Would you rather have "the one" in your life for a very long-period of your life if not all your life, or would you rather like to experience multiple realtionships in your life to see what it is like, but never really have "the one"?

If you find a woman that makes you happy, and sometimes unhappy. Stick with her, and don’t question it. Life is too short. Scoring with your dick count for nothing.

Actually I have had both. Over my 55 years, I’ve gone through multiple relationships including two marriages before successfully finding “the one” (sccrowell) . We are getting married next week. I wish I would have met her much earlier in my life, but will cherish our time together.

No contest for me – the one.

I’d rather have ‘the one’. I’d much rather have one person, be the most significant person, the person that I’m completely in love with. Rather than have a bunch of useless relationships that are just going to get me nowhere.

The one…hands down.

If you are lucky enough to find your “true love” consider yourself blessed. And true love doesn’t mean always easy. A long term relationship takes lots of work over the years.

@skfinkel Easy? No, it sure isn’t. Anything worth having & keeping is usually never easy. It takes work to get it & keep it.

Never have the one. I had WAY too many serious relationships and never just a casual one.

I like the idea of one partner that I’d spend my entire life with, but there have been a few significant others in my life. Although I wanted each relationship to last forever and worked towards that, sometimes life has something else in store (eg. my marriage ended due to my spouse’s death at a young age). Do I feel cheated because my husband died so young? No, because at least I got to spend the time with him that I did. Do I feel like loving my current partner is a betrayal of my husband’s memory? No, because loving my current partner, who is a completely different person, does not detract from the fact that I loved/love my husband. Even if my current SO and I spend the rest of our lives together from this point forward, it won’t devalue the relationship I had with my husband (any more than my marriage devalues my current relationship).

On the other hand, I work with a woman who has been with her husband since they were in high school. They dated for years, got married, and have recently celebrated their 37th anniversary. She still says she would do it all again.

Sometimes a person finds the “one” and they spend their entire lives together. Sometimes a person has a few different people who are the “one” for certain periods in their life, but circumstances prevent it from being for a lifetime. I don’t really know that either one is necessarily “better” than the other. They just are what they are. Maybe this is just the way that my life was meant to be and that is the way my co-worker’s was meant to be. One size doesn’t necessarily fit all – we are all unique.

I’d rather have “the one” but unfortunately she doesn’t want to have me.

Perhaps I shall become a monk.

You tend to have to go through those relationships to find the one.

I’d go for one (or ones, if necessary) that could be called “the one”.

I had the one. And then I didn’t. If I could change that, go back in time… I would do it in a heartbeat. You never know until you have it and it’s gone… How much it actually means. How happy it makes you. How complete.

Have “The One”. In fact that is what I chose. I met my husband when I was 18, he was 17. We’ve been together ever since. Not much room for dating :) And it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

The One, it might be a lot more work, it might not always be pure happiness, and you can’t just dump them when you’re bored with them, but that person is what everyone needs.

Definitely “The One.” That was what I was looking for in my previous relationships. Once I found him I could stop looking. We have now been married 20 years. My parents have been married 59 years on the same basis.

However, if my husband were to die or to be lost to me I might try to find another “One,” or I might simply decide to enjoy my life as it is.

@loser – no! The one is out there for you.

I’ve had other relationships, I wouldn’t trade what I have now for anything in the world. The one, my husband. That’s it!

What “DrasticDreamer” said.

Often in my life, I’ve felt that I had more than one “one” at the same time. Most people don’t think it’s possible to have a poly kind of relationship. There’s a lot of points in favor of monogamy, but the time of my life when I had many close relationships was a very fulfilling time. Even though I later found the “one” for me, there are times when I remember back to my younger self with wistfulness. I’m not so wistful, though, that I would trade in my family to go back to then.

It seems my first choice was taken away from me, so now I will experiment with Door no. 2.

<rubs hands together. crosses fingers> I hope it’s a lucky door @janbb! :D

me too

Without affirmatively choosing, I seem to have wound up with the latter. I’m not sure I’d believe anyone was “the one” now.

@janbb I don’t think I would trust it to luck. I think that if you want “the one” you need to work hard to make this relationship into the one. You need to be really smart about finding someone who is also committed to working through problems with you. You need to find someone who you can truly be yourself with, and they love you for it.