My wife, Regina, and I just returned from Boston where we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary and spent several days playing tourist. For our 30th, I surprised her with a trip to Honolulu, of which she had no knowledge until I told her the day before we left. This time I asked her where she wanted to go and she selected Boston.
Now that our sons are grown, we tend to do most of our traveling around my speaking engagements but this trip was different—no agenda, no worrying about clients—just enjoying the role of being tourists. We really did have a wonderful time with one another, walking ourselves to death in Boston and its environs.
While we have had our rocky times, which are truly unavoidable, we still like each other and enjoy each other’s company. Long-term relationships are about give and take, about helping the other to grow, and about recognizing that the other will never be perfect—God knows—I’ve written before about my own control freak tendencies.
Ultimately, in building a fulfilling long-term relationship, each participant has to be willing to receive, give, and help the other to improve—I didn’t say shove improvement down their throat. Rather, each has to be there for the other, especially in your partner’s time of weakness or vulnerability to extend a helping hand. It is rare that both will grow at the same pace, so the “more growth” partner must understand and accept their role until the tide has turned—and it will.
The important question is this; In addition to being lovers, are you also friends?
No comments:
Post a Comment