Are you really ready for a committed relationship?

Committed relationships aren’t easy, but they can be fulfilling when you’re truly ready for the leap they require.

by: E.B. Johnson

Though we traditionally think of love as teddy bears and boxes of chocolate, modern love is a strange and complex thing, full of all kinds of up’s and down’s and in-between’s. Healthy partnerships require communication, respect and a lot of mindful intent, but they also require embracing the natural disruptions and hardships that are a part of the process. Only when we learn how to understand the seasons of our relationships can we commit to them honestly, earnestly and in good faith.

If you want a relationship that can stand the test of time, you have to work hard to understand the natural phases that dictate the passage of that relationship over time. Though we would like to believe in the Hollywood ideal of love, honeymoon’s don’t last forever and every relationship holds heartbreak. What really matters is that we learn how to mitigate that heartbreak and embrace the romantic journey for what it is. From spring to summer, autumn to winter — our relationships are constantly shifting and changing. It’s our job to learn how to weather that storm.

What the modern day commitment looks like.

Nomatter how hard we try to make everything perfect, our relationships fail sometimes. As humans, we are complex creatures with a deep well of desires and emotions that drive us and propel us toward the future. It is these same emotions and desires that can sometimes pull us away from the person we love most, or lead to a widening divide that takes time and understanding to heal.

Every relationship has its low points, and conflict is an unavoidable part of life. Since we can’t avoid disagreements, the best thing we can do for ourselves (and our loved ones) is learn how to handle those hard points with integrity and respect. Through these means, we can find the common ground we need to compromise without giving away too much of who we are or what we need to find fulfillment.

More than the obsession and the butterflies we feel during those first few encounters, love is all about choosing to accept and support someone in the life choices they choose to make. Loving someone can be easy or hard, depending on what we make of it, but it’s a long game that that’s a steady hand and commitment. Good love should never take more work than you can happily give, though.It’s a tightrope walk that you have to constantly be aware of. Love isn’t fluffy, it takes a lot of work, but it makes us better for it.

The 4 key components of a serious commitment.

There are 4 key components of any seriously committed relationship, and some aspects are more subtle than others. More than just committing to another person, we have to learn how to commit to our vision of the future, ourselves and a radical acceptance that helps us to unlock the better aspects of our own nature.

Full acceptance

The cornerstone in any relationship is a full and radical acceptance that transcends all normal bounds. This is not to say that we must accept abuse or poor treatment, but it is to say that we have to accept our partners for their flaws (and learn how to accept our own within that same sphere). It’s opening up and agreeing to take into your heart the pretty parts, and the broken ones too. It’s not easy, but it’s the first part of a beautiful process.

All-in for something bigger

Once you’ve accepted who you are, who they are, and what you’re doing — you have to invest in something bigger than either you or your partner. We don’t get into longterm relationships with someone because we just want to hang out casually forever. We choose commitment because we want to work toward a longterm happiness. Investing in a relationships requires investing in that vision entirely, and realizing that the two of you together are striving for something bigger that just yourselves.

Batting for the other person

After you’ve accepted and invested in the bigger picture, you’ve got to invest in the other person and make sure you’re coming up to bat for them every single time. Take a stand with them and for them. Let them know they’re supported, seen and understood. Commitment means being there for the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, and never letting that partner know that you’re there for them as long as you live.

Investing in self

Though we don’t often consider it, one of the biggest pieces of creating a fulfilling, healthy and committed relationship is investing in ourselves, as well as our partners and the things we want from our lives with them. Commitment takes compromise, and that can require confronting ourselves and growing and transforming for the better. When we over-invest in everyone but ourselves, it causes cracks in our relationships (and self) that can be impossible to repair.

Questions you should ask before making a longterm commitment.

Before you jump into any serious or potentially longterm relationoship, there. area some core questions you should ask both yourself and the other person. Before diving into the deep end of the commitment pool, you have to consider the full array of possibility that’s tied to that commitment; and make sure you understand fully what’s in store from your decisions and actions.

Am I really ready?

Healthy relationships don’t require you to giveaway pieces of yourself, but they do require compromise from time to time. Are you ready to make that compromise? Dig deep. Are you really ready to say goodbye to complete and unquestionable self-determination? When you invest in a partner, you make their needs and their opinions on a level with your own. Unless you’re truly ready to start taking someone else’s desires as seriously as your own, you’re not ready for the compromise that commitment sometimes requires.

What baggage am I carrying?

We all carry a certain amount of emotional baggage, and it goes a long way to inform who we are and how we manage our relationships. When we hold onto that baggage and fail to resolve it, however, we can create a lot of complex emotional issues and make it hard to deeply connect with someone on any longterm level. Before we jump into anything with someone else, we need to make sure we have resolve (or are actively working to resolve) the emotional. baggage that might be preventing us from opening up.

Do I understand what I’m doing?

Love and partnership isn’t an easy road. It requires you to get out of bed daily, and recommit to the person who’s sitting across the table from you. Longterm and committed relationships take a major investment of time, energy and compassion. Do you truly understand that? Once you’re already in the relationship, it’s sometimes too late to learn these things.

Am I ready to interweave?

Committed relationships are a coming together of two (or more) consensual partners, who merge their lives in order to work toward a common goal. When we find ourselves in such a relationship, we find our lives irreperably interwoven with the other person’s — a process that is welcomed by many, but uncomfortable for some. Before investing your time and your energy into someone else, it’s imperative to make sure that both partners are prepared to combine their lives together on some very real and uncontrollable levels.

Have I resolved the major dilemmas from my past?

Just as our emotional baggage can do a lot to undermine our relationships, the dilemmas of our past can also cause otherwise happy partnerships to implode. Even though we want to give ourselves and our time to our partners, it’s hard to do that when you’re stuck dwelling in childhood trauma or family relationships that are still on the brink of rupture. Resolve the major dilemmas from your past, or be on the way to healing them, before you tell someone you’re ready to give your all.

How to be more committed in your relationships.

Just like anything else in this life, commitment is skill that we can build and grow on over time. Investing consciously in making things work can unlock some truly transformative powers of your own, but it requires waking up each day and proactively seeking to recommit to your partner and the life you’re building together.

1. Stop using leaving as a threat

Sometimes, we learn strange emotional coping techniques that actually do more longterm harm than good. One such strange coping mechanism is the threat of leaving, a technique that’s commonly used to emotionally manipulate or control another person. Though you might want a committed relationship with all your heart, you may also find yourself using this threat to force commitment from another party. This isn’t commitment, however, and it’s not the way we build up a trusting and fulfilling relationship.

If you want to create a truly rewarding and healthy relationship, you’ve got to stop using the removal of your presence as a threat. Though we like to think that we can master or manage the complex emotional ties that form between ourselves and a partner, that’s just not possible. If we want to stay, we’ll stay. If they want to leave, they’ll leave.

Let go of your need to control the other person, and let need of your compulsive need to control or dictate the terms of your commitment with the other person. Instead, let things happen naturally and build up your relationship security by actively showing that you care and that you’re in it for the long haul. Words and threats are nothing compared to the action that we put behind them.

2. Focus on the long game

One of the best ways that we can build more functional and committed relationships is to focus on the long game and what we want to build with our partners. This means making longterm plans, and beginning to focus on what you want 5, 10, 15 and 20 years from now, rather than just being centered in the moment. When we make longterm plans, we let our partner know that we see a future with them — and that’s a powerful and transformative tool for any relationship.

Sit down with your partner and let them know how you’re feeling. Let them know that you enjoy your time with them, and let them know that you want to start thinking about what your future looks like with them. You don’t have to hash out a formal 5-year plan, but it is important to make sure you both see the same things from the futures that you’re coming together to build.

Truly happy relationships don’t occur just because you like the same things as your partner, or because you have the same personality quirks. True and really lasting relationships that stand the test of time are created between people who are aligned in vision and in truth. Only through this alignment can we build up the resilience we need to overcome the hardships that life will inevitably throw our way.

3. Work on yourself

When we think relationships, we usually think of it in terms of other person, and when that happens we lose sight of ourselves. Losing sight of who we are and what makes us happy is dangerous, however, and it seriously eats away at our partnerships. We become better partners when we become better people on the inside. But that requires on investing in some self-care while continuing to seek the inner peace and healing we so desperately need.

Don’t stop working on your own personal healing just because you want to commit to someone else. Become someone your partner can really commit to by becoming the best possible version of yourself. This requires taking your emotional temperature regularly and really making sure you are getting enough time to be on your own.

When we continue to work on ourselves throughout our relationships, we grow into a stronger, more resilient form of who we want to be. Healing ourselves allows us to be more compassionate, understanding and open; but it also allows us to shift our perspective and become better, more supportive partners in a number of ways. Working on ourselves is one of the greatest gifts we can give not only to that hurt child that lives in all of us, but our partners, family and friends as well.

4. Share the dilemmas

It’s no secret that life is hard, and it’s probably no surprise to anyone that relationships are even harder. Managing the thoughts, emotions, hopes and desires of one person is difficult enough, but it becomes that much more difficult when you add layers of compromise and the desires of another person. If your relationship is passing through the hard seasons, learn how to work on your difficulties through these layers. Turn your issues and difficulties into shared dilemmas that can be worked on and worked out together.

Rather than withdrawing into yourself when you’re up against a wall, reach out to your partner and work out your issues together. Address hurt feelings up front, and bring to light any changes that you feel need to be addressed or otherwise examined. The purpose of being in a relationship is to have someone to build a shared tomorrow with. That requires the effort of both partners, and a splitting of both the emotional and physical burdens.

It can be hard to reach out to our partners and spouses, especially when we’re stuck in the throes of winter. It’s important, though, that we keep sight of those goals that we’re working toward together, and stay focused on the ultimate dream we’re trying to build. Living in this modern world is no small feat and, for many of us, it’s easier when the burden of that journey is shared. Open up to your other half, and let them know when times are tough or things are getting too hard to handle. Share your issues and address them with the power of two in order to bond, connect and conquer the issues that spring up between you both.

5. Regularly re-evaluate

Our emotions are a hard mountain to tackle, so — more often than not — we don’t; opting instead to ignore the way we feel as we stumble blindly from one faulty relationship to the next. That’s especially true when it comes to the emotions that are closely tied to our intimate relationships. It’s understandable. Our emotions are linked closely to some of our most vulnerable moments, but they have to be dealt with in order to define what we want from life.

Find a nice and quiet pace where you’ll be uninterrupted and take your emotional temperature when you’re feeling pressed. Ask yourself questions like, “What is the biggest emotion that I am feeling right now in this moment?” Describe it to yourself, and don’t hold back from any aspect of the emotion you’re experiencing. If you can only come up with vague answers like “fine,” dig a little deeper. More often than not, these cloudy or murkystates of being come down to our own resistance to take an unflinching look at what’s actually lurking beneath.

Both our negative emotions and our positive emotions contribute to how we manage our relationships. Exclusion will do nothing to safeguard your wellbeing, but it will serve to alienate you from your truest and highest nature. Getting on a healthy footing with our emotions takes time, but it also takes some digging. Once we get to the bottom of why we’re feeling the way we are, we can move forward to make the most out of our partnerships and the opportunities for emotional and romantic fulfillment that are brought before us.

6. Put action behind your words

All the lip-service we pay to our partners or our commitments is meaningless if don’t also put action behind it. After getting a better grip on who you are and what you want, you need to define your purpose and go after it with everything that you’ve got. Define what it is you want to communicate through your words, decisions and actions. Clearly identify also what it is you want to contribute to the world around you

Put action behind the words you give your partner, and show them how much you care by supporting them and going the extra mile without them asking. We can tell someone we want to be with them all day, but when we show them…well, that’s something different entirely.

Happy, long-lasting relationships aren’t just based on a few nice words and a Valentine’s card once a year (and a few days late). It’s about holding the other person when they cry, or anticipating their need for a back rub after a hard day. It’s putting action behind all the things we tell them and the things we tell ourselves. It’s actually showing up when we say we will, and staying there day after day — not just because we want to, but because we said we would.

Putting it all together…

Despite what we see in the movies, our romantic relationships are anything but sunshine and roses all the time. Being in a committed partnership takes work and it takes and understanding of self as well as an intimate understanding of others. Only when we realize the true meaning of commitment, can we unlock it’s transformative powers in our realtionships.

Stop using leaving as a threat recognize that “all in” means all in. Focus on the long game. If we truly want to create a longterm relationship, we have to make plans for the future. Start looking forward with your partner and let this forward vision inform them of your intentions. Don’t stop investing in yourself, and do everything you can to continue to heal and resolve the pain and hangups that make it hard for you to really settle down. By sharing ourselves and our hardships with our partners, we can make the process easier, but also communicate our desire to open up and stick around. Take time to regularly evaluate where you’re at and how you’re feeling, and don’t lose sight of the things you need to feel seen, valued and loved. Committed relationships aren’t always easy, but they can be worthwhile and fulfillling. Put action behind your words and work to make your relationship last — every single day.