Growing up, I learned that the standard for a successful romantic relationship was simple: He asks you to marry him. Get hitched, have kids, buy a house... etc. The be all and end all of mainstream monogamous pairing.

Of course, this doesn't work for everybody. Besides which, it's ridiculous; obviously marriage has nothing to do with whether a relationship is successful or not (except for folks who want to cap off their successful relationship with marriage). But when you take away marriage as a necessary result, or sign of, a successful relationship... what do you use to gauge the success of your romantic relationships?

I have been working this out for myself in the last few days, and I'm very interested in what you think, too!

Before you can judge something as a success or failure, you need to ask what is the purpose of a relationship. If you wish stability, so that you can raise kids and develop other portions of your life in peace, then marriage is a fairly good measure of success. However, if you wish sex, companionship, or even partnership, it's not necessarily the best measure of success. Now, I am speaking as a scientist here, but until you define the purpose of a thing, you can't make any judgement about its relative success, failure, goodness, or badness. So, I would ask, what do you want out of your romantic relationship(s)?

I definitely don't think marriage necessarily = stability. That's the only issue I have with your comment, though -- the rest, I agree!

While, I will agree that it is not true in all cases, I believe that most marriages tend to be pretty stable. Note I mean stable as in you know what is going to happen day to day, and not that you necessarily like what's going to happen day to day.

I think taking the concept of marriage out of the equation is helpful, especially when talking about queer/poly relationships. I think I'd evaluate the positive elements in place that are often subscribed to 'a relationship in-or-leading-to marriage' and go from there. Levels of trust, stability/commitment, communication, connection, nourishment vs. work on the relationship, etc.

In actively living and engaging in different relationship dynamics, I think determining what would be considered a 'success' is important. It is an ongoing evaluation? An understood level of 'fitting together?' For me, if the level of commitment, shared interests, intimacy, connection, and trust is there and compatible, it's successful in my book.

I agree that you have to have an objective to be clear if you've met it or not. I like to let all my relationships (romantic and otherwise) unfold however they unfold and I follow the connection wherever it goes. In that way all my relationships are successful. They were exactly what they were supposed to be.