Relationships.
1. Be yourself.
2. Be honest.
3. If (s)he doesn't love you the way you are (s)he doesn't love you.
4. Nobody changes.
5. Keep showing up.
6. Support your partner's self esteem
Comments:
1. Be yourself.
This is very common advise and very obvious. It is also incredibly important and rarely followed. I don't suppose that anyone gets into a relationship with the intention of projecting a false image as a basic part of the arrangement. I think that people procrastinate. They start off putting their best foot forward and just keep putting off dropping the mask. Maximum disclosure of one's own true self very early in the relationship is critical. It is much more difficult to let the other person in when things have been going on for a while. It is also important to be ruthless about never ever yielding to the temptation to paper over a personal problem or conceal a defect of character.
One good reason to be very open, disclosing and honest with the other is the effect it has on oneself. Two of the most important reasons for being in intimate relationships are acceptance and affirmation. If I am hiding from my loved one I can not enjoy being accepted and affirmed for myself because I am not sharing myself. The message I am giving to myself is that I can not be loved as and for myself. This undermines my self esteem and makes it all the more difficult to be disclosing tomorrow. Actually, there is something to love and like in everyone and someone who will find anyone lovable. I don't need to put on an act.
Another good reason to be oneself in relationships is to get rid of people who really can not accept me. If a person does not like me that says more about them than about me. I need to know as soon as possible and certainly before I have gotten myself in over my head. It hurts more to be abandoned after a long relationship than after a short one. It hurts even more to cling to a relationship by hiding one's true self.
The best reason to be oneself in a relationship is that it is a prerequisite to intimacy and intimacy is what it is all about. The best part is coming to know the loved one and being known oneself. That is what all the fuss is about.
Being oneself is not easy. It is easy to slide into protecting oneself and trying to manage impressions even in a long term relationship. The key is to be absolutely ruthless about it.
2. Be honest.
I mean this to be a little different than being oneself. Basically I mean to avoid deception, secrets and trying to control the other through information management. It is also tricky since literal, constant reporting of everything and totally factual responses to every question can be foolish and unkind. If I happen to notice that her nose is too big, no purpose is served by my blurting that out. With some people and in perfectly wonderful relationships, questions about one's sexual history might not call for totally accurate recall. I like to use language from the A.A. ninth step, "except when to do so would be harmful to them or others." On the other hand a long term deception on a major issue is lethal. Why stay in a relationship with someone you need to lie to? When in doubt it is usually a good idea to tell the plain, unvarnished truth.
3. If (s)he doesn't love you the way you are (s)he doesn't love you.
Everyone is lovable to someone. From mother's love of a newborn to someone's passion for a serial killer on death row there is someone out there who can and will love you just as you are. For all the pain and nuisance which exists in the fact that we have to relate to other human beings one saving grace is that the supply is virtually unlimited. As much as it may be difficult to believe sometimes, potential lovers are not in short supply and we do not have to settle for someone who doesn't really like us. People do it all the time.
No matter who we are or what we are like there are some people who will find us lovable and some who will not (and a bunch more who can't love anybody). Being loved has nothing to do with some abstract quality of being lovable in the absolute. Somebody loved Henry Lee Lucas, a stupid, vicious, unsanitary, serial killer. Some people can't stand Mother Theresa. Love isn't something you deserve, earn or achieve. It is a quality of a relationship which has to do with the needs and personalities of the participants. One's potential lovers are as human, fallible and irrational as oneself and as stubborn, self- destructive and confused. All of which leads to the conclusion that we can not "get" someone to love us no matter how hard we try.
It is a total waste of time and effort to twist ourselves into pretzels trying to become "good enough" or bad enough or whatever someone seems to want us to be. It won't help and it hurts us. The worst thing that can happen is that we deceive a potential lover into believing we are something other than we in fact are. What good is that? We want to be loved, but have nothing if all we have achieved it to get someone to love a false facade. It probably isn't possible anyway.
After a certain period of cautious self disclosure the dye is cast. He or she either loves us or does not and there is nothing we can do about it. If (s)he does love us we have the difficult task of being in a love relationship. If not we need to cut our losses and become available for another effort. On no account do we abandon ourselves in an effort to be what we are not.
4. Nobody changes.
This is the other side of the last rule and a guide for behavior, not a fact. People do change, sometimes profoundly. They do not change to meet the specifications of a lover and pressure to change is usually counter-productive. One of the most common and most self destructive mistakes that one can make in a relationship is to "keep wishing and hoping he'll change." Clear evidence of such a relationship is the presence of "fonlys" and "I wishes." The worst are the fonlys as in "Fonly, he'd stop drinking." Relating to someone based on that someone being different than he or she is now is a sure prescription for misery and futility. Always assume that the other will never change. Chose someone whom you can accept now, completely and exactly as is.
5. Keep showing up.
"90% of success is showing up." This wisdom was, perhaps, first articulated by Woody Allen and the depth and significance of it is beyond measure. In any situation it is very difficult to predict what is going to happen but one thing is certain, if you don't show up you won't be there when it happens. In relationships this is about courage, respect and persistence. We are often asked to do frightening things and things we have never done before and things we have done before with painful results. Most of the time we need to do them and the biggest part of doing them is making oneself physically present. In a relationship almost everything is forgivable except failing to show up. In the endless daily conflicts between the desire to avoid the difficult and scary and the need to participate in life we need a guidepost and a tool. For me it is the simple motto that 90% of everything is showing up. It is the difference between avoiding life and embracing life.
Practical examples of showing up:
Meeting someone's parents
Inviting a conversation when she is in a bad mood
Keeping a social engagement when tired
Apologizing after a fight
Explaining why I won't apologize
Listening to something I don't want to hear
Medical or dental treatment
Balancing a checkbook
It is impossible to predict or imagine the circumstances when showing up will be necessary and important. When in doubt or indecision think of the solution as "showing up" and there is a good chance you will know what that will be. If you really want to be a success and a hero show up on time.
6. Support your partner's self esteem.
We want to support our partners self esteem not because they will like it but because we will like being in a relationship with a person with healthy self esteem. An intimate relationship is an aspect of life in which our self esteem can be supported and improved or steadily ground down. An amazing number of people seem to feel that a steady diet of criticism and negativity will improve their partner. This probably becomes a habit when all we are doing is trying to help the other become a better person. Trust me on this; if you want to help your loved one become a better person the tools to use are positive reinforcement and support.
This is hard and this is rare. The rewards are enormous, especially for the relationship. The temptation to criticize, to respond to negativity with negativity and to try to cut our partner down to size is almost impossible to resist. To the extent we are able to resist this temptation we are the winner. Every nasty crack and critical gesture drains the relationship; every supportive comment and appreciative response strengthens it. We want and need the relationship to be a place our partner comes for support, never a place to avoid for fear of feeling diminished.
People who feel good about themselves are a joy to spend time with. Beaten down, defeated people are a burden to be around. People who feel loved, appreciated and approved have a much easier time giving of themselves and making themselves available to others. People who feel inferior tend to conceal themselves and behave defensively.
We often underestimate our power in our relationships. On a day to day basis we can set a tone of criticism and negativity almost unconsciously and this wears away at our partner in ways we very much do not want to happen. If we make the effort to be positive and supportive, that too can become a habit and we will reap the rewards. In many ways this is the harder way. But it is worth it.
