The Three Things

In the past year, I have seen many relationships suddenly fall apart, including my own. It was like breakup season decided to last for twelve months and ruin as many happy endings as it could along the way. In the aftermath of the destruction, I realized that all of these relationships were ones that I had thought had all the pieces to reach forever.

So in the past year, I mourned — for my own loss and for the ending of other seemingly perfect relationships. I spent a lot of time thinking, venting, and writing about how it felt to lose who I thought was “the one.” I reflected, verbalized and embodied these emotions often and without reserve.

But in the past year, I also did a lot of listening. I’ve listened to friends, both men and women, translate their personal perspectives on failed relationships and heartache. In all of these relationships, I viewed both people as kind, respectful of each other, and genuinely in love with one another. So at the sudden ending of all of these love stories, I was always left wondering what was missing — why didn’t they make it to forever?

After a year of first-hand experiencing and second-hand learning of the painful reflections of ended relationships, I’ve been able to piece together my own answer to this question.

Yes, I am a 24-year-old who just admitted that my last serious relationship failed — BUT, with failure comes learning and you’re welcome to read the rest of this with as many grains of salt as you wish.

Here are The Three Things I believe you need in a relationship to make it to forever:

1. The Checklist

This is the easy part. The checklist is your list of ideal traits, qualities, morals, beliefs, etc. that you prefer in your partner. For instance, my checklist includes things like:

• Family-oriented
• Sense of humor
• Honest
• Good music taste (if you don’t know all the lyrics to All Falls Down by Kanye, then I don’t even want to be friends with you.)
• Knows how to dress
• Sports fan (#GoKings #LakersSuck)

…and my list goes on and on.

Obviously, it is hard to expect to find someone who is able to meet every single one of your preferences. By no means should you close yourself off to a person just because he or she is a fan of the most annoying team in the NBA. Instead, the checklist is merely a framework for the type of person you are naturally attracted and drawn to.

The best thing about the checklist is its flexibility — you can add, change, & redefine your checklist whenever and how often you want. People come in and out of our lives to show us the infinite qualities embodied in the human race and ultimately help us narrow down our must-haves and deal-breakers.

The ultimate goal is to meet someone who aligns with a majority of your checklist and may even show you new qualities to add that you hadn’t recognized before.

2. The Passion

This one is a little bit harder. Where it is very often we will find people whom we get along with and who have great qualities that we admire, it is extremely seldom we feel the passion for a person needed to reach forever. Admiration is easy; passion is rare.

It is within our nature to love others — you should be able to honestly say, “I love you” to numerous people in your life (parents, siblings, friends, etc.). Love is and should be common. Passion, on the other hand, is different.

Passion is looking at a person and suddenly you somehow feel peaceful and anxious at the same time. Passion is absorbing every single one of this person’s flaws, faults, and frustrations and somehow only appreciating them more for it. Passion is knowing this person will sometimes cause you pain, but realizing that you want to feel that pain. What you feel doesn’t make sense, yet it feels exactly right.

Remember that checklist? Chances are, you’re going to enter relationships with people who do not meet every single one of your preferences. That’s where the passion comes in to save the day! When you feel that real, unexplainable, and incomparable love for a person, all those empty check boxes on your list just melt away. Suddenly, you find that you’re okay with him not being a Kings fan or that he only knows the chorus to your favorite song. Those empty boxes become miniscule and you suddenly can’t remember why they were ever important to you in the first place.

3. The Reciprocity

If you’ve picked up on the trend, then you already know, this is the hardest one. You can certainly make a relationship work just by having the first two things. With attraction & passion alone, you can even have a great relationship; but it won’t get you to forever. The thing that sets great relationships apart from eternal ones is reciprocity.

You can admire a person’s every dimension and feel as if every novel, song, and poem ever written was inspired by the unparalleled feelings you have for this person; yet, without reciprocity, those immeasurable feelings are not enough. To go the distance, this person must recognize, validate, and equate the passion that you feel.

The ability to look at one another and emanate mutual adoration, respect, and spirit is what will ultimately make it last. When two people are able to understand and reciprocate truly passionate and unconditional love to one another, then commitment is easy and a lifetime doesn’t seem enough.