Relationships Are Like a Business

Photo by Ryan Jacobson 

If people were as dedicated to his/her spouses, as some seem to be about their political party’s candidates, our happiness quotient would be a hellava lot higher. Divorce rates would be down exponentially because the atmosphere on the home front would be embracing and joyous, instead of drudgingly accepted, or unacceptable but tolerated. And the political scene likely wouldn’t be as volatile.

I see many unhappy couples in restaurants, for example, not talking, playing with their phones instead, or walking down the street not holding hands or talking, yet being first in line at rallies to expend their emotional energies.

I wonder what happened to conversations, communicating what’s on each other’s minds, being a couple like when they were courting, putting forth their energies into each other rather than someone outside the family realm.

It amazes me to see all that energy go toward something other than their marriage and I ask myself: Why don’t they take that enthusiasm home to the spouse/family and shout: “Let’s make our relationship great again!” or “Let’s make this relationship stronger!” or whatever mantra their chosen politician spouts about our nation?

I’m not saying that it isn’t important to be behind one’s personally chosen leader; it is our country, which needs our guidance and support for the right person to help keep it wonderful. But the core for a solid foundation for leading our country, our businesses, our happiness, must start with a solid and happy home life. An unhappy-at-home political leader, business owner, teacher, or anyone trying to lead anything, cannot do so with truth, strength of ideals, or total success if they’re unhappy at home. If their home life is weak, wobbly, or unproductive because efforts haven’t been made to strengthen it, how can a good leader know how to make anything else strong and good? For then it becomes just a personal ego crusade, not good for the masses.

A strong and happy home life allows us to go forth with a better feeling of sharing control, balancing judgments, having a sense of solidarity toward fairness, and seeing other viewpoints, because they have a strong relationship with the person they’ve chosen to cohabitate with.

We usually enter marriage or a serious relationship with feelings of happiness, wanting to share a feeling of comfort from being with the other through the long haul. So, what happens to make those feelings begin to deteriorate only a few short years after the commitment? Why do couples often wonder what happened to those wondrous feelings of togetherness, of the undying love felt, when they first joined together?

First, each must realize that love is like any emotion that can ebb and flow. And to maintain the deep love we felt when we became committed to each other — committing being the cornerstone of anything successful — is to keep cultivating the love. Many couples quit working at the relationship, not realizing that love does not sustain itself. Love is like a beautiful garden…it needs tending, watering, and weeding out the negatives to flourish.

That kind of tending was effortless during the courtship, during the falling-in-love phase, because it was easy, fun, and fulfilling, so, why stop tending after the ceremony that made it legal?

Unfortunately, after the knots are tied in a relationship, people tend to feel that the marriage vows cemented their feelings and there would be no need to continue to make extra efforts to show them or help them grow. But they are wrong. That’s when the tending, the care is needed most.

A business, once the doors are open, cannot be successful if efforts are not made to keep people interested in going there. A business will sink in the first year if there is no advertising, no customer service, and no reason for a customer to remember the place and want to return.

Opening a business with high hopes of success is very much like getting married to someone you adore. You know it’s going to be a wonderful and fruitful experience. Otherwise, why make the effort? But then, once people experience the wonder of the new business, or the new life with someone they love, or after the new president has been chosen, going back to the original analogy, what then? It’s when the efforts for making each other, our business, and our country start to grow into something special begin to pay off. And that requires effort, work at making it happen — no sliding or assuming, but actually working at success.

If you are one of those people who don’t want to make that effort, preferring to stay at a status quo, then you must realize that the comfort levels you feel at the time will likely turn into doomed complacency. Boredom could easily set in, along with a feeling of dissatisfaction for each other and with yourself, because you’ve chosen not to make the effort to work the emotional muscles, to broaden the business, or to confront new challenges together. And the need for putting forth energy for some excitement is found elsewhere.

Photo by Xavi Cabrera

Why couldn’t that energy have been put toward the challenge of building a fun and rewarding life with the one you’re already committed to, who you fell in love with in the first place? People grow apart is often used as an excuse, but why let it start to grow apart at all? We all need to feel challenged; why not make the relationship stronger and happier as that challenge?

Take pride in ourselves, make sure we look our best, as well as our surroundings, because if we look good and our surroundings look good, we feel good. Bring flowers, cook his/her favorite meal, tell her or him how wonderful she/he is, make him or her feel needed and desirable…the list is endless. Don’t sweat the small stuff, the little annoyances that we all have, and do not sit back and expect the love to sustain the relationship without working as hard as you did during the courtship, ’cause, it just ain’t gonna happen.

My other half and I have been together 30 years today, and I am writing this in honor of the love and respect we still have for each other. The honor of being together, experiences we’ve shared, thoughts and feelings that have grown and blossomed into something much more than what it started out to be, which was amazing. But now it’s more so because we’ve worked to make it happen. 

There have been ups and downs, of course. That’s life, that’s being human. 

But we have always made the effort to understand the other, to listen to the other side of his/her thoughts and feelings that bring greater understandings of each other, making our feelings for each other show as they grow wider and deeper and we don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s important to know that one need not get worked up over things we can’t control because we are happy within ourselves and we don’t need a bandwagon to sit upon to rise above unhappiness. We’re happy because we’ve kept that as our number one priority and remember that a smile and a touch go a long way. That’s the message I want to help spread.

It’s a beautiful feeling to know that those years of effort have paid off so well, so beautifully, and to be able to go through this election year with hope in our hearts for the greater good of the country instead of wasting energy by damning the other guy because we’re unhappy with ourselves.

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When I asked my other half to describe our life together these past 30 years, he said: “It’s like having a chocolate Sunday with a cherry on top.”

I smile and wonder what the next 30 years will bring. I await each day with contentment and absolute love, knowing that next year will be topped with yet another cherry.

My hope for all people in love is to experience that cherry-topped sundae and feel glad to be enjoying it together.