The Pressure to be the Perfect Partner

by Jack Jajewski

I have a best friend who loves to fall in love. Since tenth grade, relationship after relationship, he’s fallen head over heels in love with multiple girls. However, all of those relationships have led to him trying too hard to be the perfect person for his partner. In result of doing so, he finds himself numb to his feelings and disillusioned to the relationships. Through serious reflection, he’s found that this stems from his childhood experiences with his mother. If you ask him about it, he’d tell you that he feels a pressure to be the most special man in each of his previous partner’s lives. This pressure is the other side of the coin from our traditional ideas of masculinity and detachment and reflects what can occasionally be difficult about maintaining masculinity in serious relationships.

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