If you wake up every morning, eager to go to work because you find it fulfilling and meaningful then I would agree that relationships are like work. For too many people, however, work is a drudgery, a requirement for money that allows fun outside of the time spent there. It is an obligation, a means to an end. So, what are we saying when we tell ourselves or our friends that relationships are work? In talking to clients about this phrase, I have come to the conclusion that the phrase means we have to grin and bear it, not expect much from the relationship, or that we don’t deserve any more than we are getting. There is little to nothing positive in the suggestion to “make it work”.
As I see it, relationships are places we go to restore our sense of peace and happiness. Life can throw obstacles at us and make things difficult. These obstacles and difficulties can lead us to fantasize about how it would be easier if we had made other choices, selected a different significant other. However, those normal, occasional feelings, lead the couple to “work” to restore the peace and happiness they find in each other. But what if we reframed it so it wasn’t “work”? What if we framed it to feel like finding a new path to that supportive, comforting place?
Perhaps a more helpful analogy regarding relationships is clothing. We are uncomfortable in clothing that doesn’t fit us properly. If we see something we like, but is too tight, we can take it home and choose to work out and lose some weight so we can fit into it. Notice that the change happens in you and not in the clothing. The work is on your part, fueled by a desire to have that clothing and feel comfortable in it. Similarly, if the clothing we love is too large for us, we can choose to have it altered. In other words, we change the clothing.
What troubles me most is when a person is in the early stages of a relationship, yet still refers to it as work. In those cases, I think it is important to question the “fit.” Is the person trying to figure out the world the way a toddler does when given a sorting toy and is trying to put the circle in the triangle? This causes frustration and anger; once the toddler learns to sort properly, the task is easy. I believe that relationships are supposed to be easy, too. They are not supposed to cause us frustration, anger, and upset; they are supposed to replenish us.
If we think of relationships in terms of how they fit us, we can maintain a view that each person involved has qualities. The question becomes do those qualities fit our needs and do ours fit theirs. Do the roles we have in other areas of our life fit? Do our outside interests fit? Is their mutual respect? Is there a desire in both to make the other happy? Are both willing to maintain separate interests as well as explore mutual interests? None of this sounds like work to me. None of it sounds like an onerous chore that must be handled.
It seems much more productive to think about a potential relationship in terms of fit. Just because an outfit doesn’t fit doesn’t mean it isn’t of good quality. We can go into a high fashion store and know the material is flawless, but it just doesn’t fit. Life is like that sometimes. So is love.
It seems much more productive to think about a long-term relationship in terms of fit. A favorite item of clothing can bring us comfort over so many periods of our life. We sometimes find new ways to make it fit our lives. I cannot stress enough that our relationship with our significant other should feel like that – comfortable, familiar, and adaptable.
When the fit is right, relationships are not work. They are a place where our emotional reservoir is replenished.