WHY ARE RELATIONSHIPS SO HARD?

I am not a perfect partner. I know this might come as a huge shock considering I am a relationship coach and sometimes news outlets interview me for my expert opinion. But despite any assumptions that I am over here nailing it, I actually mess up quite a bit. Perhaps this is because knowing how you want to act in a partnership and being able to follow through with that intention in every moment, mood and situation isn’t the same thing. Not to mention the times I don’t even realize I’m making a mistake until my husband gently points it out to me.

While admitting all of this might come as a blow to my professional credibility, I think it’s important to normalize that being good at romantic relationships isn’t an inherent skill. We don’t come out of the womb knowing how to be perfectly attuned to our partner’s needs while still properly managing our own. Heck, we don’t even realize other people have their own feelings and thoughts until we are three or older. Rather than romance being a transcendent state that brings out the best in us, it is instead a constant struggle to figure out how to navigate the world with another person who not only operates differently than you but also demands an uncomfortable level of vulnerability.

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Additive relationships, which is a term I find less complicated and charged than healthy, demand constant repair. They ask us to not only take responsibility over our blunders but offer future solutions. The problem is sometimes we don’t want to do either because life is hard and can’t you just get off my back? Things get even more complicated when it’s not totally clear who was in the wrong. Suddenly, the rules of engagement aren’t obvious as our emotions and defenses take over.

Doesn’t what you did justify what I did? My ex never cared about this, so why do you? Why are you bringing up something that happened five years ago right now? Can’t you just apologize so we can move on and agree I was right the whole time?

The hardest time to try to reasonably resolve a conflict is when you are already pissed off. I am least likely to want to want to see things your way when I feel like you are attacking me. It takes a lot of practice and self-control to be able to remind yourself that your partner isn’t your enemy in the heat of the moment. Even if you study relationships for a living and tell people that’s what they need to do.

Something I try to remember is that all the tough stuff is inevitable. It is impossible to spend years with a person, make your major decisions together and cohabitate without having bumps in the road. Any long-term partner will annoy you, hurt you and ignore you at different points in your relationship. Not because they are trying to do those things (hopefully) but because they are human. Wires get crossed, bad habits are formed, and the demands of daily life suck us dry.

And yet…relationships demand that we have to push through all of that and continuously reach for each other. Even when we are exhausted and it would be easier to retreat into a one-person-sized cave. Your connection is this living, breathing, fragile thing that needs constant maintenance and upkeep. Some days that is easy to do—joyful even. Other days, it takes everything we have to give the bare minimum.

This is what it means when people vaguely say, “relationships take work.” They require us to act differently than we want to for the sake of something bigger than us. They demand a level of responsibility to another person and with that responsibility comes a whole host of things we might rather avoid. Like taking care of our health or facing our flaws. Because our partners don’t just get to see our good parts; they get a front row seat to the icky stuff too. And, even more terrifying, they have the right to ask us to be better. To make even more accommodations and changes than we’d originally planned based on specific issues that arise because of a couple’s differences and individual needs. Take me exactly as I am isn’t an appropriate strategy if you view your partner as equally deserving of love and respect.

The idea that doing all of this should come naturally and easily is laughable. Especially when you add outside stressors like work, children and the current (awful) state of the world. You are not broken or selfish if it is hard for you to be a good partner. You just have to be interested in getting better at it. In learning from your inevitable screw ups and trigger points. The goal isn’t to coexist peacefully until you die in each other’s arms. It’s to learn how ride the waves as a team. And hopefully, in time, build a better boat together.

xoxo,

Allison

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