Comparing Relationships: Yours vs. Mine

By Drew-Shane Daniels

Let’s be honest. Do you ever compare your relationship to your girlfriends’?

Well let’s try taking the faults in your girlfriends’ relationships and comparing them to the strengths of your own? How’d you measure out? And does this make you feel better about your situation?

Since we’re being honest, we all do this so often that it becomes automatic because it’s inherent in our psyche. We’re constantly thinking of how much better we are then the next, or we’re even aspiring to be better than the next. However, just because we do this subconsciously doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s good for us. Growing up, we’re constantly reminded through fables that melancholy stems from comparing ourselves to others by placing ourselves in their shoes.

If you think your one-month relationship has the same weight as my two-year relationship then you’re sadly mistaken. Don’t come to me comparing your situation to mine. So many things go on behind closed doors that it makes it impossible for us to compare relationships. Not to mention, we’re all different. Just because your girlfriend’s man won’t tell her when he’s going out to the club and your man does, does that mean you have the better man? No.

Not only do we compare by looking for the faulty faults, but we also compare by looking to see how much our situation is really better. Comparing and contrasting yourself to others creates the illusion that you are either inferior or superior. Each relationship is different and distinctive, and many people paper over the cracks in their relationship in public. Even the bonds we have between our closest inner circle of friends are different. Some things that you tell one, you just won’t tell or do for the other.

How many times have you told your girlfriends about each fight, or the time your boyfriend made you upset because he forgot to text you when was working late? We tend to always glorify the negative part of the relationship versus telling people the entire positive. But, then again, why are we even giving an entire play-by-play to our friends anyway? Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with sharing—but taking the information being shared and conducting a self-evaluated analysis of your current situation isn’t advantageous.

In order to not jinx the relationship, we often superstitiously tell the negative in order to prevent paranoia from knocking on our door. We discuss our relationships with our fingers crossed while we exploit the negative. There’s nothing more comfortable than opening up to your girlfriends because it’s an instant safety net. We’re constantly looking for solutions.

So often we fall into the trap of feeding off of relationships that are taking place around us. Is this a way of escaping reality by dreaming of different situations and candy-painted pitfalls? If our friends have “perfect” relationships we might question our own and feel miserable if it doesn’t equal our immaculate perception. I don’t know of any relationship that is perfect—unless you’re perfect, then by all means, you should accept nothing less than pure perfection. But we know that’s not the case. Relationships will always have issues no matter how bad we desire for them to be flawless. There is no such thing as a perfect relationship because mistakes are going to be made, and passionate, healthy debates and disagreements will always occur along the way.

Please be aware of when you start to constantly compare your relationship with other’s relationships. This is a certified, guaranteed roadmap to misery and problems. Be happy with your relationship independently of anyone else. Be the cheerleader for the relationship and focus on what you’re doing to make it work. Why be with someone if you’re constantly going to nag? There’s no need to compare and contrast your relationship. Don’t focus on ranking yourself among others—there’s no competition. Even though we often seem to think like this, the value of our relationships won’t increase or decrease in stock in comparison to the relationships of others around us.