One of the biggest lies our culture tells us is that love, if it’s “right,” should be easy. We see Facebook quizzes and online articles reporting specific ways of knowing and promoting easy love. We scan celebrity Instagrams and friends’ Snapchats, all highlighting this “right” sort of love, making it look easy while vacationing or enjoying perfect dinners out.

However. Love is never easy because relationships are never easy. Parent/child, friends, romantic, and professional, none of these relationships present themselves as free from conflict, disagreement, mismatched priorities and generally some form of rupture. Over and over again, love experiences rupture and repair. And needless to say, we generally dislike rupture.

It’s the repair piece that most of us aren’t willing to stay around for and work out.

Steadfast love is what most of us dream about. We long for the one who will overlook our rupture tendencies while he or she never has cause to rupture because of his or her love for us. Obviously if it is “right” we will never have conflicting wants and our other will happily bow out. Two growing and changing people will never find peace in this quest. They must learn and practice repair on a daily basis.

What if instead of avoiding rupture, we aim to be the kind of partners, parents, friends and colleagues who learn to healthily and effectively navigate them? What if we allow our other freedom and offer encouragement while we endure alongside? This is not an invitation to becoming a doormat, rather an invitation to live in relationships that fully experience how to be “right” by learning how to get it wrong and allowing others the same space.

Written by Lindsay Williams, MA, LPC.

To discuss your relationships and gain new repair skills, contact Lindsay today.