What I’ve learned about love

**Late posting from my drafts – originally written in Feb 2024 :-)**

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I celebrated 16 years together – here are my reflections on love, loving, and being loved ❤

My husband and I started dating very early in college – neither of us expected to find a meaningful relationship at the time, or were looking for a life partner. In fact, I distinctly remember thinking to myself that I wanted to not think about boys for a while. But when we met, we quickly became good friends and things progressed from there. Every progressive step in our relationship seemed natural and came easily, nothing ever felt forced…and 16 years later, we’re still happy-go-lucky, married, living in our home in Portland, OR, and about to welcome our first baby.

When I look back and think about the factors that have caused us to remain strongly bonded, here are the top 3 that come to mind.

Develop good communication habits early

This is a huge one and a cornerstone of a good relationship in my books. Establishing good communication is hard, and requires effort.

“Communication” doesn’t simply mean talking out loud – though that’s an important first step. Just because you *say* something doesn’t mean that the other person understands it the way you meant it. I’ve found that I have to keep paying attention and listening to the way my partner is receiving the information I’m presenting to him in order to make sure I’m truly being understood. And I know he does the same with me.

One of the most pivotal conversations we had was in fact during our first year of dating (when we eighteen or nineteen year olds!). Fernando mentioned that something I was doing was causing “resentment” to build inside him. I had never pondered that word before and it beautifully described the core feeling that caused a lot of the destructive behaviors I had noticed in other couples.

When resentment builds over something, we act out – we become angry, shutdown, or passive aggressive. Resentment hides in the shadows of a relationship and grows as things get bleaker. Voicing it sheds a light on it, and takes away its power.

Just having that word to reference and talk through was pivotal for me. Whenever I felt this feeling rise up inside, I could now name it and Nando would know exactly what I’m talking about. And we both decided that it wasn’t something we would ever ignore when it started pushing at the margins of our relationship. We would not let it gain ground in our partnership.

For the first few years in a relationship, I believe that it is not prudent to leave communication to chance.

For the first few years in a relationship, I believe that it is not prudent to leave communication to chance. Don’t assume the other person *should* know, or *obviously* understands. There is so much that goes into how we understand the world and interact with it, like our family background, culture, emotional state, past traumas etc…so it is better to be explicit in expressing our needs, to ask for clarification if something is unclear (“when you said xyz today at dinner, what did you mean by that? I didn’t really understand what you were getting at”). It is better to crawl and walk first with establishing good communication habits – some ideas of how folks can do this:

Set aside time to reflect on your thoughts, emotions and needs together – this could be through a weekly date night.
Use books like “The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts” to help you understand what makes your partner feel valued.

Assume good intent

I truly believe that robust, loving, communication is not possible without assuming positive intent on the part of the other person.

If you believe that your partner truly thinks poorly of you, intends to treat you like less than you deserve, or is trying to undercut you…then I question why you would want to be in that relationship.

Let’s say you do want to move forward with the relationship, then it is only fair to assume that your partner wants the best for you. And if that isn’t coming across, then it’s time to talk it out.

It is inevitable that there will be misunderstandings in any relationship (romantic or not), and I believe that in order to keep a solid long term bond it’s imperative to address any misunderstandings while assuming positive intent.

Have your own life

I think any relationship becomes shallow and boring if the people in the relationship don’t have their own lives.

I believe my partner finds me interesting because I lead a life apart from him, and vice versa. At the end of the day, we do enough apart from each other that we can come together and discuss these happenings.

Further, neither of us is solely responsible for the other person’s happiness. I never expected my partner to make me fundamentally happy, and I don’t believe my partner did either. When I think about this, it sounds like such a heavy burden to carry…to feel that you are so completely responsible for an adult’s happiness.

It’s so important to cultivate your own thoughts, have your own experiences, come to your own conclusions and not be so heavily reliant on your partner to bequeath these to you.

When two people with their own points of view come together, there is a wonderful spark that occurs and lights a fire in our hearts. And as we grow in our own interests and experience, that fire keeps growing forging a deeper and deeper connection with time.

I think that the qualities mentioned above are foundational for a good relationship. Of course there are a lot of other factors that are important as well – keeping your word, being trustworthy, respect, etc…however I believe that when a relationship lacks the factors I’ve mentioned above, a distance can form and grow over time.

Let me know what you’ve learned about love so far. I’m always curious to learn from the wisdom of others.