✨ The Magic Words of the Week ✨
Hard doesn't mean THIS hard.
In relationships, I have always been a stayer.
I started dating my first serious boyfriend in ninth grade.
I didn’t fully end the relationship until I was in college—the one I had chosen, in part, to be close to him.
There were periods when he treated me horribly.
I stayed.
Then I spent 12 years with the man who became my husband, despite a lot of doubt.
I stayed.
After my marriage ended, I spent the next seven years in two relationships with men I think of as tortured geniuses.
Brilliant. Gifted. Fascinating.
And really difficult to be in relationship with.
I worked absurdly hard to be the woman who could handle the difficulty in exchange for the privilege of their gifts.
Could I be understanding enough?
Secure enough?
Independent enough?
Could I work through my triggers?
Communicate better?
Ask for less?
Accept more?
Could I become the exceptional woman who knew how to love this exceptional, difficult man?
I was very, very good at this.
Because somewhere along the way, I had absorbed a piece of relationship wisdom that is completely true:
Relationships are hard.
You bring your patterns with you.
The grass is greener where you water it.
No one person can meet all your needs.
You’ll have problems with anyone.
Long-term love requires work.
I still believe all of that.
What I didn’t understand was:
Hard doesn’t mean THIS hard.
There’s the hard of intimacy: telling the truth, getting triggered, repairing, seeing your own stuff, letting go of being right, loving an imperfect human.
And there’s the hard of spending years trying to make yourself okay with a relationship that some part of you has known, maybe from the beginning, isn’t right.
Those two kinds of hard can feel remarkably similar from the inside.
Especially if you’re self-aware.
Especially if you’re willing to work on yourself.
In my last relationship, I think I would have kept contorting myself forever.
He’s the one who ended it.
And then, after I grieved and got clear and allowed life to reshape me in a much bigger way, something happened that has changed how I understand all of this:
I found myself in a relationship that is SO GOOD.
I don’t have the old doubt.
I have no illusion that a lifetime together won’t be hard.
There will be conflict. Loss. Change. Fear. Illness. Annoyance. Hurt feelings. All the vulnerability that comes with loving someone enough that they matter enormously to you.
But the work is different.
I’m not working to convince myself the relationship is okay.
I’m learning to open to how good it is.
And I keep wishing I could go back and tell the younger versions of me:
Yes, sweetheart. Relationships are hard.
But hard doesn’t mean THIS hard.
I haven’t mastered time travel yet, so instead…I’m teaching a free workshop about it next Friday.
The Relationship Lie That Keeps Good People Stuck
Friday, August 28 · 10:30–11:30 am MT Free + live on Zoom
I’ll give you three questions to help you distinguish between the inevitable work of loving another human and the exhausting work of trying to make the wrong relationship work.
I’m not going to tell you whether to stay or leave.
I’m going to help you ask better questions.
And you don’t have to be in a relationship right now for this to matter.
If you recognize yourself in this pattern—if you’ve historically been the one who stays, tries harder, accommodates more, or makes yourself responsible for making a difficult relationship work—this is for you too.
Because your ability to tolerate a relationship is not proof that it’s right for you.
And you don’t get extra credit for staying.
Love,Rachel
PS – If you can make an excellent case for staying and an equally excellent case for leaving, this one’s for you.
