love actually?

Does love really make the world go round? Is anyone really ever secure in their relationship?



I hate to start with a rhetorical question but that's all that is spinning around in my head at the moment. Is this life about finding someone, that special someone to spend the rest of your days with? I'm not sure.



I look around me and see so many of my friends breaking up, getting divorced; all mostly in their late twenties. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't the kind of life I signed up for all those years ago, sitting on my bed as a little girl dreaming of Prince Charming whisking me off my feet. It's so hard to watch your friends end what they thought was a chance of happiness with their Prince Charming.



This is something that has been playing on my mind for a while and has left me thinking about the reasons for all this unhappiness. Everytime I come back to the same conclusion. Society today is about being easy, convenient and disposable; from food packaging to partners. Gone are the days when women are submissive to men, they no longer have to put up with violence, neglect or unhappiness in the fear that they will be left homeless and outcast. I am certainly no exception, as a young student I actively sought a career that would provide me with stability, supply me with the ability to provide for myself and ultimately grant me the power to never rely on anyone else. Perhaps that is the problem. Materialistically speaking, many men and women know that they do not actually need anyone else. The role of a wife/husband or life partner is changing; they are needed for love, affection and companionship. Interestingly, a psychology article I read recently stated that the criteria for a successful marriage has changed, actually being in love with someone is far more important now than it was say in the 1900s.



Only today I spoke to my friend who is currently in turmoil about whether to leave her husband after two years of marriage. Her reasons for staying are pure guilt. Guilt at giving up. Guilt at letting everyone down. Guilt at being a divorcee before she is thirty. Rightly or wrongly I told her she is to do what she really feels is right. You have one life, a short one at that. I have this thing where I imagine myself, eighty years old, looking back at my life and I think what an awful time to regret how you have spent your life.