I am no expert on relationships, but I don’t have any bad ones and I have a plethora of good ones.

Ok: You have hydrated, you have reminded yourself how awesome your life is, you have moved your body, and you have started to refine the fuel that you fill your tank with… a whole bunch of versions of “put your own oxygen mask on first.”

But no man or woman is an island.

I will tell you that every bit of self improvement is a solo journey. Every mountain you will climb, you will climb alone and when you die you will do it by yourself. But… the only reason any of it is worth doing is so you can share it with someone else.  It is a crazy dichotomy. When I was laying in bed this morning thinking about this essay, I imagined life as a tubing trip down the river.  Everyone is in their own inner tube.  Sure, you can link up and float down the river together, and that is often the most fun. But occasionally you get ahead of or behind the group. Sometimes you just need to float around by yourself for a bit before you link back up.

Every relationship has two wholes.   I didn’t say two halves there, because in each relationship, each party is 100% responsible.  But, remember… you can only control your part, you have no control over their part, and so I will only give passing mention to the other parties when discussing personal relationships.

Here is that passing mention:  Everyone is on their own journey.  You can only build a relationship with a willing participant.  That willingness needs to be more than just in words and thoughts.  It needs to be in deeds. It takes work to float down the river together. The current affects you both differently, sometimes pushing you too close together, and sometimes trying to pull you apart.  You both have to be more interested in staying linked than the alternative.  No amount of paddling by one person can ever be enough to carry both down the river for long… at first.

That changes as you invest in each other, and at this point, I would paddle for my wife until the end of eternity with a smile on my face.  She and I have earned that.

Here is another strange dichotomy -yes, you are unconditionally worthy of love. That is true. And also, I am going to tell you that you need to do the work to make it worthwhile for someone to bet on loving you.

I am not perfect.  Far from it, despite what I tell my children.  However, I am fully invested in making the daily decision to stay married to me a no-brainer for my wife, and that makes me a pretty good partner.

And because we both are doing that work, we have created the fertile ground where we can actually become best friends who sincerely enjoy each other’s company more than anyone else's. I don’t get the cultural norm of “bagging on the old lady”.  She is the best thing about me (and as long as I don’t forget that, everything will be Jim dandy). Also, we have as good of a relationship as any couple I know, and we go to a counselor monthly... healthy people invest in their health.

All of this applies to non-romantic relationships as well.  Be the kind of person that it is easy to be friends with.  Be generous, be helpful. Invest time in your friends, especially as you get past your 20's. 

You are a project that you are working on.  And if you know that, it will all be fine.  You will find your people, and your person (horse pucky that there is only one person out there for you… I mean... of course my wife is my one and only soulmate, but there are thousands of possibilities for you!)

If you are having trouble in a relationship right now, romantic or otherwise, and it is a relationship that has experienced generous and authentic love in the past, try focusing on just “loving” the other person for a few weeks and see what happens.  I think it is easy to get stuck focusing on the other person’s 100% of the relationship… all the ways they have let you down, all the perceived slights… and forget that we have 100% ownership as well.  

Eventually, as you mature into the kind of person who knows what it means to hold up 100% of their side of the relationship bargain, you will be able to accurately and honestly determine if a specific person is a good companion to the journey you are on.

If you know that you are doing the work, consistently… and you have the receipts in other relationships that are working… it’s fine to let people drift away and find their own way down river.  You don’t owe anyone anything unless you have decided that you do. 

I hope this makes sense. If not, feel free to disagree and disregard. I was raised in a home with two loving parents, two older sisters and a younger brother. They were all awesome.  It was a home full of love, support, and good communication about feelings, emotions, etc.

It was a spectacular birth lottery for me to win because I came to adulthood fairly unencumbered with trauma or drama. My wife says that I am remarkably unscarred.

I know that isn’t fair, but it also is what it is.

No matter what mountains or valleys you have to climb out of to get here, these truths are true.

The only action item this week is to try to open your heart to loving something or someone fully. It's like stretching - the more you do it the further you can go.

You are worthy of love, but you will have to work to find it, keep it, and grow it.