On relationships

One of the worst realizations you can make when you're in love is that the person who you fell in love with is not who you think they were. Everything falls apart after that. But the greatest feat of romantic relationships has to be realizing that the person you fell in love with is not you. Think of all the times you've fought with your partner for being insensitive, unthoughtful, dismissive, dejecting, or for disappointing you. That would probably be the majority of times you've fought or disagreed, right? What's the real issue here? Well, it's that your partner is not you, doesn't reason like you do, isn't sensitive to the same things as you, and doesn't like or do all the same things you do. Every relationship that involves more than one human being is bound to have difficulties. Nobody’s experiences are the same, and nobody responds to even the same experiences the same way. They say that you need to love yourself before you can learn to love others, but I think that for most people these days we probably need to first overcome our love of ourselves and our ways before we can truly love someone else.

The second greatest feat of relationships is admitting that your way isn't always the right way, the best way, or the way that things have to be done all the time. Growing up I remember mum saying to me and my siblings, by way of example, that in our hand we have five fingers but all of them are different, and yet we need all of them to be complete because they each have a function. She would tell us this when we’d fight or whinge about why does this one person have to be this way or another has to be another way and none of them do things our way. Of course often we’d all be arguing the same thing but with different points of view. For example an argument would be that this toy belongs to this person because they’re the youngest. Another argues, no, it belongs to someone else because they’re the oldest and will look after it better. Another argues, no, it belongs to someone else because they hardly ever get anything. And the other might say, no, it belongs to someone else because they want it the most and she deserves it more than the others because of whatever reason. Which one is right? Probably all and none of them. Often it’s not a matter of who’s right, but whose turn it is to be “right”. Parents can probably attest to this theory. When you’re trying to maintain the harmony in a group of individuals you can’t let there be some that are more frequently favoured or some that more frequently deprived. Parenting and romantic relationships thrive on diplomacy. One way to kill a relationship is to insist that your way is always the right way. If you do this, one day your way may be the only way left, after your partner has gone.