this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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What's your longest relationship?
People change, and you change, over the years. And over time life can throw a lot of shit your way. Love is easy when it's just dates in your free time, or if you're long distance and every visit is a little vacation. When every encounter is a special little event.
It's tougher over time. Stuff like crunch time at a job while an elderly family member's health is degrading and having to juggle both because you can't afford to tell your job to fuck off. Life stressors and busy schedules leaving no time for intimacy. Not being able to rely on your partner like you normally can because of the immense amount of shit they're juggling. Navigating past childhood trauma (even with therapy, it can still rear its ugly head).
Interests can change. Priorities can change. Things that may have seemed like cute quirks in the first year can become pet peeves over multiple.
I've been with my wife for over a decade now. We've both changed in a lot of ways, and it has taken effort to find time around everything else in life to ensure we have time for each other. Having a kid makes it that much more difficult.
We've had friction. We've had to work together to keep things working. Stuff like "I get your frustration and concern, those are completely valid. I'm going to work on that... That said, holy shit you CANNOT word it like that or bring it up to me like that unless you just want us to have a shouting match. That wording and approach signals a hell of a lot more to me than you seem to actually mean."
"Fighting" to make things work might be the wrong word, but it has at times been a lot of work. And I feel our relationship is stronger for it.
Ultimately, I'd rather have the depth of relationship where I build things with my partner and get deeply attached, than to keep things distanced enough that I could just cut and run when things got messy or difficult. That means that I've got to weather when things get rough too.
So far it's been worth it.
I think that's what the other commenter was kind of getting at. Fighting is something forceful and unhinged, putting in effort is the more appropriate way to put it in my eyes.
If cancer is taking the life of your mate are you just "putting in effort" against cancer? This a part of what can happen in a relationship. "Fighting for the relationship" doesn't necessarily mean against each other. It can mean against society, against nature even.
Yes, im not forcing my mate to fight because stress and anger makes you less healthy. Fighting is some american bs they think everything is better when you fight, it's not actual helpful usage of the word fight.
Cancer is trying to kill you. The opposite of "fighting" is "surrender". Its useful in that context for a fight against cancer. Not considering that as a threat that needs to be fought seems fatalistic. To each their own.
It's not, it's your own body's cells that "forgot" their not supposed to grow too much. They're just trying to grow. But idk a lot of humans seem to need some "enemy" to fight. You just don't have to look at the world that way. It's a very americanized way of looking at things.
It's cell banditry.
If that helps you to look at it that way as you watch your loved one grow weaker and wither away, more power to you. I don't know if you've had a loved one that has gone through this, but I really do believe its a fight because at the lowest point it is much easier to give up and die than endure some of the horrible pain that comes along with this kind of...for you I'll call it a "condition" instead of a fight. The person with cancer has to choose to continue to struggle against their own body trying to kill itself, and its not a choice like deciding what color shirt to wear that day. The gravity and impact of the decisions, and the endurance of the pain are much closer to a "fight" than any other word I can think of.
Again, though, if it helps you to see it as some calm or nature process that isn't a fight, continue to do that for yourself.
Some people value duration in relationships, others don't. There's not one, right way to be in a relationship, and one isn't better than the other.
I didn't make some objective judgement one way or the other. I laid out reasons why a relationship may take "fighting", work, or effort that wouldn't be as necessary in shorter term relationships. I also stated my preference for longer term ones.
That said, I think it may be a little telling that you jumped to defend your lifestyle choices when they weren't attacked.