Why doesn’t young love work out? 

C/O Caleb Shong

Choosing partners through a sole focus on emotion often leaves young folks confused and hurt 

As teenagers and young adults, we often fall in love spontaneously and that’s what makes it so exciting in the beginning. At this age, we often don’t have strict standards and boundaries and simply go after what feels right.  

Expectedly, our strong sense of passion and emotions seems to take over our barely developed sense of reason and rationality. We choose to overlook certain red flags in our partner and relationship supposedly in the name of love.  

But, what is the aftermath of carelessly choosing a partner at a young age? 

As I mentioned, in our younger years, we evidently don't choose relationships on the basis of logic — we choose it purely based on raw fervor. Frankly, most of us didn’t know any better and it made sense to choose someone that made us initially feel loved and cared for.  

However, choosing a partner purely based on emotions often heavily costs us.  

I believe there are three main reasons why young love often doesn’t last and leaves both parties feeling damaged and broken.  

Firstly, most teenagers and even young adults are at a malleable stage in life. We are constantly shifting and discovering new aspects of ourselves. The bitter-sweet truth is that we simply don’t remain the same person.  

Unfortunately, this has a direct effect on our relationships.  

As we and our partners our constantly evolving, we often drift apart in terms of values. Although this is not necessarily a bad thing and both progressions could be positive for both parties, they can still diverge as incompatibilities arise.  

The second reason I believe young love doesn’t work out is our poor communication skills. For the majority of us, we have never been taught proper communications skills.  

We lack fundamental skills such as managing our anger, communicating clearly, mindfulness and trust-building. Unfortunately, due to the absence of these principal building blocks, we frequently find ourselves confused, angry and anxious after relationship struggles. 

Lastly, we often fail to recognize the importance of actively putting effort in our relationship.  

For all these reasons, when young love ends, we hurt deeply — perhaps because of the feeling of confusion that is attached to it. Often, we cannot pinpoint what exactly went wrong and all we feel is significant pain. Mixed emotions of anxiety, sadness and anger slowly into resentment towards our partners.  

Our feelings puzzle us as there is always so much to unwrap and unpack. And because of these extremely perplexing emotions, young love pains us.