you to decide if you wanted to hold hands and kiss in the taxi cab with Not Spouse? What do you do then, Yolo it?

What if it involves business and you needed to decide if it is alright, "because business" and that this will be the only time? Do you Yolo? Do you respectfully tell your business associates that you don't do these anymore?

Or if it were up to you to decide that you'll "stop it this time for sure"?


...what if you were making the decision?

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Y'know, it is up to us. Every day, consciously or not, we decide.

Whether to hold that gaze longer, whether to laugh that bit louder, whether to take this a bit further -

Yolo do we, or Yolo do we not?



I would ask if your principles and bases of your love - and loyalty - change, because of reasons™?

Your principles and basis of your love and loyalty.

Do they change for whatever reason, be it a beautiful third person or a lucrative offer?

They don't, do they? Principles don't change just because situations do.


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You know how it is walking away from a mewling kitten abandoned in a box? The way they yearn for a place - your place - to go to? How they scurried out of the box to meet you, mewling so charmingly the entire time? Maybe they even climbed up your clothes to meet you proper.

Except this is no kitten.

They may not even be abandoned. Heck, even if they were abandoned, you for sure aren't abandoned if you are attached or married. So what if they posed and pouted at you? 

Say no. Choose no. Turn away, walk on. Harden your heart, ignore their cries. Because you already have your family, the one you chose. Because you've already decided that you're done playing. Keep walking and actively avoid the proverbial kitten from now on and hold your spouse closer.

For... today it is up to you. Tomorrow... who knows? Would you be glad that you made the faithful decision? Will you be as glad as when your significant other makes the faithful decision?


For those struggling: know that every union is made up of two powerful parties. You have the power to pull the plug, as does the other party. You are not better than the other, neither is the other better than you; you are strong in different ways but are of equal standing.

If your significant other has not wronged you, then it is your responsibility to honour the other person. Likewise your significant other, you. 

I pray that you continuously remember the love of your youth, that one you vowed to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and forsaking all others - for so long as you both shall live.  

For it is not just to your own honour and good standing at stake, it is your parents', and their parents' as well.