As a couple, my boyfriend (BF) and I give promises to each other from time to time. Though I have been very satisfied with our relationship, I wonder how much our promises weigh, or to be more specific, how much all promises in life weigh.
If we think carefully, we make promises way before we understand the weight of our promises. When we were little kids, we promised our parents that we would be a very good kid after an hour of scolding by them; we promised our teachers we would study hard after having a detention; we will promise our good friends that they will be our best friend FOREVER no matter what; and we promise our lovers that we will love them till the world ends. If you think back carefully, how many of these promises are you still keeping? If you think of similar promises that people made for you, how many of them are still kept by them?
As life goes on, I am starting to have less expectation on other people's promises as well as trying to avoid giving promises when I know that with the uncertainties involved, I may not be able to keep them. I guess it is like a preventive measure, that I am trying to mitigate the effect of people breaking their promises by adjusting my expectation and to minimize my chance of breaking a promise.
I have learned to understand that for most people, promises are more like an expression of their emotion at a particular moment. What I have learned to appreciate is a promise being made genuinely. A genuine "I will love you forever" means that the person loves you a lot right now and it is so much love that they think it can last forever. Such affection touches me and I am glad that a guy once wanted to commit into our relationship. However, I also learned to realize that when hurdles of life come by and temptations try to get its way into a relationship, there's no point to look back and blame the person who made such a promise.
Don't get me wrong, I am not losing hope on love and promises. I just started to understand life, people as well as myself better. I still hope that one day, I will find the man who lives up the vow of a marriage with me and be my partner for the rest of our lives. However, before that actually happens, I will never know who that man is. And when that actually happens, it is not because of the promise this man made in the wedding ceremony that he decided to stay with me, it is more because of the love we have for each other.
Do promises really matter?
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