The idea of unbal­anced rela­tion­ships was brought to my mind over the week­end. For a rela­tion­ship to work, both par­ties must be sat­is­fied with the rela­tion­ship. If one per­son isn’t hap­py, then the rela­tion­ship is bound to fail, unless work can be done to appease that per­son.

An inter­est­ing idea that aris­es from this is the occur­rence of rela­tion­ships in which both par­ties have dif­fer­ing rea­sons for being togeth­er. For exam­ple, one per­son might like the good time that the oth­er is able to give, while the oth­er per­son might like the intel­li­gence of the first per­son.

I imag­ine that a tro­phy hus­band or wife rela­tion­ship would be like this. One per­son has mon­ey to offer, where­as the oth­er per­son has looks, and both are will­ing to sac­ri­fice for the oth­er.

Even a rela­tion­ship as unbal­anced as this is able to work, as long as both peo­ple are hap­py. And what if one per­son wants one thing from the oth­er that can only be tem­porar­i­ly pro­vid­ed? The rela­tion­ship becomes tem­po­rary itself, although not to both peo­ple.

Yet can such a rela­tion­ship work? That depends on the def­i­n­i­tion of “work”. I don’t think that such a rela­tion­ship can last for long. After all, it is based on the fun­da­men­tals of hedo­nism, to one per­son at least. The oth­er per­son, aware of this or not, will only be left alone in the end.

So, hypo­thet­i­cal­ly, one may look at both cas­es, one case where both par­ties are aware of the tem­po­rary sta­tus, and the oth­er case in which only one mem­ber knows of such sin­is­ter moti­va­tions.

The for­mer can be suc­cess­ful, as both peo­ple have an under­stand­ing of the sit­u­a­tion, although an end­ing of the terms may cause prob­lems such as the end of a friend­ship. The lat­ter, on the oth­er hand, can only lead to pain.

Being con­fused about either can only lead to worse.