Stages of Life

Life is made up of stages, but we have the choice of how we transition into each new stage or in some cases, even if we do.

When we are born we are a baby, all our needs are taken care of. We then grow a little older and become a child, being looked after but learning about life, doing things for ourselves, then we transition into a teenager, we know everything and our parents in particular are just trying to control and restrict us, and then we become adults.

Throughout those stages there are many smaller stages, transitions we get to choose how we embrace them or even skipping them entirely. We all know that person who has just not grown up.

Once we are out of our teen years we can take charge of the stages of our life, and in some cases we have to even before that.

I think depending on which stages we decide to transition into gives our life its direction, when we are young adults we start dating and living with our new found freedom, we can then choose if we want to live an independent life or if we want to share our life with someone. We cannot for example expect to have the freedom of being single but at the same time maintain a relationship with someone, those are two opposing stages.

When you are in the dating stage you still have your individual life apart from your partner, if you decide to make the commitment and marry your partner, your lives have to merge together. You can’t simply think of what you want to do and when you want to do it, you have to consider your partner just as you would like your partner to consider your feelings and desires.

Of course this is a choice you can make, you can decide to be considerate towards your partners feelings, or you can think of them as a burden and buzz kill, you can make the combination of your lives work or you can constantly fight against it and try to maintain your independence. Through fighting to keep your independence and freedom, you are not building the foundation for a strong marriage.

You have to know that your partner is going to consider your feelings when making decisions and not only choose what they like, or enjoy regardless of your feelings towards it, and this leads to compromises on both sides but an overall happiness together instead of constant and regular fighting.

While you can’t control every aspect of your life, choosing what to do in the situations you do have control over plays a part in the overall happiness of your relationship. If you are used to going out partying every Friday night and your partner does not, you have to understand that it may cause tension in your relationship if you continue to do that, you can of course decide you don’t want to compromise and continue or work out an agreeable alternative with your partner.

By choosing to stick with your freedom and continue doing as you please when you please, you will find it very difficult to maintain a happy relationship with your partner, your lack of consideration towards their feelings and needs will show in your relationship.

A quick guide can be thinking of your partner treating you in the same way, would you be happy with it. Of course this is not always an accurate guide as we may react differently, but it is a good start.

Some of the tops reasons for divorce are; lack of commitment, too much arguing, unrealistic expectations, lack of equality, all of those can most likely be traced back to lack of consideration of your partner in the partnership stage of your life, where you feel your needs and wants are more important that your partners.

If I turn around and say I like Pizza, my wife hates pizza but every Friday night is pizza night, there is a chance that often Friday nights will be unpleasant nights. Maybe not initially, but can  you think how pleasant it would be having one night every week dedicated to a meal you dislike?

What about something else, like not knowing if your partner is going to come home every night, they usually do, but sometimes they don’t, and when they don’t there usually isn’t much pre-warning, they just randomly don’t come home, it wouldn’t take long for that to be an issue. Not because they are being irresponsible on those nights, but because you might expect, maybe even like going to sleep with your partner next to you, and like having someone with you.

So consideration for both people routines, pleasures and displeasure’s has to play a constant part in any decision making. If your partner cannot stand going to the movies, or going out to Sunday lunches and every week you drag them along, that too would contribute towards an overall unhappy relationship.

Transitions aren’t limited to the big things either, there are many little transitions constantly happening, new interests, things you no longer like, things you learn, goals you decide you want to work towards, so you have to constantly be reviewing and realigning with your partner, and just when you think you have it on track, BAMM!! a baby comes along and changes EVERYTHING!

You find that friendships often change at different stages, couples usually hang out with other couples, married people with other married people and couples with children spend time with other couples with children. One of the reasons is that when you are in a relationship you don’t have the same independence as when you are single and single people tend to not consider that. Just drop everything and go spend the weekend partying, whats the problem???

When you are in a different stage of your life, often people who are not in that stage or have not been through that stage do not understand or accept it. Sometimes people in the same stage but handling it differently will not take into consideration yours or your partners feelings either, so not every couple will get along with every other couple.

All together this makes up life, we live our life in stages, constantly transitioning and how we deal with them should make us happy or we should work on it making us happy, and we should not try and do it at the expense of someone elses happiness.

There are enough people in this world to find friends who will increase your happiness, weather you are in a relationship or not and they will not cause unhappiness in your situation whatever it may be. Find these people and try to stay away from the ones who bring unhappiness.

It is always easy to increase people unhappiness, and some people have a knack for it. Go out for a meal and exclaim throughout the meal how good your meal is, how its so much better than the other meals, how you are so glad you did not order what the other people are eating, and through such an innocent seeming action you are making everyone else unhappy with their choice and making the entire evening less pleasurable for them.

Invite your married friends around and then rub your independence and freedom to do as you please in their faces, point out how you do what you want, when you want, how you don’t have to think about anyone else, you are number one and only need to worry about number one. I’m sure that wont create any feelings of animosity or sacrifice in the couples relationship. Of course you can help the situation by pointing out how you shouldn’t let anyone stop you doing what you want, when you want for your own pleasure.

The choices come down to you, do you want to have a life you like, do you want to share your life with someone, or do you want to try and live your life the way other people think you should at your own expense and usually at the cost of your own happiness?

Thinking about what you want, communicating with your partner, working towards mutual happiness, or choosing to be single, choosing to live carefree without savings or financial security, living on people couches or saving to buy a castle. They are all choices you get to make for yourself, and rather than trying to find happiness in living the way other people say you should, find happiness in the way you choose to live.

Embrace your stages, live your transitions and love life as much as you can!