Three Questions to Keep Your Relationship Together

We often fall into difficulties in our relationships because of a basic misunderstanding of what might be necessary to secure them.

We imagine – naively – that a relationship could achieve a fundamental stability once two people had registered that they loved one another and occasionally said as much in solemn and tender tones. Then, unless a major event intervened, love might be as solid and enduring as a chair or a column of stone.

But this is to wildly overestimate the fixity of any union. Love is no inanimate object; it is something living and organic, closer to a plant or small animal. It needs – in order to survive – to be tended to with skill every day. The greatest guarantor of long-term love is a deep refusal to make any assumptions as to its longevity. There are always new threats to love’s integrity: harsh words, impatience, mean-spirited jokes, distance, flirtations, missing texts, a week without any free evenings. 

But we can take steps to prevent the cracks from growing into fissures. To this end, there may be few better options than to set aside some time every day or so in order to raise and mutually answer three deceptively simple-sounding questions.

One: In what ways might I have frustrated or saddened you lately?

The question can be hard to bring up because it requires us to give up on our belief in our own innocence. Of course we mean very well, of course we’re sweet deep down, but this doesn’t preclude that we may, on a fairly regular basis, generate sobering degrees of sadness and irritation in the other; true kindness means having the bravery to bear the idea of our unwitting unkindness. We may hesitate to ask from a fear that the charge sheet would never end, that we would be unleashing unbounded levels of complaint. But most partners don’t need us to be perfect, they just need us to be curious and honest as to the many ways in which we aren’t entirely so. We can tolerate a great deal of trouble from someone once they have the wherewithal to acknowledge, and express remorse, about having caused it; once we know that they are – at least – trying quite hard.

Two: What I’ve found challenging about you is…

Pent-up frustration throttles love; affection dies through an accumulation of small hurts that have not been aired when one could still remember them – and when there was still enough good will for forgiveness. We’re so well trained in the art of not complaining and feel such embarrassment about being ‘difficult’ or ‘needy’, we lose sight of what our letdowns have been – even as our deep selves go numb from their accumulation. We can reach a stage where, without remotely knowing that we are even furious, a frozen rage cuts us off from all affectionate feelings and any desire to be touched or held by our partner. Rather than assuming that annoyance might be a violation of love, we should proceed under the assumption that it is an inevitable, legitimate feature of the best relationships and the lives of the nicest people. We’re constantly and inevitably getting a bit upset about something (maybe someone opened the window at the wrong moment, perhaps someone wasn’t nice about the double-booking on Wednesday evening etc.) and we do our relationships the greatest honour when we can explain what the problem happens to be before we are too upset to speak. It’s true politeness and real generosity – as well as a guarantee of a solid future – to be able to make a small and fruitful fuss about something every day.

Three: What I really appreciate about you is…

We need – at the same time – to replenish their sense of why we are here. We ourselves may know well enough that it has to do with the clever way they analyse people or how determined they are around their work, or how adorable they can look when they’re asleep or walking the dog. But from the inside, none of us is ever far from self-loathing and a sense of worthlessness – which our partner can assuage and evaporate. The more specific and personal our appreciative remarks can be, the more they can convince. It seldom helps to be told that one is ‘nice’ or ‘fun’, ‘clever’ or ‘interesting’. But if someone notices the exact sentence we used about their mother or the precise way we gave them a last squeeze of the hand before they left for the train station, we’ll know we exist properly in their mind – and can then more readily and confidently come alive in our own.

It might take no more than a few minutes of questions to help secure decades.