Relationships Take Work

Audio By Carbonatix

Though you already know this, let me remind you that relationships are relationships, no matter which one you’re in. Some of you are in a relationship right now and are looking over at somebody else, thinking, “If I was in a relationship with them, that would be so great and easy!” But here’s an important reminder: There is no perfect relationship. There are going to be issues no matter where you are. 

In fact, I’m almost completely convinced that you can’t have a relationship with real depth to it without some conflict, hurt feelings, and frustration along the way. Let me tell you more about why I say that. When you first begin dating someone, start a new job, or meet a new friend, you’re doing all you can to avoid “rocking the boat.” You may dance around certain topics and test the waters a bit before you communicate your true thoughts about a particular issue. You don’t want somebody to think that you are high maintenance, difficult, or emotionally volatile. So, you let some things go, even though they do actually bother you. 

I’m going to use a very trivial example that I think will drive the point home here. When you notice that somebody has the toilet paper the “wrong way” (or the new roll is on top of the cardboard cylinder from the old roll), when it’s early in a relationship, you’ll assume they were in a rush or got distracted and just forgot. You probably won’t even mention it to them. However, when that exact scenario plays out with somebody that you’ve been in a relationship with for a while, you’re much quicker to remind them how much that bothers you. When it’s people who we are close to (spouse, parents, siblings, kids), we think that they should know and cater to our preferences, don’t we? 

Whether our preferences are about household cleanliness, background music, décor, or which knife or cutting board we like to use for dinner preparation, we all have some things we have weirdly strong preferences about, right? I’m talking about preferences that we wouldn’t want brought up in a group of people because we would feel pretty silly to admit that we’d made such a big deal out of such an insignificant thing. Admittedly, our pickiest preferences come out when we’re around the people we are closest to. 

Our significant preferences do too. We tell our loved ones that it really hurts us when somebody uses a certain word or tone with us. We tell them about the ways they can treat us that will make us feel especially loved, or especially unnoticed. Opening up to share these vulnerable things often requires some discomfort and miscommunication. However, it’s worth it because we have a long relationship ahead of us; even if this one conversation is hard, it has the potential to set us up for a smoother ride over the next 30 or more years. It won’t be a perfect ride, but it will be smoother than if we had never expressed our wants, needs, and preferences.  

These are some of the reasons that relationships take so much work. When we let somebody in past a certain point, we’re committing to taking their thoughts, wants, and needs into consideration when we make our choices and plans. Remember: It’s work, but it’s worth it. When we work to forgive and love right where we are, we’ll be winning more often at home!