You Don't Find Love, You Build It
My boyfriend cooks, cleans, and writes gratitude journals with me – and we’ve never once had a fight in the almost 5 years we’ve been together.
People sometimes ask me “where did you find him?!”
And I joke that I didn’t find him – I built him.
But I don’t really mean that, of course. What I mean is that together, we built the relationship we wanted.
Right from the start, we consciously chose to build a relationship with intention. We had conversations in our first few weeks together about how we would communicate, what we would put up with and what we wouldn’t stand for in our relationship, and that conversation has never stopped.
Early on, we set an three intentions that I believe are a huge factor to our happiness:
Always put the other person first. How can you fight when there’s always someone putting your needs first? When you put the other person first, and they put you first, everyone gets cared for, 100% of the time, and there’s never any selfishness.
Communicate – not some of the time, all of the time. Don’t just say what you’re thinking, say what the deeper root of the issue is. Voice your fear, not your anger.
Have a shared vision for how you want your life to be, and how you want to contribute to the world.
You might be waiting for the part where I say "But don’t worry, we occasionally fight, and that’s healthy.”
But it’s not coming, because the thing is, I don’t fight with anyone in any of my relationships. As a society, we act like shouting and slamming doors is a healthy part of a relationship, but let’s face it, Ross and Rachel were not happy.
So why do we feel the need to qualify a happy relationship with a statement about how sometimes things are negative? Girl, I’m not here to apologize for having a fantastic relationship! We need MORE people in the world showing what a happy relationship looks like (it’s not Monica and Chandler either).
But this isn’t about romance, it’s about human connection. I’m here to unapologetically shout from the rooftops that ALL my relationships are filled with genuine love. With my mum, my sister, my boyfriend, my grandparents, my cousins, my friends and my clients. Together, we built them that way.
I believe everyone can have deeply fulfilling, happy, peaceful relationships.
The first step is choosing to build one.
