Psychotherapist Shares The 4 Signs Of A Worthwhile Relationship That Can Actually Last
You're on the path to a relationship that can sustain a future of love.
Diignat / Shutterstock Love’s arrival feels like magic — a gift of luck. Yet, we can invite that luck by approaching our dating life differently and getting into the healthy relationships we deserve.
If these shifts are happening for you, be encouraged. You’re probably well on the way to finding the kind of love that can last.
Not sure if you're in this boat? I've found four conditions that often forecast the advent of real and healthy love.
Here are 4 signs of a worthwhile relationship that can last, according to a psychotherapist.
1. You lose your taste for 'attractions of deprivation.'
It’s easy to become attracted to people who can almost commit; people who treat us wonderfully and then diminish, demean or ignore us. These relationships are usually highly charged and gnawingly addictive. Like a slot machine, they keep us coming back for more.
We long to get it right, to get our partner to love us. We struggle to improve ourselves. We play hard to get. We try giving more, or we practice giving less. We try to be funnier, more successful, or more in shape so that our desired one will finally want us as much as we want them. These are called "attractions of deprivation."
At a certain point (and usually as a result of tremendous pain), we begin to lose our taste for relationships that chip away at our sense of self-worth. We find we just can’t stomach the thought of being hurt like that again. And this is a great thing.
When we become less “sticky” to these kinds of attractions, a dead-end era of our dating lives is finally coming to an end. Now, we can begin the real work of intimacy: cultivating our attraction to relationships that feed and nurture us.
2. Kindness and availability become more important.
As we lose our taste for attractions of deprivation, we usually experience a temporary void in our dating life. We know we don’t want the pain of past relationships, but nothing else seems as exciting.
In time (and often with guidance), we begin to seek attractions of inspiration. These attractions are based upon a (basically) consistent quality of shared kindness, generosity, and emotional availability. They often unfold slowly. They get richer as time goes on. They make us feel love, not desperation.
We can measure the very quality of our lives by the relationships of mutual inspiration we've cultivated. The joy we feel in these relationships doesn’t come from conquest or momentary validation, but from an essential quality of contentment that we feel with our partners. We don’t feel consistently bigger or smaller than the object of our affections.
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In some basic way, we feel what the 12-step programs call “right-sized.” But most of us have never been taught that these relationships have a trajectory of their own. They need to be cultivated and nourished in different ways than we might be used to. It may seem that they are not as exciting at first but, in fact, they are much more so.
There is a thrilling risk available to us in these healthy relationships — the risk of revealing our authentic selves. If we take that risk with our partners and find that we are accepted and embraced, the erotic and emotional charge of the relationship deepens and intensifies. These are the people who deserve to see the real us: our wild self, our kinky self, our unshared ideas, our tender soul.
And that’s precisely why these are the scariest relationships of all. Our fear may do anything to save us from the risk of vulnerability. Its best strategy is to trick us into fleeing by shouting “Next! Back to the hunt!” But if we don’t flee, we may find that the fear passes, and a deeper, more passionate love shows through on the other side.
If you find that you are seeking these relationships and ignoring the thrill of your attractions of deprivation, then celebrate. You’re on the path to a relationship that can sustain a future of love.
3. You become willing to give up 'flight patterns.'
All of us, single or coupled, flee the heat and the risks of true intimacy. All of us. Any single person who wants to find love would do well to become a student of his or her own “flight patterns.”
There are so many ways to flee intimacy, even as we seek it: Staying home and watching TV every night. Going online instead of going to places where people with shared values can be found. Chatting online but never taking the steps to meet. Playing it cool. Looking for hook-ups instead of dates.
At a certain point, we really start to mean it in our search for a life partner. We realize that time is ticking, that we are growing tired of living and sleeping alone. (Please note: this isn’t true for everyone. Many of us are quite happy living solo.)
When we’re willing to let go of our flight patterns; when we find ways to meet people who share our values; and when we only have second or third dates with people who hold the promise of becoming attractions of inspiration, things really begin to change. And that's when it becomes clear that this is a worthwhile relationship that can last.
4. You lead with your authentic self.
Leading with your authentic self may seem on the surface like an easy thing, but it’s not. We get the most wounded around the places we care about the most. These are the parts of us that I call “core gifts.”
Because our authentic self is so vulnerable and because most of us have incurred profound wounding around our core gifts, we tend to either suppress them or create air-brushed versions of them for the world to see. But these versions of self lack the vigor, soul, and magnetism of our authentic self, so we find we are less successful in attracting the very people who would accept and treasure us for who we are.
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The key does not lie in simply accepting our authentic self in all its humanity. The key lies in treasuring it, in all its timidity, imperfection, and excess. We have the right to honor our core gifts and to only choose people who can do the same.
When we do that in a non-defensive way, our world begins to change. That’s when we somehow find ourselves dating people who accept us for who we are; people who are kind, generous of spirit, and available; people who don't try to change us and instead embrace us, imperfections and all.
Instead of helping us embrace our core gifts, the singles world teaches us to dishonor them — in ourselves and in the people we date. Like those ugly fun-house mirrors, the prevailing singles culture flashes distorted, haunting images at us — images of our own flaws and inadequacies.
The solution is not to find our self-esteem within the walls of that hall of mirrors. It is to get out and to find a better path.
Ken Page, LCSW, is a renowned psychotherapist, lecturer, inspirational speaker, author, and host of the Deeper Dating Podcast. His work has appeared in Psychology Today, Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, Match.com, and Cosmopolitan, among others.