Failed Relationship
Is survival the only standard of success in a relationship? Isn't it possible to think that a previous relationship was a success even though it didn't last? If you and your former partner were happy and you both flourished during the time you spent together, even if only for part of that time, such a relationship can be considered very successful even though it ended.
Am I better off for having had the relationship? Certainly some relationships can be legitimately written off as mistakes, but even relationships that were negative on the whole aren't necessarily complete failures.
And as if it weren't hurtful enough to judge a past relationship to have been a failure, it is all too easy to take this failure very personally. You don't just feel that the relationship was a failure, but that you failed. If you care deeply for the other person, you feel that you failed him or her in particular. Sometimes these feelings of personal failure are general,
"I just wasn't good enough",
but other times they can be very specific, such as when you and perhaps your former partner can identify specific things that ended the relationship—things that came down to you, rather than to the other person or circumstances beyond your control.
To make matters worse, these feelings of failure may intensify rather than diminish after the relationship ends. For instance, you may be happy when your former partner moves on and finds someone new, someone better for him or her in the ways in which you feel you failed. But at the same time, this may only serve to remind you of your failures, especially if your particular failure is something you can imagine anyone possibly doing better at, listening, kissing.
In the worst case scenario, this may even make you hesitant to enter a new relationship, if you fear you will inevitably fail the next person in the same ways you failed the last.
It all comes down to being yourself and finding someone who likes you for who you are. To feel that you failed the other person just because you weren't everything he or she wanted you to be is to imply that their preferences were more important than who you are. You deserve someone who appreciates the real you, and you shouldn't feel like a failure if your partner wasn't that person.
This does not excuse hurtful or inconsiderate behavior, which are clearly failures to show basic respect toward the other person. But a person doesn't fail someone simply by not being the right person for them, the relationship may result in failure, but the person hasn't failed personally.
Failure only makes sense in relation to a standard of success, and only if that standard is reasonable should failure to meet it carry any weight. If I fail to become an Olympic athlete or a Supreme Court justice, I shouldn't be very disappointed, since these aren't reasonable standards of success for me. Being a good romantic partner is more reasonable for most people, of course, but only given a good match—that is, only if the other person in the relationship has needs or desires that you can reasonably expect to meet. If not, then failure is too harsh a judgment to make of oneself.
For example, if you make an average income and your partner expects to live in a mansion, you haven't failed because you can't provide this for them. If your partner wants lots of affection and you're not the kind of person to provide it easily, then you haven't failed him or her—you're just not right for each other. These relationships may fail, but if the two of you are that incompatible, it was going to fail anyway—but not because of you. And since you have not failed personally, there is no reason to expect that you will fail someone else.
So don't take failed relationships to heart—learn from them, certainly, but don't beat yourself up over it or write yourself off as a failure.
Psychology Today
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