How To Love Better

Introduction

Our Story

We met quite young, both of us still finding our footing in college, but as soon as we were in each other’s gravity, Sara and I felt an undeniable pull that kept bringing us even closer together. We became friends first, talking, connecting, enjoying the other’s company late into the night, sharing stories and paying attention to each other as if it were the first time that someone was truly listening.

We both felt a new sense of joy that was unlocked when we were together. We felt removed from everyone else, even removed from time, existing in a space that was just for the two of us. We loved being in our own world, a place where we could share our secrets and think about things together. It was enlivening and, at times, all-consuming. Soon, our feelings for each other grew and friendship alone could no longer encapsulate the depth of our connection. After just two weeks of officially being a couple, we told each other “I love you”— both of us were telling the truth, but neither of us realized yet that love is more than a feeling; it’s a practice that needs intention, care, and skill.

As months went by, the gaps in our ability to love started revealing themselves in painful and tense ways. We fought often and we fought bitterly, meeting anger with anger; we both did our best to win each tiny battle. Blame became a common mode of communication. We kept throwing our internal tension, stress, and irritation on each other, wanting to make it the other’s fault when we didn’t feel good inside. We couldn’t take responsibility for our own bad mood and tried relentlessly to drag the other down into the heaviness we felt in our minds. These moments of intensity were quite frequent. We felt so strongly about each other, but we did not know how to care for our own emotions or how to support the other’s happiness. Shouldn’t the fact that we wanted to create a life together be enough? We both felt like something was wrong, but we couldn’t get it right. Why were we always arguing? When would the other realize that they needed to act better?

In our first few years together, we were caught in a state of confusion. It felt like an emotional hurricane that would move at different levels of intensity. We barely made it through that period — we actually broke up a few times and took a few breaks because we didn’t know if it was the right thing for us to be together. Each break and breakup was short-lived because we couldn’t stand being apart, but the difficulty was that we also didn’t know how to be together well. Ultimately, we decided that we wanted to struggle together rather than be apart. Even if disharmony was frequent, we decided to keep facing it and hopefully find a better way. We lived like this for six years, swimming between short-lived calmness and awful storms.

The connection was undeniable, but neither of us knew how to love well. We didn’t know where to begin or what to aim for. We didn’t know that the balance we were looking for and the peace we so desperately wanted could not come from one of us giving them to the other, but instead they had to come from within each of us. Cultivating peace and compassion within our own minds was the only way to create a bridge between the two of us that would be stable enough to support a more nourishing relationship. The beginning of our relationship was so stormy because we were completely unaware of our individual inner worlds and certainly did not know that what we felt inside was always impacting our perceptions and actions. Neither of us realized that connection alone could not fill the vastness of love and that the undeniable pull we felt toward each other was not enough to create peace between us.

It’s a total lie that relationships

are supposed to be easy.

You have to learn how to love each other well

while the relationship shines a mirror

on the ways you each need to grow.

This is a big challenge to accept.

Our only experience of love was chaotic because neither of us understood how our own lack of personal emotional maturity and self-awareness created blocks that stopped us from engaging with each other in a wiser and more compassionate manner.

After years of struggle, the answer quietly came into our lives. A dear friend of ours started meditating and both Sara and I felt an instinctive pull to try meditating too. We were exhausted by our personal and relational tension and wanted to find an answer to the riddle of suffering and angst that was consistently making our days as individuals, and as a couple, heavier. We were tired of the struggle and open to trying something new.

At the time, we didn’t realize that we had just flipped the page into a new era of our relationship. Who we were and how we acted gradually evolved as we kept attending silent meditation retreats, and eventually we each began a daily practice. Little bits of peace slowly started entering our lives, tiny beams of light started brightening the tumultuous darkness that we both carried inside of us. Meditating not only helped us be better versions of ourselves, but the self-awareness that we were both cultivating started encouraging us to treat each other more gently. The healing that we were going through on the deepest level was resulting in calmer minds, more presence, and more compassion for ourselves and each other. The blame game that we were locked into was in time revealed to be completely counterproductive. Each argument did not need to end with a clear winner and loser; the light of awareness revealed that what was really missing was sincere listening and understanding.