How do you go from settling the disputes which happen in normal relationships, by finding the most beneficial solution to all, to losing yourself through being forced to change?

You start to compromise.

You get invested.

You get comfortable.

You lower your standards of interaction. You give in on things because it’s expedient, and not because they are the best solution. You start to care more about the seeming of the relationship than the being.

And that’s something I won’t do.

In a relationship, I will do just about anything for my partner, except compromise on the standards we set and agree upon.

And if comes to compromising those standards, I will leave before I will bend. Because I will not travel the path to less than we both deserve.

Don’t get me wrong. I love getting comfortable and getting invested. It’s amazing to create the shorthand of couplehood, share in so many things, and KNOW that this crap (whatever crap it is) will likely pass.

But, as a friend of mine once said (and I quote regularly):

“Do not act out of fear (of losing them). Do not not act out of fear (of losing them).”

—David Shade

It’s simple.

I live a fearless relationship, and expect my partners to, as well. That’s what I love in them—who they are, truly and really, not who they compromise to be out of fear that the relationship won’t last.

What do you refuse to give up in pursuit of your best relationships, ever?