MamaM!a

You don’t have to be a fan of Keeping Up With The Kardashians to know all about Kourtney Kardashian’s recent engagement to Travis Barker. It’s EVERYWHERE. Mostly because everyone was convinced she would FINALLY end up with Scott Disick.

ICYMI (where have you been?), the pair shared a rocky as hell relationship for years, and have three kids together.

She was single; he was single – eventually they would get back together and work it all out. No?

Instead, the eldest Kardashian left the back-and-forth relationship with Disick and found Barker – to whom she is now engaged.

And according to experts, this kind of roadmap is actually quite common in relationships.

Couples counsellor Lissy Abrahams said that these days we’re becoming more aware than ever of what we want (and expect) from a relationship.

“The ‘one after the one’ occurs when we believed that we were with the person we’d spend the rest of our lives with, and made a declaration to ourselves, our partner, and others,” explains Abrahams.

“Over time, we realised that they’re not actually ‘the one’. A separation occurs, and then we meet someone else, who we now declare is ‘the one’.”

By tapping into how we feel with our partner, and being aware of the emotional experiences we want to have in our relationship, Abrahams said this means we are less likely to stay with what doesn’t actually feel right enough.

“Many of us work hard to get the relationship on track and we take our commitment seriously, however, if it isn’t working to meet enough of our needs, we’re more able to let it go these days instead of settling.”

But in order to understand the different factors underlying the one after ‘the one’, we need to first understand why we create ‘the one’ in the first place.

According to Abrahams, most people create a ‘specialness fantasy’ about their prospective partner at the beginning of their relationship – and it’s during this time that we tend to offer up the best of ourselves.

“We are considerate, well-groomed, interesting, intelligent, and funny. We want them to view us positively and to continue to find us special. We do our best so they consider us worthy of being their ‘one’,” said Abrahams.

“When we have an inkling that we may be with ‘the one’ we often assess their qualities rather glowingly. However, we also ignore, dismiss, or downplay information that may not quite fit with the narrative of our prospective partner’s wonderfulness and specialness.”

“We both do this as we want to get this relationship over the line. The whole future of the relationship depends on this, as no one wants to commit to a ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ relationship.”

INTERESTING.

Abrahams said that often the ‘specialness fantasy’ fades, allowing you to become more aware of the emotional experiences that might be lacking.

“We thought the lingering looks, acrobatic sex, and interesting discussions would last longer. The life we thought we’d have together isn’t quite transpiring. We may feel bored, unseen, undesirable. We may sometimes feel some niggles, or even dread. And these may be communicated to our partner via resentment or criticism.”

When this happens, people will then usually end their relationship because it isn’t honouring what is most important to them in a committed relationship.

“Then we meet someone else, and they become special in our eyes. We create another specialness fantasy as, once again, we don’t want to commit to someone ordinary and we need to create long-term care and safety with them.”

Once we’re able to find if we’re in a healthy, reliable relationship with this person, Abraham said we are able to “commit to ‘the one after the one’.”

So, does this mean we need to experience relationships that don’t work for us to understand what we actually want and desire?

Here, we asked three women who ended up with the one after ‘the one’ to share their stories.