easy.

I feel compelled to share some clarity that I’ve stumbled upon in the last few years regarding relationships — specifically on finding “the one.” As with everything I write, take it with a grain of salt. My past experiences heavily color my thoughts on relationships, and I also believe strongly in monogamy and not wasting time on people who aren’t going to be lifelong partners. So maybe consider those things as you take all of this in. If you don’t agree or have more to add, PLEASE leave me some feedback below, I’m always willing and eager to hear others’ perspectives.

Anyways, I digress…

Knowing if you should spend the rest
of your life with a particular person is easy.

I know, I know, I can feel the searing glare from those of you eyeballs-deep in Dating App Land or in the midst of a tumultuous relationship. I’m not saying dating is easy, I’m saying that knowing when someone you’re dating is “the one” is easy. Or, at least, it should be. At a very young age we’re told “When you know, you know,” and while there are so many things I learned early in life that I’ve called bullshit on, this is one cliche that I’ve actually found to be true. So how do you know when you know that you know?

Let’s start with my definition of love.

Since the beginning of time, humans have wrestled with the concept of love. We’ve demonized it, put it on a pedestal, turned it into a symbol. We’ve invented holidays around it and written songs and poetry about it. We do crazy, irrational things in the name of it, and we do just about anything to find it. Love is widely viewed as this thing that we can have. That we can own. We also see it as something that we can lose — or worse yet, never find.

Here’s where I’ve landed: Love is the simplest, purest thing that exists in the history of the universe. And it isn’t ours to own. It’s not something for us to mold, to shape and carve and smoosh until it looks the way we want it to. It isn’t required to fit into the space we’ve created for it, and it doesn’t have to come when we call it. And love certainly doesn’t exist OR stay because we signed a paper saying it had to.

It simply is.

And it is, always. Love exists regardless of whether we turn to it or run from it, and it remains the same even when we try to change it. It’s this gift that’s just there, freely available for us to enjoy…or not. And the turmoil that we believe it causes is actually a result of US trying to make it something it’s not. The assumed lack of it is actually just our vision being blocked by something (or someone) in front of it. The supposed loss of it is really circumstances around it shifting and warping — the thing you thought was love dissolves, but love at its core didn’t go anywhere.

So what does any of this have to do with knowing who you want to spend the rest of your life with?

Compatibility.

E-Harmony made it a math problem, Apple made it a business asset and your science teacher made it a cool explosion when they broke the rules. When it comes to love, compatibility is the ease by which the aforementioned entity of love flows between people.

Compatibility = love flows freely and easily
Incompatibility = the flow of love is strained and interrupted

I’m not saying that you can go through life without ever running into obstacles with your significant other. Incompatibilities can absolutely pop up where they were not previously, but if your baseline is compatible then they will be easy to spot and hopefully quick to fix. I’m also not saying that the only relationships that can possibly be good are the ones who are highly compatible right out of the gate. When both parties work hard to overcome incompatibilities through therapy or other forms of healthy communication, those couples can enjoy long, happy lives together as long as they continue to work at it. What I am saying is that love itself isn’t hard, because it’s not the means by which we find something, it’s the something that we find. Love is a force. An energy. An entity. But the path to love? That can be hard as hell. And ultimate compatibility is when two people in their natural, relaxed states have a clear and unencumbered path. It’s when experiencing abundant love with another person is easy. That’s how you know they could be your lifelong partner.

The tricky part is that in order to see love and compatibility for what they are, we have to be in a place where our vision is clear. This means reaching a point in your life where you’re at peace with who you are and are able to take an honest look at yourself AND others. The inability to do the latter is when we stay in toxic relationships because we can’t tell up from down or we waste our time with people whose vision is also not clear. Your compatibility-seeking goggles are totally fogged up until you’ve reached a state of peace and honesty within your own self. Once your goggles are clear, then you’re able to accurately assess potential partners.

And the best relationship tip I could ever give you is to let those potential partners be wholly themselves*. Take a step back so you can observe and appreciate the things that make them them without trying to inject your own thoughts and feelings, or paint them with colors you might think you like better. When we let go of the white-knuckle grip that so many of us have on what we think other people should be like, love is allowed to flow freely and peacefully between us the way it’s meant to, and compatibility (or the lack thereof) becomes crystal clear. And the best part is, if you do that for someone else, you create this space where they’re able to do the same for you. Two humans moving through life side by side, each one allowing the other space to be their best and truest selves? If you ask me, that’s a worthwhile way to spend your one precious life.

I have a disclaimer, and it’s a doozie.

I don’t believe true compatibility is possible with every partner. Even though love itself is always there regardless of the circumstances, there are walls and fences and obstacles that get in the way, and sometimes overcoming them requires too much of you. Some of our most profound epiphanies in life can come from time spent with people we aren’t perfectly compatible with, and I’m not saying those relationships aren’t worthwhile. They absolutely are. But there was a time in my own life when I thought that daily struggle was the only thing on the table for me. Now that I know better, I think it’s really important that you know too. Choosing someone to share the most intimate parts of our bodies and minds with day in and day out is one of the most pivotal decisions in our lives. Pivotal, but not difficult.

The point is…

Life is already hard enough as it is, guys. Picking the one you spend the majority of it with doesn’t have to be one of the hard things. You don’t need a human dam blocking you from the tsunami of love that’s available in this life. “The One,” whatever that means for you, is a faucet with the PSI cranked up way too high who allows as much love to flow into your life as possible. The one where you need to grab a life jacket and get in the canoe. Like, don’t forget your scuba gear. Hope you packed an umbrella. Okay, I’m done. My water puns are all dried up.

Love Always,

Sarah

*Accepting a partner for who they are when abuse (in all it’s forms) is present in a relationship or potential relationship is exempt from this concept. There are traits in people that we’re absolutely not required to accept, like manipulation, deceit and cruelty. If those are on the table with a potential partner and you’re thinking “hmm, maybe it’s just part of who they are and I can learn to love it” stop right now, turn around and run away as fast as you can. Ain’t nobody got time for that.