Is a lasting relationship luck?

No, it takes hard work and commitment to make a relationship work. Deciding to throw in the towel because “it could end” would just be shooting yourself in the foot.

No, lasting relationships are about what does and doesn’t happen with the people in that relationship. There is however a lot of blindness and illusion and denial and some luck involved in what that turns out to be.

“If so, should we always have in the back of our minds not to really and truly give 100 percent since it can all end in in the blink of an eye.”
– You can try that strategy. Many people do.
– However, it would also be one of the things tending to limit the relationship. If what you (or the other person) really want is a relationship where you can “give 100 percent”, then not doing so out of fear would be sabotaging that.

Also, some relationships can be really great for both people and naturally not last. It’s a limiting preconception to think that the only good purpose for a relationship is to last, particularly past the point it’s good for both people.

No, it’s hard work.

It’s the opposite for me. I give 100%, to a girl I like. That way, if it ends, I know I did everything I could. That offers me some solace, even though I’m deeply hurt…

I was once told that LUCK was spelled W – O – R – K.

Aside from the element of luck that exists in everything we do every day – whether you slip and fall on the stairs, for example, or just slip and catch yourself and “Whew, that was close!” and then take the stairs more slowly – no, it’s not luck. Not primarily, anyway.

But one thing that it most certainly requires is an element of maturity that is hard to come by. That is, it’s a rock-bottom realization that “this relationship, this person in my life, means more to me than anything else” and then aligning thoughts and actions accordingly. That means setting aside ego in the very basic desire that we all have to be “right” all of the time, to prove that we have the better idea and the winning argument, and to sometimes just swallow those thoughts and drives because there’s something more important than winning “this argument” and the next, and the next. That is a kind of work, but it’s a kind that no one ever talks about.

It’s damned hard work to master your ego, and for me, at least, while I like to think of myself as generous and caring (even when I’m not, really, but I’m trying to rationalize that the reason that I’m not “this time, just this one time~”) it’s hard sometimes to deliberately see things through that other person’s eyes and to realize that in the scheme of “the relationship” your plans, ambitions and ideas have to take second place. Which sometimes means just burying them. I hate the term “sacrifice”, because it sounds like giving up, or at least that’s the way it’s often described (by those who are maybe trying to rationalize a pathological need to have their own way every time, and to win every argument) – but it’s appropriate in the sense of giving away something of lesser value for something of greater value: winning the game itself.

When a relationship works, it is due to compatability and mutual effort.
When it does not last, it can be due to bad luck, but nobody should slight an SO on the off chance things might not work.

My husband and I married when we were both 21. Our 26th anniversary is coming up in April. We have rarely been lucky as a couple. Happiness takes work and forgiveness.