Three requirements of a good relationship

Many people after they've been in a couple for some time will privately admit that they are in many ways frustrated and disappointed by the person they've chosen to share their lives with. If pressed for details they will have no difficulty coming up with a list of their partner they might complain is, too loyal to their irritating family or, doesn't share their views on the layout of the living room or, never wants to go on camping holidays or, plays tennis every Wednesday evening or doesn't share their enthusiasm for the same taste in music or, has a habit of adding actually, to every second sentence when it's actually redundant. As the list gets longer they sigh they still love their partner and they long to be happy together. It's just that it seems impossibly complicated to make this relationship work. What's driving the frustration is not that they've sadly fallen for an idiot as a partner it's rather that we have all inherited needlessly complicated ideas of what a relationship is supposed to be. We are told that love is meant to involve the almost total merger of two lives. We expect that a loving couple must live in the same house eat the same meals together every night share the same bed go to sleep and get up at the same time only ever have sex with or even sexual thoughts about each other regularly see each other's families have all their friends in common and pretty much think the same thoughts on every topic at every moment. It's a beautiful vision but a hellish one too because, it places an impossibly punitive burden of expectation on another human. We feel the partner must be right for us in every way and if they're not, has to be prodded and cajoled into reform but, there is another perspective relationships don't have to be so complicated and ambitious if we keep in view what in the end actually makes them fulfilling. If we boil matters down they might really just be three essential things that we want from a lover. Firstly, kindness. A partner who is gentle with our imperfections and can good humidly tolerate us as we are. Secondly, shared vulnerability. Someone with who we can be open about our anxieties worries and the problems that throw us off balance someone we don't have to put on a good front for, someone around whom we can be weak vulnerable and honest and who will be the same around us. Thirdly, understanding someone who is interested in and can make sense of certain obscure features of our minds our obsessions preoccupations and ways of seeing the world and who we are excited to understand. In turn if we have these three critical ingredients to hand we will feel loved and essentially satisfied , whatever differences then crop up in a hundred other areas. Perhaps our partners friends or routines won't be a delight but, we will be content just as if we lack these emotional goods and yet agree on every detail of things like, interior design and social existence. We are still likely to feel lonely, and by limiting what we expect a relationship to be about we can overcome the tyranny and bad temper that effects so many lovers. A good simpler yet very fulfilling relationship could end up in a minimal state. We might not socialize much together we might hardly ever encounter each other's families our finances might overlap only at a few points. We could be living in different places and only meet up twice a week , conceivably we might not even ask too many questions about each other's sex life. But when we would be together it would be profoundly gratifying because we would be in the presence of someone who knew how to be kind, vulnerable, and understanding a bond between two people can be very deep and important precisely because it's not played out across all practical details of existence by simplifying and clarifying what a relationship is. We release ourselves from overly complicated conflicts and can focus on our urgent underlying needs to be sympathized with seen and understood, deciding whether to stay in or leave a relationship is one of the trickiest and most consequential decisions .