Four fundamentals to developing a healthy relationship.
Dating has a bad rep.
We hear horror stories from friends, read countless articles about how dating isn’t worth the hassle, and see frequent statistics depicting upticks in singledom.
People are disillusioned with love. Maybe rightfully so, but it appears we need a new approach.
After much deliberation, I realized who we should be taking love lessons from, and it’s not another self-proclaimed relationship guru.
It’s arguably one of the greatest NFL football coaches: Vince Lombardi.
Hear me out
In the late 50s, Lombardi became the head coach of the Greenbay Packers, coming off one of their worst seasons ever. The following season he was voted NFL Coach of the Year and led the Packers to five NFL Championships in seven years, three of them in a row, including the first-ever Superbowl.
Why was he such a boss?
Because he mastered the fundamentals.
He understood that getting good at the basics would build a foundation for future success. He knew that the simplicity of hard work repeated would bring reliable, measurable results.
So what if we similarly approach love?
Modern dating means navigating through landmines of societal conditioning and cultural expectations. We get caught up. We choose poorly; we resent each other and get ghosted, yet we still harbor a secret longing for love.
We hope it’s romantic, organic, spontaneous, soul-filling, expansive, and sustaining.
So what if we were willing to get really, really ridiculously good at a few basic practices in interpersonal relationships and then apply them to different situations throughout our lives?
What if we were willing to put in the hard work and practice necessary to have something genuinely fulfilling? Would we have such lackluster relationships and bitter disappointments?
There’s only one way to find out.
Ditch romanticism
Romance can be beautiful.
It was romanticism that inspired a new era of beauty in art, music, poetry, and architecture. It encouraged a new perspective on love that didn’t surround making a family more powerful or adding to its resources.
Instead, it offered a much more idealistic version that asserted there should be more frivolity to love, allowing choice rather than mere survival or circumstance.
Fast forward to now, where we expect that relationships should basically be in the honeymoon phase forever.
This is further cemented by media and advertising, selling false love ideas and telling us it’s just within reach.
It makes someone else very rich for us to believe that not just love, but happiness, fortune, and success are all possible things if we subscribe to this streaming channel, buy this product, or take some snake oil salesman’s masterclass.
We don’t want to be pragmatic in love because talking about differences in finances, how we communicate, or who should wash the dishes dampers the magic, lessens the mystery, and kills the fun.
We get fed a romantic narrative that everything in our lives falls into place when we meet “the one,” and we shouldn’t have to work at it or talk about practical things.
It becomes increasingly difficult to accept the much more bittersweet reality that passion fades, the desire exists in flux, and people change. We think we should have something sustaining without acknowledging that genuine intimacy requires vulnerability, accountability, and emotional maturity and that eventually, we age, and it all ends.
We treat relationships as an escape from reality, but we will always have to put effort into making things work. No one owes us a “happy ending,” and letting go of that fantasy helps us approach love more realistically.
Create a foundation built on realistic expectations.
Embrace honesty and open communication
Relationships can only be as honest and open as the people in them.
If we don’t show up authentically, genuinely communicating what upsets us, hurts, disgusts, or turns us on — how will anyone ever know the real us?
So many of us have buried longings, but pursuing any of those things may feel shameful, scary, or at odds with our current lifestyle. We may think that wanting those things makes us unlovable or that we won’t find someone who will want that thing too.
So we lie.
We censor ourselves and lie to ourselves about what we want, who another person is, how much we enjoy the life we’re living, pretending it’s fulfilling even when we feel empty inside.
We lie because the truth is often painful.
The truth can be gritty, dirty, and shameful. It can bring up ugly truths and uncomfortable feelings. It can shine a light on all the things we need to change, and that can be terrifying, so we avoid it and remain in denial while our relationships suffer.
So many people say they want “real love” then shudder at the idea of what would be necessary to have something authentic.
They turn away from the discomfort of having to know themselves honestly.
Luckily, honest communication only really requires three things:
Courage
Empathy
Self-awareness
That’s it.
It takes courage to face ourselves and explore what’s been buried, but even more to share it with someone else. Vulnerability can be terrifying, and some of us may never share our truths simply because it feels too scary to be seen or known, even when we desperately crave it.
How well we communicate directly correlates with how well we know ourselves and our ability to identify how we feel and express it outwardly and effectively.
Love requires patience and charity. We have to be willing to put ourselves in our partner’s shoes and truly understand where they’re coming from.
Even during uncomfortable conversations, listening and remaining present demonstrates emotional maturity and concern for things outside of ourselves, all necessary parts of deepening and maintaining connection.
Develop Your Commitment Muscle
Flaking has become the new normal.
I suspect in response to the rise of technology and FOMO culture, as well as our dwindling attention spans, the ability to bail without repercussion has never been greater.
When I was younger, before cell phones were ubiquitous, there was no way to tell your friend you wouldn’t show.
If you stood someone up, they assumed you were dead. Then you would have to apologize over the phone or to their face profusely.
There were consequences for not showing up.
You would have to hear the disappointment in their voice or see the hurt flash across their face. Now in a disconnected world, we get to shield ourselves from having to witness the impact of our behaviors or answer to the choices we’ve made.
Technology has made it easier than ever before to avoid accountability.
It’s not necessarily surprising that we’ve gotten lazy with commitment. Real commitment requires self-discipline, determination, resilience, and a high tolerance for discomfort.
We’ve gotten used to things being easy, convenient, and low-effort. We can get our groceries delivered to our front door and be entertained for hours without ever stepping foot outside.
When there are endless options, things become cheapened, and people become disposable.
We can’t deal with things that take work anymore, but having long-term commitments require the ability to pivot and adapt, deal with issues, work through challenges, and problem-solve together.
It can be exhausting and miserable at times. Hard things will happen. People will fail, lose jobs, grow in different directions, face financial and emotional hardships and stressors, get sick, and eventually die.
If we can’t accept the reality of what it means to be alive, much less loving someone else through it, we won’t be able to develop the perseverance and resilience to sustain long-term love.
Practice Continual Self-Evaluation
Many people are simply existing.
They are wandering around, unconscious and unaware of their patterns and projecting them onto others, yet expecting something magical and high-value to fall into their laps.
Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works.
To truly show up for another person, we have to be willing to take personal responsibility for who we are and how we behave in a relationship. We need to reflect on who we are and want to be, what we want to create with someone else and own our mistakes.
It means we’re going to have to feel our feelings and be uncomfortable sometimes. We will likely have to explore our past traumas and how they contribute to our values, fears, attitudes, and world experience. Sometimes, they will have to be addressed or challenged as they become a block to intimacy.
Each relationship offers new opportunities to see ourselves more clearly and heal unresolved issues.
It’s not easy or pretty, but this personal internal work allows depth and connection to expand and flourish.
There will never be easy answers or quick fixes when it comes to love.
Relationships are dynamic and complex, but practicing healthy behaviors and working on ourselves can begin to provide some direction as we navigate the intricate and unpredictable world of romance.
