A Relationship Hack That Actually Works
A friend and I were talking recently. She said: “Relationships are hard.” I agreed. But a moment later I thought: But what do we mean by ‘hard’? What is specifically hard about a relationship?
There are certain words I flag in coaching sessions. Like the word ‘weird’. Whenever someone says: “it was so weird…” or “isn’t that weird?”, my spidey senses tingle. It’s one of those placeholder words. There’s almost always another more accurate, more honest, more tender word hiding underneath it.
He ghosted me and It was so weird because I thought we had a great connection… really means: I feel disappointed, hurt, unwanted, devastated, confused because this person suddenly abandoned our connection.
Those are vulnerable words. Weird is safer. It’s like a trick filter. It blurs the picture. It’s easier to tell ourselves we don’t quite get it than to allow ourselves to get it and feel the pain of what we’re getting.
‘Hard’ is a similar word. We say it a lot about relationships — so much so that we don’t bother to investigate what we mean. It’s a given: Yep, relationships take work. Relationships are ‘hard.’
There are so many kinds of ‘hard’ though.
It’s hard being patient.
It’s hard extending faith when things go dark.
It’s hard showing up for a commitment…
