A committed relationship doesn’t just mean not seeing anyone else or staying with your mate. It is a mutual vow to create a beautiful, loving life together and to do whatever it takes to make that happen. It means you are both committed to working out the conflicts and problems that inevitably arise when you become intimate with someone. That’s often where our real work begins. 

I’m thinking about this because I have three clients in varying stages of love. One, 52, is in the throes of the hormonal rush  “love is blind” stage. She is lusty, excited, finds everything about her suitor delicious, can’t sleep – and forgot to eat, which is singularly uncharacteristic of her. A second, 25 and engaged, just went through that stage and is worried because she just saw the first “flaw” in her beloved.  Diane, 46 and also engaged, is flailing in a sea of turbulent emotions set off by conflicts in moving deeper into her committed relationship. She has especially inspired me to write this blog because I expect the other two to be in her position, sooner or later.

The blissful magic of newborn love evolves into the reality of who we are and who our partner is, where we’re compatible and where we’re not, what we each have to deal with, and the relationship skills we bring to the table.

Part of Diane’s problem, and often ours, in confronting surfacing conflicts is that we have this romantic notion that we shouldn’t have them. When we do, we think there’s something wrong with our mate or our relationship. So we resist handling the problems, which makes us feel even more charged up about them.

Except for the blessed few who never had a fight and always have lived in loving harmony, conflicts are normal. How could they not be? What do we expect? Perfect agreement? What about all our unresolved issues, personal or relationship-wise?  And our past pains and losses? Do we think they just miraculously go away? Or that our partners don’t have their assortment of emotional sensitivities? Or that they’d be impeccable in managing both their emotions and ours?

The love and bonding that draws us together opens the holy of holies, our hearts. We so deeply  want the spiritually fulfilling oneness, harmony and safety of love that we become extremely vulnerable and sensitive to our mate. When a sharp difference triggers our buttons, the doors of emotional hell swing open and our demons come gleefully out to cause havoc.

Is this bad? Yes, it’s painful and reactivating. But the truth is, these things are in us, buried. And each partner somehow seems to have the innate ability to find raw, traumatized, unfinished parts we didn’t even know we had.

Problems emerge because they’re there. They can be confronted and handled or they can be warred over, ignored or buried. If they are handled, one by one, as difficult as that may feel, what you eventually achieve is a stable, harmonious, empowering love. If you don’t handle the problems when they arise, they will continue to cause chaos and pain. Or you might end a potentially life-giving relationship, and repeat the process in your next attempt at love.

I’m saying all this with the assumption that both of you are willing to take responsibility to build a healthy relationship. You’re a team with a precious goal. It takes mutual responsibility to heal and nurture hearts and minds back to well- being. If one player is trying to achieve the goal and the other is off the field, forget it. You can’t win.

Emotional maturity can be learned naturally if you had good role models growing up. As many of us don’t come from families where Mom and Dad provided the best blueprint for how to create a stable, healthy marriage, it’s up to us to figure it out. Wouldn’t it be great if  relationship were the 4^th R, taught alongside reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmatic?

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We wouldn’t want a brain surgeon operating on us whose main source of training was trial and error. And yes, intimate relationships are brain surgery. Yet, intimate relationships, like child rearing, often are learned by trial and error. As in any area of endeavor in your life, you need to study, practice and refine your skills in your intimate relationships to achieve a predictable level of success.

So, practically speaking what can you do? First and foremost, take personal responsibility. Make it your job to do whatever is necessary to create the relationship you want. Keep your eye on the goal. Focus on the love.  Remember the goodness in your partner. Focus on helping them. Act.

As a counselor for 30 years, I believe in getting help when you need it. Find someone who can assist you, be it a therapist, coach, or clergy. Handle your stuff. Encourage your mates to handle theirs. Be a student. Get educated. Read books on the brain and hormonal differences between the genders, so you understand the opposite sex. Read books on how to create great relationships. Go to seminars. Get the tools. Learn the skills. Pray, meditate. Find what works for you and do it.

Intimate relationships are a powerful spiritual path where you can learn to overcome your “me first” thinking, give beyond your comfort zone and grow in goodness. As you learn tools and develop relationship skills, a profound trust and security develops between you and your partner because you know that whatever happens can and will be handled. If you deal with the problems one by one, they become fewer and fewer. The result is the holy, stable, fulfilling love your heart has always longed for.