You Need to LIKE the Person You're With

By on August 29, 2017

When you’re married you don’t expect to be lonely – which makes it all the worse! Talking to a girlfriend of mine over the weekend she expressed that she is lonely and yes, she’s married.  My heart breaks for her, because I have been there.  For me, I had the feeling that the person I was with loved me, but didn’t really like me.  They liked the idea of me but didn’t like or couldn’t accept all the quirks that make me who I am.  I quote Tommy Boy when I hug my brother, “Brothers don’t shake hands, brothers gotta hug!” And I might yell ‘Iceberg dead ahead’ anytime I see or hear about an iceberg or the movie Titanic.  I’m a geek and crack myself up.  Former flames…might have found it and me a bit annoying.  I know, crazy right?! Looking back, not feeling like the person you’re with likes you is the start of the long and winding road towards loneliness. I also believe that it becomes a two lane road and it’s hard to remain liking someone who doesn’t like you.  It’s a vicious cycle and it sucks.  Anger, resentment and overall sadness grows – conversation stops and boom you’re a lonely silo in an Indiana corn field.

As I look at a couple of my friends’ marriages that are healthy and awesome I see a trend. They LIKE each other and want to hang out together.  They also let each other be themselves without trying to change or fix the other person. They accept the other person as imperfectly perfect for them.  They have fun…they laugh, enjoy life and passionately love each other.  One of the couples I admire started a band and jam out together in their basement!  Seriously – how cool is that?! The other couple I look up to loves to bike and bike together and in separate biking groups.  Neither couple is joined at the hip but they make it a point to get out and have fun together.

I have told both of my spirit couples that they have what I want.  It doesn’t mean they’re perfect or without arguments, but there is this intangible that they have and I believe it’s about truly liking each other as people.  I don’t know if you’d have asked me years ago if I’d have realized how important it is to like the person you’re with.  I think I would have assumed that you like that person- duh, right? Today, the friendship base and ability to like each other is huge.  I also believe after some serious observation, that you have to be willing to be stupid together.  Yep – stupid.  I was driving home the other day had my sunroof open and had the new Taylor Swift song cranked in the car.  I was singing and car dancing like a happy fool.  I smashed that Taylor Swift song right into one of my favorite Billy Currington songs ( Don’t) and just let it fly.  As I’m jamming out I thought – this is where good couples jam out together.  No embarrassment, judgement or holding each other back.

So knowing what I want and what that looks like leads me to the question I haven’t gotten right yet, how do you get that in a relationship? How do you get that long term relationship with someone you like, have fun with, feel passionately about and still be your stupid self with? As the great thinker Ron Burgundy says, “I wanna say something, I wanna put it out there -if you like it you can take it, if you don’t you can throw it right back.” What is the magic that those couples have and how do you get right? And no the answer isn’t ‘I wanna be on you.’ – Ron Burgundy; but if you know that line I like you better already and maybe we could be stupid together.

xoxo Melissa

Spirit Couple…..