Things I want my kids to know

Recently my wife and I marked an occasion: 20 years since she agreed to be my girlfriend, at about 2am at a party (I had actually asked her the night before, but I got so worked up about it that I drank too much, and fell over while I was doing the asking).

So, relationships have been on my mind. In particular, what I would want my kids to know about love and relationships:

Loving behaviour

I think we get sold the idea that love as a feeling is the most important thing you should be looking for in a relationship, and that if that feeling is there, that is the only thing you need to know. “Love conquers all” and all that jazz.

Unfortunately, that misses a very important truth: it is possible to feel love for someone who hurts you. It is also possible that someone who claims to and shows you love in all sorts of ways, can hurt you too.

The idea that “if you feel love towards someone then that is a reason to stay with them even if they hurt you repeatedly” is one that causes all sorts of problems.

Everyone deserves to be treated well and to feel safe. That is the first thing. If there is a lot of strong feelings towards someone but you can’t trust them to treat you well consistently, and you don’t feel safe either emotionally or physically, then that is all you really need to know.

Never mind whether you feel love or whether they feel love. Do they show you love? Do they make you feel safe? Do they make you feel good about yourself? Do they go out of their way to make sure that they don’t hurt you? Do they respect you, admire you and want you to do well? Do they do all that consistently? If the answer is no, then no amount of strong feelings is going to compensate for that.

Love as a feeling without loving behaviour is of no use to anybody.

Some things you can change, other things you have to accept

My wife and I are very different from one another. In some ways, almost polar opposites. There are some things that we used to find completely baffling and that continues. The other day, I opened a bag of crisps for our son and my wife looked at me, horrified, and said: “Why have you opened it upside down?”

To me, I honestly didn’t understand the question. There is no right way up. Yes, the logo is facing downwards when he holds the bag, but in my mind that’s completely irrelevant. The two ends open the same and he can eat the crisps the same either way. The packet will not be disposed of, we aren’t keeping it in a frame on the wall, so the orientation of the logo is not relevant in any way. To my wife, there is just no reason to not do it the “right” way up.

This is but just one example of how we see certain things differently, and have completely different physical and emotional reactions to things.

We have different reactions about tidiness, about money, about our obligations to other people. All sorts of things. Early on in our relationship, we both thought that our job was to “correct” the other person, because clearly the other person was being thoughtless or daft and needed guidance (I will be honest, I can be pretty pompous and sure of myself when I get going so I was particularly guilty of this). However, we soon bumped up against the issue that we just disagreed, no matter how much we tried to explain to the other the “correct” way of seeing things.

I feel very grateful that I do the job that I do, because it has given me something I wouldn’t have had otherwise and which has helped us with this kind of thing: the understanding that people process things differently and see things differently, and in particular, a question you can use to understand another:

“In my head it works like this… how does it work in your head?”

What this has meant is that we have been able to (gradually) understand one another. My wife’s stance on something which was completely baffling to me before, becomes something that I can get my head around. Even if it’s not how it works for me, I can see it and I can get it.

For me, getting to understand another person in this way, and to be understood yourself, is one of the greatest things about being in a relationship. Sometimes differences can be infuriating, but truly understanding and making space for one another can also mean that those differences can be the very thing that you love the most, in some ways.

On the same team

In a partnership, there will always be differences of opinion. With the understanding described above, sometimes this means that you both do things for one another because it is important to your partner, not because you necessarily agree. Sometimes it means that you might make allowances instead, and just understand that they don’t see it the same way you do and they aren’t trying to drive you up the wall. Either way, if you can strike a balance somewhere here which makes both people feel supported and taken seriously, then that is what helps the most.

When you can let go of needing to be right all the time (I’m working on it), or the sense that this is a competition or a wrestle, you might be able to really feel like you are working as a team. For each couple this looks different, so if you try to compare the balance of your house with someone else, you might get yourself tangled up. The key question is: do I feel supported and part of a team? If you don’t feel that way, and if you can’t express that and be taken seriously, then that’s worth paying attention to.

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P.S. Here’s to 20 more years with the person who knows me the best. There's nobody I'd rather be doing all this with.