The One Guaranteed Relationship

by Will Limón, MSW

NEXUS, Colorado's Holistic Journal

Lyrics from a '70s song waft through my brain. It's Dean Martin crooning in his lilting lushy style: "Everybody loves somebody sometime…" Though this may be true, it seems that everybody wants somebody else to love them all the time. That, I'm afraid, is a bit more difficult.

Throughout the years I've taught seminars on divorce recovery, couples communication and relationship skills, I've heard the yearning for unconditional love as an enduring refrain. Everyone wants to find a guaranteed relationship. For some, their cursory search brought them little else but fleeting moments of passion followed by years of pain. For others it was a journey mapped out by rigid qualifications that were impossible to meet. "There's nobody good left out there!" became their lament of choice.

On one level this is due to expectations. If someone does appear and love is professed, expectations can become rampant: "love me now and forever;" "Of course you'll always know what I need." It's difficult enough to figure out one's own needs without demanding that someone else do so. Expectations tend to create trouble anyway. Not only do they have a habit of going unfulfilled, they also limit what we perceive as life and love. Since there's always more going on than meets the eye, why wear blinders?

On another level, methods may be the madness. Some people practice what I call the "Russian Roulette Theory of Relationships":

1. They'll take anybody (if you have a pulse, you qualify);
2. They attempt to stack the odds in their favor by going through a large number of partners;
3. They continually "shoot themselves in the foot" as names and faces change, but their relationships remain remarkably the same -- unfulfilling. Other sabotage themselves by believing that "true love conquers all," as if emotion alone can magically overcome disparities in values, experience and skills. Some individuals do become experts though, experts on everything they don't want to have happen again. "I don't want someone who acts like that, or who is this way or…." They have a list of "Not-Wants" a mile long and use it as a litmus test for partner selection. That creates another problem: If you don't know what you do want in a relationship, how will you know it when you see it?

Even those people who decide to learn more about relationships than their parents showed them or their ex-partners taught them, can be unrealistic. They may think that a good love-relationship is a "turn-key" operation: Know all the right skills and it's no sweat. Well, learning good skills as a start. Understanding clear communication, the use of assertiveness and loving confrontation is wonderful, but skills don't do the work. You do. Healthy relationships are hard work. (Unhealthy ones are hard work, too!) Even with good skills and hard work, however, there is still no guarantee of longevity or satisfaction.

Let's face it, the only relationship you're guaranteed to be in for the rest of your life is the one with yourself. From this all other relationships flow. If you want unconditional love, find it for yourself or you won't be willing to accept it from anyone else. When you truly get to know and love yourself, you'll be in a much better position to teach others how to love you and to learn how to love them. Sondra Ray said it best: "I'm not looking for the right person; I'm becoming the right person." For this you need not wait for anyone else in your life. The relationship with yourself is someone you can love not just some time, but all the time; and as much as you love, you will be loved right back. WOW!