Did you know that being in a relationship is hard work?
I know, I know. All of you who are married, or in a serious long-term relationship, or ever have been (which, let’s face it, is probably most of you), are laughing your heads off right now reading that statement. My thing is that, it’s one thing to know that. I mean, I know that relationships aren’t easy. I’ve seen all the movies. I know how the world works. But it’s another thing to actually be in the situation.
I mean, in part, I guess, that I expected it to be different for me. You have to understand that I believe that God has a design for the lives of all of his people. And that part of that design involves the person you are supposed to marry, if you are supposed to marry at all. I believe, in fact I know, that I have found this person. I guess I just tricked myself, or the devil himself tricked me, into thinking that it would be easy if you were with the right person at the right time and in the right place.
Easier? Perhaps. But it’s still pretty hard.
Again, I should have known this. I have friends who are with the right people, and by all accounts happily married, yet they still have difficulties. I guess it’s just easy not to think about that, especially when you are first starting out and you are in love. It’s easier to avoid or overlook the difficulties, and focus on all the positive, and how good you feel, and how it’s all so new and wonderful. Only once you’ve been in it for a while, you can’t really do that anymore.
Anyway, it’s something I’m struggling with. It’s hard because, in some ways, you have to give up a little of your individuality to be in a relationship. For me, this means getting rid of my overly selfish personality. I’m not used to having even that many close friendships, never mind being in a relationship with someone who is supposed to be the single most important person in your life. In a lot of ways, you have to put that person before yourself even. Now, if I’d been working on myself, and putting God first in my life, before getting deeply involved in a relationship, this would be easier. But while I made some strides in this arena, I didn’t get nearly as far as I could or should have. Now I am kind of paying the price for that.
All of this aside, I still wouldn’t trade him, or our relationship, for anything in the world. I love him, and I know he loves me, and he really has been such a blessing to me in so many ways. When things are hard, it’s easy to forget this, or to not act like it’s true. But it is. Even with days of unpleasantness, I wouldn’t trade any of it to go back to a time when my life was simpler and less complicated.
To this end, I’ve spent part of my morning here at work reading and thinking about ways in which I can improve my role in this relationship. I’m not sure there’s a lot out there that’s actually helpful (though I’m sure with lots of prayer and support from others who are wiser in such areas than I am, I will be able to not completely suck at being in a relationship), but I did stumble across a fun quiz, and since I haven’t posted any here in a while, I figured what the heck.
This one is on Relationship Connectedness. Here are my wonderfully awesome (and completely, 100% reliable, I’m sure) results:
They have some other fun quizzes too, at Psych Central. Check it out.
