There’s no doubt in my mind that a person is entitled to determine where he or she ends up. This freedom to control one’s own destiny and make choices is what people in Iraq are fighting for everyday. When it comes to long term relationships (I know, what a jump), our culture has limited the ability for us to think that this idea of self-determination or actualization applies. In our society relationships are forged and come apart all the time. What I think is significantly interesting is this idea of investment and returns. A capitalist approach to relationships, that frankly is engraved in most of our heads based on the ideas of what a relationship should look like. Perhaps this is true for people, that they mutually agree on this idea of investments and return.

By investments and returns, the idea is that if you invest time, energy, or even resources into a relationship you should see some sort of reciprocal investment, or return. However, how do you deal with moments of conflict of interests? Does the investments/returns thing fail? Is it not significant? Yes and no. Of course if you mutually agree on something like monogamous relations or that what one puts into it should be mutually met, then you have your set of rules to go by. If from the beginning the idea is that relations are open to varying individuals, well… actually I don’t know what that would be like at all.

It usually gets to a point depending on the person and their needs, that requires them to either look else where or determine for themselves what’s really at stake. Is the investment made worth it? What are you getting out of it? Will it last and why should it? I mean these are just a few questions, but I’m sure depending on the couple the questions can be anything. So what do you do then? Investing in something gives you the idea that you own it. But no one really owns a person. People are free. They are free to be and do what they’d like. Of course, again, you determine a system of values and rules for yourself but eventually that systems needs to be checked.

So its during this system check up where things enter this stage of limbo. What if the way things have been working aren’t sufficient? All sorts of questions about how the relationship has been functioning enters the brain. What happens to this idea of love? Can you love someone and still need someone else? It seems far fetched. We have specific terms for that… slut, whore, player, and all sorts of others. How, as the person who is having to take a step back to allow for the other to determine their needs, does one deal with that? What if love is involved? Can love be sidelined?

Ultimately there’s nothing one can really do but sit around and wait. The reality is that fighting a decision that another makes based on their needs to better understand themselves is a lost battle. A person does not own the mind of another. A person cannot possibly understand or meet all the needs of another. One can only hope that at the end of the day, the investment is considered. That it is worth it. That it is worth fighting for and sticking to. That the cost of reinvesting in someone else would not be cost-effective, because with life there are no refunds.