I was a little girl when Tina Turner released “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”  Back then, I didn’t understand the question. I just knew I liked the lady with the spiky hair and raspy voice.  Years later, I understood it a little better.  Now? I get it completely. The problem isn’t love.  It’s what we expect from it.

Somewhere between the promise of happily ever afters in Disney fairy tales, Hollywood rom-coms, and the best R&B slow jams, we started expecting love to do a whole lot more than it was ever designed to.  We want love to heal, excite, affirm, fund, challenge, entertain, comfort and complete us, but never inconvenience us.  And when it does, we’re quick to throw it away in the name of “protecting our peace.”

Like anyone else, I have reasons to be jaded, but I believe in love. Fully.  (Irrationally, some days). I believe in the beauty of having someone to build with, laugh with, pray with, fuss with, travel with, and sit silently beside while both of you scroll your phones and call it quality time.  They say love is a many-splendored thing.  It is also, on occasion, a real pain in the ass.

I think part of the reason so many relationships struggle is because we only embrace the fantastical part of love and tend to ignore its requirements. We want the depth of commitment without the discomfort of compromise; partnership without patience. We want a person who understands us completely, anticipates our needs, respects our independence, supports our dreams, shares our values, heals our wounds, looks good in linen, and never disappoints us.  And that’s just not how it works.  

Love Is Not a Template

One of the messiest things about relationship conversations these days is that everybody has a microphone.  Everybody has a theory.  A rule. A comprehensive list of red flags, green flags, diagnoses, and three-minute clips explaining why your relationship is either divinely aligned or doomed by Tuesday.  Every now and then, in part, some of the advice is useful.  Other times it’s hot-buttered nonsense that should be avoided at all costs.

Love is nuanced. Every relationship has its own rhythm, history, wounds, strengths, struggles, and quiet understandings. What works beautifully for one couple may not work at all for another. What looks strange from the outside may make perfect sense to the two people living inside the relationship. That doesn’t mean anything goes or that we ignore poor treatment, disrespect, or manipulation.  It does mean we have to be careful about letting well-lit strangers with their own set of unresolved personal issues tell us what our relationships should look like.

Some people need more softness; some need structure. Some need space, others need words. Some need therapy. Some need a damn nap.  There’s no one-size-fits-all guide.  And sometimes, the most dangerous thing we can do is take advice meant for someone else’s situation and apply it to a relationship that needed something entirely different.

Commitment Is Sometimes Inconvenient

This isn’t sexy to say, but let me hold your hand while I say it:  commitment will inconvenience you. It will challenge you.  It will tap dance all over your very last nerve.  There will be seasons when love feels easy and seasons when it feels like two unhandy people trying to assemble IKEA furniture with no instructions and one missing screw.

There will be misunderstandings. Mood swings. Bad timing. Money stress. Parenting stress. Career changes. Health scares. Aging parents. Household chores that become a referendum on respect.  There will be days when attitudes are funkier than 3-day-old broccoli.  

Fantasy love psychology will tell you, if it’s right, it should feel good.  It should flow. It should be obvious. It should not require too much conversation, correction, or repair.  But real love and commitment require every bit of that.  It requires being able to say, “That hurt me,” without trying to destroy the other person.  It requires being able to hear, “That hurt me,” without immediately hiring a defense attorney in your mind.  It requires apologizing without adding a closing argument.  And it most definitely requires choosing the health of the relationship over the temporary satisfaction of winning the point.

Again, that doesn’t mean staying in situations that are harmful or emotionally unsafe.  Sometimes ending a relationship is the most loving thing a person can do for themselves.  But you do need to be mature and self-aware enough to know if your reason for tapping out is because you’re uncomfortable, disappointed, or confronted with the horrifying realization that your partner is a whole human being and not a supporting character in The Greatest Unrealistic Love Story Ever Told.

When Standards Are Just Stubbornness

Standards are mandatory.  Please have them.  Have standards for character, kindness, honesty, emotional maturity, and consistency. Have them for how someone handles conflict, money, family, responsibility, and the truth.  But know the difference between a bona fide standard and a nice-to-have preference.  Some of those “non-negotiables” are just better-branded fear, pride, or stubbornness.  There’s a difference between wanting stability and expecting another adult to fund a lifestyle that you, yourself, have not figured out how to sustain.  There is absolutely a difference between wanting someone who is ambitious and needing them to have a specific job title, salary, height, car, wardrobe, passport stamp count, or social media aesthetic before you believe they are worthy of your time.

The older we get, the more we have to ask the honest questions like: Do I really want a partnership?  Am I ready for it?  Do I want a real person or a lifestyle accessory with a pulse?  Because if you’re serious about building something lasting, you have to know the difference between your values and your wishlist.  Far too many people are rejecting solid foundations because the backsplash is not what they pictured.

The Work Is The Work

I don’t know why some people are so turned off by the idea or (or even the phrase) “doing the work.”  I guess it sounds like punishment, but it’s really not.  It’s maintenance.  I don’t know of anything worth having that doesn’t require maintenance.  The work is learning how to communicate instead of lashing out, noticing (and addressing) your patterns instead of blaming every disappointment on the other person.  It’s making room for another person’s needs without treating those needs as an attack.  I could go on, but you get what I’m saying.

The work is realizing that love is not just something you feel. It’s what you practice.  And practice means repetition, mistakes, and trying again.  It means sometimes having to have the same conversation more than once (my personal pet peeve), because we’re humans, not updateable software that gets everything in an instant.  My grandmother used to say, “Don’t get weary in your well doing,” which is undoubtedly a reference to a bible verse that I can’t recall at the moment.  But I get it, especially when it comes to love and relationships.  Difficulty doesn’t mean incompatibility.  A rough season doesn’t mean the love isn’t real.

It Could All Be So Simple (Or Whatever Lauryn Hill Said)

The more I think about it, maybe love isn’t a second-hand emotion.  It’s a very real one that we keep asking to perform miracles without giving it the structure, patience, and humility it needs to survive.   Maybe it just requires two imperfect people who are willing to keep trying and keep choosing the life they said they wanted to build.  That doesn’t sound as glamorous as the fairytale and might not make for an epic love song, but it can make for a beautiful life together.  One where somebody has you, and you have them, and both of you understand that love can’t do all the work by itself.

It could all be so simple.  But we sure do love making things hard.

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