Your Relationship Ending Does Not Mean You Failed

One of my friends asked me this question recently:

“Why does it always fail? I really want to be in a relationship. Shit, I’ve done it like seven times by now. So why does it always fail?”

I’m still not entirely sure I have an answer. But I have a few thoughts:

Statistically, the response to this is pretty simple. There are seven billion people on this planet, your odds of finding your ‘one’ on your first try, let alone ever, are quite slim. Like needle in a haystack slim. Or whatever is slimmer than a needle.

But, my friend, I think it’s your mindset you need to change. Love and relationships are not about ‘finding the one’ or about it always working out. Love is painful and intense and transformative and amazing and hideous and all the good and bad things life has to offer. Love is about figuring out who the hell you are, and why on earth that might be good for another person.

So when you’re entering a new relationship, all you’re really doing is opening yourself up for change and growth and the smallest potential that this will be it, forever. You’re allowing the deepest crevices of yourself to be open to feedback and criticism. But you’re also allowing those bits to be tended to and loved on and welcomed, no questions asked.

We have to stop viewing relationships as a means to an end, and give them the proper lens they deserve. They are never about a final product, and if you keep viewing them that way they will never work. They are about growing with someone, but being willing to understand that sometimes that growth takes you in different directions.

So if it’s not working out, if it always ‘fails’, it means you’ve got to be doing something right, in a way. You learned a lesson, you grew up and you let someone continue in their journey in a separate direction.

Each time you meet love, each time you are reintroduced in whatever form it comes in next, you learn something different. You become someone new. And one day, after you’ve done enough growing and learned enough lessons, you meet someone that’s on the same path as you.

One day, all of a sudden, there they are. Almost as if they had been waiting for you the entire time.

But you don’t find them, you earn them. You have to put in the work and the time and the self-reflection and suffer through the ‘failed relationships’ or you will never earn them. Will this person be perfect for you? By no means.

But the difference is, this is the person that is understanding and willing to work through your growth with you. This is the person that is willing to let you work on their growth with them.

This is the person that will make every ‘failed’ relationship look like nothing more than a bridge to something better.

This will not be a failure. This will take work, sure, and a lot of it. But this person will be everything you’ve waited for and more. They will arrive at the moment you need them the least, but will stay when you need them the most.

They, instead of being a ‘failure’, will be your greatest success.

They will be worth the wait, my friend.