Learning to Love Through Struggle
Win or Lose Together
I was in a restaurant having dinner with a friend when the raised voice of a woman at the table next to us caught our attention. “Put it down,” she said. Her date was rapidly typing on his phone. “I said, put it down!” she insisted. He ignored her for another moment, then finally rested his phone on the table. “You have to give me a break,” he retorted. “The constant nagging is driving me crazy.” Their voices fell back to normal volume, and my dinner companion turned to me. I knew he was a few months into a new relationship. He had told me he wanted to be in a “real” relationship, with someone honest who took the time to understand him. Now he said with pride, “Eli and I get along so well. We literally never argue.” Conflict has a bad reputation. It makes us look bad-to ourselves and to others. We want to think we can be the couple who understands each other deeply and never fights. We’re special. We’re different. But no matter how compatible a couple is, to live in conflict-free bliss isn’t love, it’s avoidance. It’s easy to gloss over disputes for the first few months because the new attraction obscures the cracks in your foundation. But to sustain a conflict-free existence means floating on the surface, where everything looks pretty but we never achieve deep knowledge of each other.
Learning to Love Through Struggle
Win or Lose Together
I was in a restaurant having dinner with a friend when the raised voice of a woman at the table next to us caught our attention. “Put it down,” she said. Her date was rapidly typing on his phone. “I said, put it down!” she insisted. He ignored her for another moment, then finally rested his phone on the table. “You have to give me a break,” he retorted. “The constant nagging is driving me crazy.” Their voices fell back to normal volume, and my dinner companion turned to me. I knew he was a few months into a new relationship. He had told me he wanted to be in a “real” relationship, with someone honest who took the time to understand him. Now he said with pride, “Eli and I get along so well. We literally never argue.” Conflict has a bad reputation. It makes us look bad-to ourselves and to others. We want to think we can be the couple who understands each other deeply and never fights. We’re special. We’re different. But no matter how compatible a couple is, to live in conflict-free bliss isn’t love, it’s avoidance. It’s easy to gloss over disputes for the first few months because the new attraction obscures the cracks in your foundation. But to sustain a conflict-free existence means floating on the surface, where everything looks pretty but we never achieve deep knowledge of each other.