Generally speaking, it is healthy to be in a relationship although it is not necessary. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist thought that men and woman complement each other.
With regard to your specific situation, it is not healthy to want to end a relationship each time the two of you have an argument. It is healthy to not need the other person in the relationship; it is much healthier to be in a relationship because you want to be in it but to consider ending it every time there is a fight is abnormal.
Part of the reason you want to flee the relationship each time there is a fight may be because of how you were raised. It seems as though your mother raised you to believe that males were not desired or needed. She may have instilled in you the idea that men have little value and thus when they cause even the simplest “problem” they are “easily dispensable.” You don’t “need” them so why bother with them. It is good that you are able to exist in the world without having to depend on others but you may have taken this idea to the extreme, in a way that may be harmful to you.
Another reason to explain why you desire to end the relationship so abruptly may be because the individual you are dating is not “right” for you. I suspect though it has more to do with the first reason I mentioned, that because of how you were raised, you have little tolerance for “males” and their “problems.”
Relationships are difficult by nature. They are a melding together of two people’s interests, goals, desires, ideas, opinions, thoughts, and so forth. Relationships also require selflessness. If you are committed to the individual you are with, then the relationship may be worth “fighting” for. By “fighting” I mean that in a healthy relationship, you will have to compromise and things probably will not always go your way. But if you admire, respect, desire or love the person you are with you would be willing to make these and other sacrifices.
You also asked about whether you will change your thoughts and ideas in the future. The answer is that it depends. If you think back to the time when you were 17, then there is a good chance that what you thought then or found important is quite different than what you think or find important at 27. At 17, you probably had different, less informed ideas about the world than at 27.
If you are open to changing, to exploring new ideas and are not close-minded, then there is a great likelihood that your goals may change in the future. With regard to having children, for instance, there are many women like you who grew up believing they would never want to have children. Then they get a little older, get married, find that they have a “biological clock” (real or imagined) and suddenly they are parents claiming how unconscionable it was that they ever declared or thought about not having children. This is a fairly common scenario. The bottom line is that you can and probably will change your mind about certain aspects of your life in the future.
I am also curious about how much of what your mother believes to be true about men and relationships has dominated your thinking? How much of what you believe about relationships is your mother’s thinking or an extension thereof? You need to be clear about what your ideas about relationships are as well as what is the correct and healthy way to behave in a relationship. It would be smart to further explore your questions and ideas either by self-analysis or with the help of a therapist. You do not want to be in a situation where you sabotage a good and healthy relationship with ideas or behaviors that are not yours and are incorrect and unhealthy. I hope this helps. Thanks for your interesting question.
This article has been updated from the original version, which was originally published here on October 27, 2008.
