Skill #23 Take Care Of The One You Love

I have been told more than once that I have an uncanny ability to state the obvious. When this is said to me, it is not a compliment. More like a sarcastic jab when I am offering unsolicited advice or observations. So if you are rolling your eyes and saying, “Really, Amy, could you get more obvious?” I will try not to take offense.  But this is the last in the series about healthy relationships, and maybe we haven’t been obvious enough. Take care of the one you love.

In his 2012 best-selling book, What Makes Love Last, John Gottman shares with readers the findings of more than twenty years of research about what it is that builds trust in a relationship. Trust is defined as the feeling that someone is there for you, that they have your back, that they have your best interest in mind. And the windows of opportunity to show this present themselves over and over and over again in a relationship. So taking care of the one you love happens mostly in the little things, in the daily minutiae of life. You can take care of the one you love in little doses, by doing little things, which I find very comforting. Doable. Manageable.

Meet John Gottman, talking about the way the research surprised him.

Did you hear that? The guru of healthy relationships said it is really very simple. We can all learn to show our partners that we cherish them and that they matter to us. This is such good news.

You can take care of the one you love in little doses, by doing little things, which I find very comforting. Doable. Manageable.

There’s a rub, though. (Always there’s a rub.) I have found in my work, (no research but empirical evidence) that not everyone is willing to make the sacrifice to do the little things. I have also learned in my work that I have to walk a fine line when talking about the place of sacrifice in healthy relationships because sacrifice is not a particularly popular word in our culture. It is an old-fashioned concept, I am told. We are too individualistic, too entitled, too self-absorbed most of the time to consider the place of sacrifice in life.  We have been told we can have it all. And we sure do not want to be doormats, which is an unhealthy, toxic dimension to sacrifice. So just to be obvious again, I am not talking about becoming a doormat. Or giving up your own life. But there is no way to have a healthy, committed relationship without understanding sacrifice. When both people have the best interest of the other in mind (this is the contemporary language for “a mutual sacrificial attitude”,) then a relationship that is built on commitment and trust has the potential to thrive. If I know that you want what is best for me, then not only is it easier for me to know and want what is best for myself, I might also want to learn what is best for you. Now flip the sentence around, because it goes both ways. There is no particular beginning or end to this dynamic. When we take care of the one we love, we not only want what is best for them, we want them to want what is best for them. And that sacrificial energy should be returned to us in a mutual, reciprocal relationship.

There is no way to have a healthy, committed relationship without understanding sacrifice.

Are you familiar with the Henry Van Dyke story The Gift Of The Magi?  It is one of my favorite examples of mutual reciprocity and sacrificial love. In this story a couple has only $1.87 to their names. The woman cuts off her long and beautiful hair and sells it for $20 to buy a chain for her partner’s watch. Her partner sells his watch for $30 to buy for his wife beautiful combs for her long hair.  When they give each other their gifts, the main characters, Jim and Della, realize that their sacrificial love for each other is the best and most important gift they can give, much more important than the material goods they had purchased.

We started the relationship series with Skill #19: Be Your Best Self. http://www.messymarvelous.com/skill-19-be-your-best-self/ This blog was about bringing the best of you to the relationship and making sure you are taking care of yourself.  We are ending this series by talking about taking care of your partner. Basically, these two skills are the bookends of a healthy relationship. There are times you will be well-balanced between these two skills. There are other times, mostly due to life circumstances, when you will by necessity lean more heavily to one side or the other. But they are both indispensable skills.

So take care of your partner, because Life Is Messy and Life is Marvelous.

Amy