relationships - a deeper explanation of the identity I have chosen and why

My life has been largely a series of exercises in harmful relationships. Important clarification necessary; I'm using this term relationship very broadly because I feel there are not different types of relationships.

I feel that any person to person connection follows the same patterns, while the variations that seem to exist are merely manifestations at different levels of relationship strength- Parent to child, friend to friend, mentor to learner, business professional to client, and of course the almighty spousal relationship (which is really just a stronger friend-to-friend bond).

I'm often questioned about why I got married so young, and people make judgments about my marriage based solely on that. I am married to my best friend. I really think that the marriage label is kind of a cheapening of what I share with my spouse, merely something that society has chosen. I do not particularly care for the institution itself. I've seen enough broken homes within the same boundaries, and further those individuals who would like to be recognized in marriage and are not given the right to do so.

I saw my father fail twice now at his marriages, and one consequence of these ongoing failures was a lack of any useful parental relationship. I was largely "raised" by select individuals who took passing interest in me thanks to the community culture my family had chosen to participate in. I never had a single friend with whom I felt a trust or a productively secure bond.

I felt like an orphan without one person I could depend on. I never recognized these feelings until recently. My childhood was very confusing. I had struggled to figure out why I felt so alien, so alone. I think the only productive result was the knowledge I gained about what not to do in any given relationship.

So all my life I had wondered... what is going wrong? What defines a useful relationship? And I've found the answer is very simple. The actual defining feature is a simple commitment. It is a choice being made by both participants that makes the ultimate difference.

Before you start trying to analyze how "compatible" two people are, or any other personality trait that might define how one treats the other or how much one of them cares about the other one, ask the question - are both participants choosing to create a productive relationship? Is each person's ULTIMATE desire that of cooperation and progress? Or does one have a selfish motive? Is one of them making negative and harmful choices for any reason?

A relationship that lacks the adhesive element of the CHOICE to cooperate, a conscious attitude both participants must cultivate, is destined to go down in flames, causing permanent damage to one or both participants, plus any other people who have a connection to one of them. This is the fact that I've observed after surviving what I'd consider nearly the most dysfunctional childhood possible.

I am who I am because I choose to be my own person. I make my own rules and I do not need a community or any sort of external entity telling me what I need in my life. I observed the catastrophic failure in the homes I grew up in as a result of these external influences poisoning everything. I felt that the various external authorities truly acted as poison to one's ability to make their own choice to be positive and cooperative in all their behavior.

I decided I would choose cooperation as my attitude because I've had enough suffering for a lifetime, and with my remaining years I would like to cultivate progress- I have made this my purpose for existence. I have built the rest of my identity around this idea. This is why I removed myself from the Church I was taught to believe in. The morals and practices required are at an irreconcilable conflict with how I feel a human being should choose to live.