It’s no secret that relationships that move fast are often doomed to fail. It is not a new phenomenon, but it is one that has been observed again and again by psychologists, couples, and your average person.
The reasons for this are deep and complex. However, we will try to simplify them and present them in a list below with a detailed explanation and justification of each one. This way you get a better understanding of why you shouldn’t move fast in a relationship if you really want it to last.
Reasons why your relationships that move fast, have failed:
1- You don’t have time to process what is happening:
We need to be aware of one of the biggest pitfalls of relationships that move fast. In fast-paced relationships, we don’t give ourselves time to process what is happening, which leads to feeling like we are in a whirlwind. This can leave us feeling confused, rushed, indecisive, or even used and taken advantage of.
Both you and your partner will end up feeling like you have no say and no real input in the relationship. That’s because the nature of relationships that move fast makes it so that steps are skipped, everything is rushed and both end up blaming one another for not having done things properly.
If the relationship is moving fast, it might be that your partner didn’t mean for it to be that way intentionally. Your partner might have just tried to see what they can get from you, and you may have given in pretty quickly too. In this case, both of you are to blame. So there’s not always one person to blame for having skipped all the steps, and phases only to jump right into the ending.
2- You’re not sure who you’re committing to:
A relationship that moves too fast is more likely to fail because there is an assumption that your partner will match the idea you have of who they are.
But, because you actually never really took the time to get to know them properly you get flustered and devastated as you slowly find out that they’re not who you thought they were. When the honeymoon phase ends and reality sets in, things might not go as planned. Check out this article on the honeymoon phase and other stages of a serious relationship or marriage and how to navigate them.
Even if you have every good intention of making the relationship work, being loyal, and committing to your partner fully, in the end, you don’t really know who you’re committing to. Commitment is a key factor in creating a healthy relationship. And, without it, you don’t have any assurance that your partner will be there for you when times get tough.
However, when your partner or yourself find out that the person you promised commitment to is not exactly who you thought they’d be, then it becomes hard to honor that promise. It becomes difficult and hard to stay committed and put your all in a relationship with a person when you only ever fell for the idea of who you thought they were but not who they truly ended up being.
You can check this article later to differentiate between if you’re truly in love with someone or only with the idea of who you think they are.
3- You skip the first stages of a relationship:
Relationships that move too fast usually end up failing because of one main factor: skipping the first stages. This results in not taking the time to get to know each other at a deeper level and building on a foundation of trust.
The first few months of a relationship are the most crucial for building a strong foundation, which is why we should not rush into things or make any decisions without thinking them through. In fact, when you skip the first stages of a relationship you end up not savouring or fully appreciating where you got later in that relationship because it took you nothing to get there.
In a fast-paced world, it may be tempting to skip the first stages of a relationship and jump right into something more serious, intense or crazy real quick. But, these relationships are often doomed to fail because the people involved rushed the most important part of every story and namely: the intro or the beginning.
The first stages are crucial for helping people get to know each other and for establishing a connection. Here are a few questions to ask your partner during the talking stage or dating phase to get to know them on a deep level, as it should be.
The bottom line here is that we should not skip these first stages because they’re vital for ensuring that we have a healthy relationship in the future. The courtship process is what helps us get to know each other and make sure that there are no red flags.
4- You’re in it for the wrong reasons:
Yes, believe it or not: both partners or at least one is definitely in it for the wrong reasons. This is because couples that rushed into a relationship might have had motives that are not really the best. By wrong motives or wrong reasons, we mean things such as looking for validation, seeking intimacy, or wanting to avoid loneliness.
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of a new relationship. We want to jump in with both feet and make this person our everything, as fast as we can. We want to show them off, post our couple’s pictures online, be in a committed relationships like everyone else on social media is and even become a power couple! Now there’s nothing wrong with all this, provided that you waited, selected carefully and made sure you have the right person to do all this with first.
However, if the endgoal is to do all this then you could have been eager to do it for a while and jump ritght into it with the first person you get your hand on. Obviously, that’s not always the best idea. Sometimes, it’s better to take your time and see if there are any red flags before you get too serious.
So make sure that your motives or whatever dreams and wishes you have that can only be achieved when you’re not single, don’t push you into a relationship that you don’t want. Wanting to be in a relationship just for the sake of not being single or just for the sake of being in a relationship in the first place, is a horrible idea. Check our this article on why you should never date anyone just “not to be single”.
When we’re looking for a partner, we’re often looking for someone who is going to make us happy. And it can be tempting to think that the first and any person you get your hands on, is going to be able to make us happy and be compatible with us. It feels like a way of avoiding being single when you’re not ready for one or just want some company on Valentine’s Day.
5- The rewarding and challenging courtship stage is cut short:
The very first stage of a relationship is getting to know one another, which can take time and effort and take the form of being friends or at least able to see each other often for the purpose of work, education, etc.
The second stage is the chase, which is where one person becomes more interested in the other person and starts chasing them. The third stage is courtship, where both people start courting each other by spending time together, doing little gestures for one another, being flirty, and getting to know one another on an emotional and intellectual level.
The fourth stage is the attachment phase, which is where two people start getting more serious about each other and start feeling more comfortable being vulnerable in front of one another. It takes time to get to this stage. That’s how it has always been and how it should be. Every relationship should take a long time to turn this serious, official, physical, or even consistent.
When we skip the stage of courtship and the chase, it can become quite boring, tasteless, unchallenging, and unrewarding. A relationship that has never even known any of these qualities can be hard to make thrilling or interesting. That’s because it was never something that any of the partners fantasized about, wished for, and spent time imagining how it could be, which will add a lot of mystery and magical touch to it. Instead, they wanted it, and the next thing they knew is they had it.
To know more about this, you can think about checking out our article on the reasons why you always lose interest in a person once they start liking you back.
6- It cannot stand the test of today’s fast-paced easy dating:
In today’s society, it is hard to find a person who hasn’t been through at least one failed relationship. Some people have even gone through as many as ten or more failed relationships in their lifetime.
It is important to understand that this wasn’t the case in the past. Before, it was more common than ever to end up marrying your high school sweetheart or first love, to commit, and never think the grass is greener elsewhere. Today, with new challenges like the availability of online dating and vast possibilities regarding how many people you can end up with, people tend to get curious.
Instead of being focused, mindful of our mistakes, learning, and growing, we tend to get distracted by all that and quickly jump into the next best thing the next morning after a break-up. Obviously, relationships that are flimsy, without foundation, and fragile cannot stand the test of modern technology. It’s almost as if the dating world is now designed to be fast, reckless, and dismissive of what partners really need rather than what they want.