I asked this, but it was buried in a thread..
What would be your idea of an ideal relationship, being who you are TODAY?
What do you want?
Can that ideal be something that could last 'til death do you part?   Why?
Or would we all end up as the quote says:

" A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it"..

What would you find?

Affectionately, all yours,
Sedona

She would deaf, dumb, and own a liquor store.

Seriously, having been married for over three decades
and observing innumerable other marriages, I've not
personally met any couple in what I would consider an
"ideal" relationship. Invariably, there's something
missing, or some sense of dissatisfaction develops.

Variety is good.

That's from a male perspective--I don't think we're
truly wired for a life-long monogamous relationship.

Good looking website, btw.
I hadn't realized that background place existed...neat
concept.

Did you notice that it's the Middle East that has it's ass in the crack?  Appropriate in this day and age, don't you think?

I sometimes wonder if the ideal relationship is a possibility, or at the very least a rare commodity, but one can dream and so....here is mine;

I would want someone equal to me.  I hear to often among girls and even had guys comment about hooking the wealthy man.  I have been there and that doesn't make one happy either.  That fact is held over your head and used as a control factor, the ending result is a great loss of self worth and even a sense of yourself.  We are not puppets.  Nor does it work the other way around either.  Been there also and end up feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders and frankly, feel quite used and end up seeing the SO as more of a leech than a lover and friend.  It comes down to equality.

To often independence and ones individuality is lost when getting together and becoming the proverbial couple.  It is very important that those aspects aren't severed.  One of my friends has that aspect of her marriage down packed.  They both have their own careers and interests and continue to follow them.  He wants to go hunting with the guys for the weekend...off he goes.  She wants to go to the Bahamas with the girls...off she goes.  They have separate bank accounts and a house account and converse equally into what goes where each week on the bills and equally contribute to the wants of the household (renovations, pool, ect.).  They work on it together as a team and the burdens aren't shouldered by one.  They do what they want with their own money after those needs are met.

The only time dependence became an issue is when she had a child. It was equally important to both of them that she stay home with the child for three years and then go back to work part time and then full time by the time it was five years old.  They planned, she saved and they garnered a deal that would make them both happy for that duration of time.  He took the brunt of the financial responsibilities for that time, but at no time was that factor ever thrown in her face when an arguement ensued over something trivial.  That I think is important.  

They also still date.  Every Friday evening the kids are bought to Grandma's and they are off on a date, making sure they have their time together.  They are very open sexually too.  They are in the mindset that variety is the spice of life and so it isn't uncommon for them to be with someone else.  The only golden rule on that is that they ask before hand.  No Secrets and even end up having some wonderful evenings with other couples.  It must be working, for they have been together for about 14 years now and happy.  Yes, they still argue, yes one of them is a son of a you know what at times, but overall the marriage works.  

I think it is because they both have kept their individuality.  They still do the things and see the people they did before getting together.  It is a perfect dance of having the time together as a family unit with the children, that personal time set aside for them as a couple, yet still having a sense of independence.  But most importantly, they are equal.  No one has more say than the other, contribute equally and work on the household family together.  

Their marriage has become the guideline of what an ideal relationship is for me. Equal in every aspect of their lives together.  Alas, something rare and unique to be found in this world.

Lauren

Having been married & already raised a family..then having a 10yr+ relationship, I certainly wouldn't look for the same things I once would have.  

What actually caused me to become a hobbyist is that when I last began dating again was my discovery that almost all the women in my general age range were looking to 'nest' again.  Definitely not for me..I live alone & now prefer it that way.  I've never been one to put up with jealousy or feeling I have to give an account of my whereabouts or activities.  That doesn't mean I was an inconsiderate ass-hole in the past, for I always treated my partner with respect & treated them in the same manner that I wanted to be treated.  I am not willing to tolerate anything less than that.  While it's likely true that may not be what the average woman wants in a relationship, it's the only way it would work for me.  And I've learned no relationship has a chance unless it provides both people with what they need.    

I suppose what I would want, if I were wanting, & forgetting any definition of 'ideal', is something akin to a 'fuck-buddy' relationship that goes perhaps a bit deeper & involve spending quite a bit of time together, but not every minute or every day.  Would I be monogamous & expect the same?  Probably..that's the way it was in the past, but I'm not entirely positive.  I suppose it would depend on the 'depth' of the relationship.  Likey the deeper it was, the more monogamy would enter into the question.  Hell, I'm not sure I could be 100% monogamous any more--but if only I could somehow combine just a few of the ladies I know now into just one woman....ahhh, not possible but what's wrong with a little fantasy?    

Having also been married over 3 decades, unlike Mephistopholis I think variety is not necessary and that a relationship can be for life if both parties remember just one thing -- sex without love can be a ball but love without sex becomes a prison.  I know there are those who would disagree, who are so taken up with the intellectual metasphere that the physical becomes irrelavent, but for the great majority of us, both men and women, the physical is very relavent and repressed sexuality is a near certain death knoll.  And who is at fault if sexuality does not stay alive and exciting in a relationship?  Obviously both parties are responsible, but given the reality of man/woman, hunter/gatherer, pursuer/pursued, ying/yang, etc., men are just more practically equipped and more likely to do the wandering and foaming, and woman to do the teasing and beckoning.  Unfair, yes, but everything else being equal (i.e.,  both parties staying smart and interesting and sweet and whatever else attracted them together in the first place) men will stay remarkably neat and clean and polite and panting if women will but keep their bods in shape and the sex hot, but unfortunately women often become sexually complaicent for any number of reasons (kids, boredom, intelectual stagnancy, whatever) no matter how neat and polite and panting their men remain.  This is a generality, of course, and a chick or egg type of question, but I truly believe that more often than not men get their sloppy, inattentive and wandering ways because their women bank the sexual home fires.  And assuming both parties are loving and caring and respectful and hot for each other at the beginning, it is just far easier and more doable for the woman to see that the sexual component stays alive and exciting.  And lest a reader concludes I'm just another chauvinist pig and this is all bS, just look at the successful marriages around you, not the ones where the man is broken and spiritless and has left himself physically deteriorate, but the ones where both parties seem alive and proud to be together and excited by life, and draw yopur own conclusion.

I too know a couple like your friends. He was my College Mentor in San Diego, his wife is a professor in NYC. They see each other twice a month, either he goes there, she comes here or they meet in the middle. They have separate and joint friends. After I saw what an open and truly unselfish, loving relationship was like, I knew I could never again try to live in a Quote/unquote"Normal" relationship again. True love is unconditional and our natural state is not monogomous. Unless we recognize these two things, we will be for ever looking for what can't and doesn't exist. A lesson in futility.....

Jan/Feb issue of Atlantic, pg 171... what is wrong with these people ?.........

"Dr. Phil- who, like his mentor Oprah Winfrey, has an uncannily precise sens of what American women in the aggregate are thinking about- noted on his web site that 'sexless marrriages are an undeniable epidemic'. Mass circulation magazines aimed at married women rarely go to press these days without an earnest review of some new sexual technique or gagdget, the information always presented in the context of how to relight a long doused fire (and I must say that an article in Redbook warns desperate couples away from a product called Good Head Oral Delight Gel-'the consistency of congealed turkey fat'- deserves some kind of award for service journalism.)

Patricia Heaton, a star of Everybody Loves Raymond,, has published a memoir called Motherhood and Hollywood, in which she observes , 'Sex ? Forget about it. I mean that literally.'

Books with titles such as Okay, So I Don't Have A Headache and I'm Not In The Mood have become immediate hits, and another popular book, For Women Only, lists various techniques that married women use to avoid sex from the age-old strategy of feigning sleep to the quite modern practice of taking on household night owl projects.... It has become impossible not to suspect that a large number of relatively young and otherwise healthy married people are forgoing sex for long periods and that many have given it up altogether"

-Caitlin Flanagan

Thanks everyone for your well thought out responses.
Aphrodite, you described my ideal perfectly; Greywolf, I think we're in the 'same' place, and Silky, while I DO agree quite a bit with what you've said here and in other posts, I want to add that while we might not be meant to be monogamous, I think we all desire to be loved, loved truly, by one person, who has singled us out as 'the one'. In Aphroditez ideal, as compared to her friend's relationship, this couple have chosen each other to be their true love and partner, while enjoying their sexuality and company with others. That would be my ideal.
(I have friends with open marriages, and it's very fun for me, too, to 'join' them. It's gratifying in many ways, but also warms my heart to see their love strong enough, and healthy enough to do that and to see them look at each other throughout, and KNOW how much they love each other)

Thanks again, all.

xo
Sedona

Glad you found a model you could emulate.. Now welcome to the real world. I don' think that the model you described is the norm and would be difficult to replicate. Relationships are never equal... The biggest reason I am seeing the relationships around me break up is because the couple grew but in different directions.  Too much time apart not enough together and growing.. Even when they are most harmonious, they are never equal.

Relationships are hard work that require constant effort to keep them working.. I do believe that monogomous relationships are possible, even though obviously I have straid, but I have seen them.. Again it is about open communication and also an acceptance of each others flaws and willingness to overlook some of the faults that are in us and our partners because we are human fallible beings..

Yes, I agree with you, it is not the norm and close to impossible to find in the so called real world.  I also, don't think another couple could emulate their relationship and have the same result, for we are all unique.  But they do have the fundamental foundations of a what a true relationship should be and that includes all of the aspects you've listed along with what others have listed.  

No, I do not think it comes easily and it does take hard work.  And although the couple I describe has an open relationship, I too think that monogomous relationships are possible, as long as they are open to new and exciting prospects.  One of the biggest complaints I get is that the wife, won't for some reason or other.  Sad, for societies taboos on sexuality is the most common culprit.  But it does go both ways also, albeit rare.

Lauren

All the more reason why the hobby should be tax deductible.  How these people think love can sustain without sex is absolutely beyond me.

Yep,
You hit on my profile. Wanted desperately to explore my sexuality with my wife, but she refuses to do certain things. Will not try them. I don't know why at this stage in life into my 40's that I became interested in experimenting. You would think that all that would be done in the 20s or 30s, but I became more sexually aware in my 40s. Oh well... Hoping to get it out of my system...