I tried to love him perfectly. I gave everything I had, and it just didn’t measure up. I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice every time I disappointed, and toward the end, that’s all I did was disappoint. I kept trying to do better, to learn more about him, and to love him in the way that he most needed. But all I did was fail and keep failing. I was trying to love perfectly, and I am not a perfect person.
Love can be perfect and unconditional. It never fails. But people sure as hell do. I don’t think we’re prepared for relationships to be as hard as they are. We assume that we’ll meet the right person, and everything will magically fall into place. But life can hit hard and keep hitting us — unless we’re very lucky indeed — and when we get hit, it can be hard to love ourselves well, much less anyone else.
I didn’t need to love him perfectly. I needed to show up and love him to the best of my ability, and I did that. I did that every day. Even when I messed up. Even when I disappointed. I never stopped trying. Even after he walked away from the relationship, I kept loving as hard as I could in the only way he would let me — silently and from a distance.
Relationships aren’t meant to be perfect. Change is a constant. If we’re growing as individuals, we’re going to be changing, and it forces our relationships to change, too. We either figure out how to work through our inherent differences, or we grow and go our separate ways. But perfection is not a requirement. It’s an impossibility that we often strive for to our detriment. It sets us — and our partners — up for major disappointment.
As I began to dissect all the ways I had failed him in the relationship, I had a moment of clarity. We had failed each other. I had not loved him in the way he wanted to be loved. He had not loved me in the way that I needed. We had shown up with the best of intentions and a genuine connection, and it fell apart. Maybe it fell apart because we weren’t grown to the level that we needed to be to communicate around attachment styles and past baggage, or maybe it fell apart because we were only meant to share that short time and nothing more.
I began to see all the ways that we had genuinely tried to connect — not all of them successful. I began to develop an appreciation for the challenges we faced and the many ways we both tried to navigate them to the best of our abilities. I stopped looking at the relationship as a failure. I stopped looking at myself in the relationship as a failure. So, I had loved and lost. Who hasn’t done that? I loved hard, and I grieved hard, and I don’t regret any of it. My love was perfect. I was not and never will be.
Disclaimer: Although I am a former therapist, the following is not intended as therapeutic advice and cannot replace therapy with a licensed mental health professional.
How to Have a Perfect Love as an Imperfect Person
We fail each other. Even in the healthiest of relationships. Even with the best of intentions. But there are things we can try to do to love each other well, however imperfectly.
We can try to genuinely listen to each other.
Sometimes, we assume we know all there is to know about the one we’re with, and we forget that every individual contains multitudes. We can never fully know another human being. We all have our unknowable qualities.
Instead of trying to uncover every deep, dark secret, we can do our best to genuinely, mindfully listen and learn. If we’re changing all the time, who we are does not remain the same. This is why listening becomes imperative. We need to be open to the idea that we will never learn all there is to know, but that doesn’t mean we should take them for granted or stop listening to what they have to say.
I could have been a better listener. I would jump in with anticipation — mostly because I was so excited to talk with him about any and every subject. But sometimes, I wish I could go back and just listen. To be present. To hear what he was saying, not what I thought he would say. Not what I wanted to say next. We are all guilty at times of neglecting to listen, but we can keep trying even if we sometimes fail.
We can resolve conflict with respect and kindness.
One thing that I am proud of in that relationship is that I learned to confront conflict with both respect and kindness. I can’t always say that I did that in the past. I practiced all the communication skills I had learned, and even though I absolutely hate confrontation, I know that the worst thing to happen to relationships is to avoid it and suffer in silence. We need to be willing to confront our partners in a respectful way, and we need to be a safe person for our partners to confront when needed.
Fight Smarter: Avoid the Most Common Argument Patterns — Esther Perel
I never learned to enjoy confrontation. Each time, it felt awkward and uncomfortable. At times, it was excruciating. But I knew that it was far better to talk things out even when it was hard than to ignore the problems in hopes they would go away and resolve on their own. I wasn’t perfect with handling conflict. Sometimes, my anxiety got the better of me and created conflict where none should have existed. Yet, I look back and know that communicating with kindness and respect was something I did well and something I will continue to practice in future relationships.
Conflict doesn’t have to devolve into name-calling and disrespect. We don’t have to see our partners as the problem. We can work together to find solutions to whatever challenges come up in relationships, and we can even learn to appreciate and navigate difference. We can’t do any of that if we’re not willing to try to learn to communicate in healthier ways.
We can build strong futures together.
I epically failed at building a strong future with him. I could not talk about the future other than in vague terms. It took liquid courage to even get up the nerve to approach the subject. I wanted a future, but I was terrified to articulate it.
I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted. I didn’t know how to risk losing the relationship by being honest about my desires for a shared future. I had a lifetime of practice putting my needs aside for other people, and I wasn’t sure how to get around that habit to ask if we were planning a future together.
If we’re in a relationship with someone, we should be building a future with them. It doesn’t have to be an extensive, heavily detailed plan, but it should exist in conversation at the very least. I shouldn’t have been left wondering if we had a future at all, and I should have been brave enough to ask for what I wanted. I wanted it all, but I was always afraid of needing, and being, too much for anyone else. We shouldn’t ever have to feel like we’re too much for the right person.
Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski Jr. put together a list of questions for couples inspired by baseball statistician Bill James’s Keltner List for assessing a player’s Hall of Fame potential. This list isn’t empirically based or peer reviewed. However, it can help us determine if we have a future with our partner. Dr. Lewandowski’s list includes the following 15 questions:
- Do you and your partner make each other a better person?
- Do you both feel safe enough to share your feelings, enjoy intimacy, depend on one another without fearing that the other person will leave?
- Do you both accept each other exactly as you are without hoping the other person will change?
- During disagreements, do you both communicate respectfully?
- Do you both have equal decision-making power and influence within the relationship?
- Are you each other’s best friend?
- Do you both have a couple mentality (“we” and “us” rather than “you” and “me”)?
- Can you both be trusted with passwords to bank accounts and social media?
- Do you both think well of each other without exaggerating positive attributes?
- Do both sets of your friend groups feel like your relationship will last?
- Does your relationship feel free of infidelity, jealousy, controlling, and possessive behavior?
- Do you both share the same values regarding religion, politics, marriage, children, and parenting?
- Are you both willing to sacrifice for each other without either becoming a doormat in the relationship?
- Are you both emotionally stable?
- Are you sexually compatible?
We can source help when the relationship encounters challenges.
Had he wanted to save the relationship, I would have shown up at couples counseling in a hurry. I’d have made the appointment myself if necessary. I’d have moved mountains for the chance to try to save it. But the option wasn’t on the table.
If we want to love each other well, we can look outside the relationship for professional help when we encounter serious challenges we don’t know how to navigate. We can sit down and try to articulate what we’re thinking and how we feel with someone who can help us get to the heart of what’s wrong and what’s needed to make it right. We don’t have to give up when it gets hard. We don’t have to quit when we’ve got something worth saving, and even if we don’t want to save what we have, a couple’s counselor can help us transition out of the relationship with respect, dignity, and kindness.
Research has shown that techniques such as emotion focused couples therapy is effective at reducing burnout in long-term relationships and can even increase conflict resolution styles. This technique offers tools like the Conflict Resolution Checklist to help couples build new and more effective communication and conflict resolution strategies.
We can love them enough to let go.
I might not have been the perfect partner, but when he wanted to leave, I didn’t try to convince him to stay. I loved him enough to respect what he wanted and let him go. At least, I let him go on and leave the relationship. My heart found it much harder to let go of the love. I kept hoping he’d change his mind. When he didn’t, I had to love him enough to respect that.
Sometimes, perfect love is acknowledging that both our wants and needs matter. If he needed to go, I needed to let him. Even though it hurt. Even though it was the last thing I wanted. I couldn’t be the perfect partner, but I could do this. I could acknowledge that what I wanted wasn’t all that mattered.
Loving someone who leaves is one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. We can grieve what’s lost, but we can’t make it stay. We’re not perfect. We may not handle things well, but we can certainly keep reminding ourselves that letting go isn’t a failure; it’s the ultimate way to show love and respect to someone else by genuinely hoping for their happiness — even if that happiness doesn’t include us in the picture.
We can accept that relationships aren’t always 50/50.
While I will always advocate for a fair and equitable distribution of labor in and outside of the household, it’s important to remember that relationships can’t be 50/50 all the time. As a person who has struggled with a chronic illness with mental health features, I’ve had times when I needed more support than I could give. It was hard to show up in ways that had been easy before, and I needed him to show up more for me.
This is just a fact of life. We’ll all go through challenges, and we need partners who don’t expect us to bring our A-game to every single day of our lives. Sometimes, we need a little latitude to have bad moods and bad days and doubts about ourselves and the relationship. We need more space or less, depending. Our ability to give and receive in relationships will fluctuate, and we need to go into relationships with the understanding that sometimes we’ll be the ones putting in the effort when the other person simply can’t.
Even in those ups and downs, we can reassure each other that we’re still committed to the relationship — because the relationship itself is a commitment. It’s a decision to wake up each and every day and love the other person even when it’s hard. It’s an acknowledgement that this person is worth having in our lives even on the days when we find them annoying or frustrating. We can love them perfectly by letting them know that we’re still with them even when we can’t perform in the relationship to the level we have before.
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Imperfect people are bound to mess up and fail. Relationships don’t always work out. We are all doing the best we can, and hopefully, we’re learning some lessons along the way so that we do even better the next time.
I never did learn how to love him in the way he wanted, but I know in my heart that I loved him the best that I could with everything I had. I don’t look at it as a failure. I look back and am proud that I woke up every day of that relationship and chose him. I’m glad I showed with both words and actions that he is worthy and deserving of love, and I hope that one day he finds all that and more with someone he loves in return.
We’re imperfect people doing our best. As long as we keep trying, that’s all we can do. I stopped setting myself up for failure by trying to love perfectly. I started to remind myself that loving well and trying to do better each time is as perfect as it gets. My love never failed, not even when I did. It stayed steadfast and unwavering, and nothing about that sounds like failure.
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Crystal Jackson is a former therapist and the author of the Heart of Madison contemporary small-town romance series. You’ll find her work on relationships and mental health featured on Medium, The Good Men Project, Elite Daily, YourTango, Elephant Journal, and Thought Catalog.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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