What do they mean when they say relationships are hard work?

Partnerships have changed. Shouldn’t the advice we give for them change too?

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling around Tiktok when the algorithm served me up a video of a woman asking a question *I* have toiled over for a good chunk of my life — what do people mean when they say that relationships are hard? This attitude is, at this point, part of the romance lexicon, one of those little nuggets that people along the single-to-partnered spectrum love to parrot back to one another. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard friends, family, even my own self repeat the line “relationships are hard,” in a canned kind of way, during a particularly brutal patch with their significant others.

I can understand why a sentiment like this has calcified in our public consciousness to the point that it has. We’re not all that far removed from a time when there were no exit ramps to relationships, especially marriage. No-fault divorce has only been around since the late 1960s, with California becoming the first state to sign it into law in 1969. And it wasn’t until 1974 that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed, allowing women to apply for credit, offering them the financial means to exit a marriage that wasn’t working. Before then, even if your relationship were crumbling at your feet, you had to stick it out, because there was no other option. Sounds like hard work, huh?

And just because our ability to exit bad relationships increased, that doesn’t necessarily mean we got clarity on what hard work actually looks like in a relationship. Our parents were raised by people for whom sticking it out in a relationship *was* hard work, and so they passed those lessons on to us, their children, who have a lot more options and a ton more information. So I ask the question again — what does it mean when they say relationships are hard?

When I’ve used the phrase, I’ve thrown it up as a preemptive barrier, blocking a conversation about the status of my current coupling from going any further. Or, I’ve whispered it to myself in varying scenarios — in my own head mid-fight, into bathroom mirrors as I try to find a little escape from the person on the other side of the door, into my pillow as I coax myself to sleep.

It was an attempt to convince myself that what I was experiencing was not only normal, but expected. Arguments about fundamental things, like where we would live, or whether we wanted kids, or whether we were having enough sex were, to me, examples of me putting in the hard work of relationships. Every time I would be presented with an exit ramp out of the situation, I would consider that giving up, not putting in the hard work. I was no quitter.

My beliefs around the work of relationships started to shift, however, last spring, almost immediately after Ben and I got engaged. Up until then, we never argued and rarely disagreed on anything. But suddenly, we were in the middle of a really brutal snag — a personal snag, one I have promised myself and him that I would never actually write about. Suffice to say there were moments where both of us felt absolutely lost and unsure of what the future held for us, both individually and as a couple.

But there was something very different about this situation when compared to all of the other inflection points I’d experienced in past relationships. Even in our worst moments, I never felt like Ben and I were opposite sides of the argument. We never disagreed about basic, fundamental parts of our life together. We both recognized what needed to happen in order to move forward. And, most importantly, the situation was never about us as a couple. Instead, there were outside forces that finally broke through, into the lovely little haven we’d been living in for over a year.

Sure, there were exit ramps available. But they never seemed appealing, because what was causing our issue had nothing to do with us as a couple. In fact, we each were the one that the other wanted to turn to when things were feeling difficult. When our arguing about the situation hit a fever pitch, neither of us had to convince the other that we needed to see a therapist to mediate — it was something we both eagerly suggested to one another. We set boundaries together, leaned on one another, learned to communicate in ways that were effective together. We were, in short, in it together.

Now, I look at that time not exactly with gratitude, but as a necessary trial, because it taught me a huge lesson — Relationships aren’t actually hard if you’re with the right person. Life is what’s hard. Your relationship is the thing that helps you get through the hard parts of life.

In the past, I had mistaken fundamental disagreements with a partner as “bumps in the road” instead of what they actually were — indications that we were actually not right together. Those arguments often felt like trying to press two positive sides of two magnets together. You try and you try, but no matter how hard you squeeze, they’ll never actually meet. I can’t tell you how many times I felt alienated and alone in the midst of those tough times. But even in our worst moments, Ben and I were always a partnership. We were two sides of two magnets that instantly snapped back together, making each other stronger. It was the first time in my life I’d ever experienced something like that.

And, oddly, I don’t know that I’d feel as secure in our rapidly-approaching marriage if we hadn’t gone through what we went through.

The idea that “relationships are hard” is a perfect example of why I think so many people (including, until recently, me) find modern dating such a nightmare. The role of partnerships in our lives have changed, and yet we’re still viewing them from an extremely traditional lens. Marriage isn’t something anyone needs to do anymore — we don’t need it for security, or for connections, or for survival, or, even, to build a family. Instead, long-term partnerships are something we choose. Yet we are still following the same script that was passed down from our mothers’ mothers from a time when they felt they had to stick around in their long-term partnerships for myriad reasons.

We get to choose. We get to build a life that doesn’t include a relationship if that’s what we want. We don’t have to settle, because we don’t need to work at a relationship if working at a relationship is making your life worse. We can roll the dice, take the exit ramp, choose ourselves. We can hold out for what we truly want instead of sinking into what we think we need. And if the right person doesn’t even come along, you can still have a rich, fulfilling life of freedom. Sounds nice, huh?

Relationships are only hard if you’re with the wrong person — if you’re fighting against each other instead of alongside one another. I’m not naïve. I know there will be moments when things feel out of control, or overwhelming, or difficult. But I feel secure that, in this moment, we would be with each other more than we would be against each other, and that’s why I’m getting married.

So stop banging your head against the wall. You never have to fight your partner for your partnership. If you do, there’s a good chance you’re with the wrong person. So break up with that man and hold out for the easy road. I promise it’s worth it.