The Ultimatum: What's love got to do with it?

Love, it's something that most of us have felt in some way at some point in our lives. Love can come in different forms; you have a strong love for coffee, you feel love from your friends and family, you love your partner.

When it comes to the idea of love, many people have a perfect picture of what it should be and forget that people can have flaws. When someone knows what they want, they usually try their best to find it, but sometimes within the wrong people.

The Ultimatum the TV show

It was the first time that I saw an episode with a friend of the TV show 'The Ultimatum'. She explained to me that couples go on this show and break up from each other, so that they can date other people. Then once they have a 'trial run' with the new person that they choose, they decide if they want to marry the original person they came with, stick to the new person, or just walk away.

One person from the couple wants to get married, and the other is 'not ready yet'. I was baffled by the idea of this show and could not believe that people put themselves through an emotional roller coaster in order to try to convince the person that they're with to get married.

Should someone really give an ultimatum?

Picture this; you have a job and you have been working really hard in order to be noticed by your boss. You're hopeful of a promotion, or at least a raise, since you have stuck around long enough to turn this job into your career. You're a workaholic, goal focused and you know what you want.

Your boss acknowledges you up to a certain extent, and treats you to an occasional coffee, pizza or company lunch in order to say 'thank you'. You then come to an epiphany that you will never get what you want with this company and that it's time to start applying somewhere else.

Now, imagine that in your relationship. You both have different goals, and you're the one that wants to marry, and thinking that giving an ultimatum will change your partner's mind. The truth is, that it won't. If a person is not ready to do something, or does not have the same goal as you, the likelihood is that it won't happen.

The reality is that they probably do not want to marry you, maybe because they're not ready yet or maybe because the harsh truth is that you're not the person that they want to marry. And that's exactly what was shown on this show. The people who didn't want to marry showed their true colors, and were more than ready to date others. Some contestants even mentioned that eventually they would want to marry if they find the right person.

As I am watching this show, I am understanding more that couples tend to stay together out of comfort, or because they receive some sort of benefit from that individual, such a financial or emotional stability that they lack within themselves.

In this kind of situation, love is not enough for two people to stay together, if the other is not even willing to commit all the way. Even though it may hurt and sting breaking up with that person, it'll make things better in the long run because you will find what you want within someone else. So why hold yourself back and be hopeful on false promises, when you can accept reality and find love and stability with someone else? My question to the contestants is, why put yourself through that for 15 minutes of fame, knowing deep down what the true answer is?