Relationships

“The secret to a long relationship is a short memory.”

– Anonymous

Let’s say we have a couple who are in a relationship. Now, they need to figure out exactly what sort of life they will have together. This is the part of a couple’s time together where the heavy lifting begins. I use the term “relationship” to describe all the day-to-day details of a couple’s life together.

Almost immediately, for example, the couple will need to decide whether they wish to live together or apart. Sure, most couples live together, but certainly not all. Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, for example, each lived in their own places on opposite sides of Central Park in New York City.

There are all sorts of other issues that will have to be addressed. How will they earn a living? How will they spend the money they earn? Will they maintain friendships outside the relationship? Do they plan to have children? Who will cook dinner? Many answers to these questions may seem obvious. Things get tricky, however, when an answer is “obvious” to one partner but not to the other.

Relationships have their own special language. Words like “mature” and “conscientious” and “selfish” and “childish” keep coming up. Sometimes, unfortunately, even words like “irresponsible,” “lazy,” and “slob” find currency. Hopefully, the negative words are reserved for use when you are ranting about the relationship with friends when your partner is not present!

Relationships require knowledge, patience, and lots of hard work. After you watch these movies, if you are still looking for more information about relationships, I recommend the New York Times article “To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This” by Mandy Len Catron. The title of the article is a bit misleading. This article is definitely about “relationships” rather than “romance.” This article has a series of questions for partners to work through to discover things like how each person defines intimacy. Most of us would never think to ask these questions.

Another great New York Times article on the topic of relationships is “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” by Alain de Botton. You don’t want to miss this wryly humorous yet revealing take on relationships. To read these articles, simply search for the titles of the articles on Google. Both authors have also written books on the topic of relationships. I also recommend the YouTube video “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” by Alain De Botton. His sense of humor reminds me of Woody Allen.

Here are three extraordinary movies that show us that there are many different kinds of relationships. These movies illustrate the different challenges that are likely to arise in any relationship. There is a famous scene towards the end of the movie “Summer With Monika” when Monika stares directly into the camera. Monika’s expression in that moment somehow manages to capture just about everything that can go wrong in a relationship.