How to Be the Right Person

My childhood fairy tale was to grow up, fall in love, then get married and live happily ever after.  My parents were married for more than fifty years.  When I was young I seldom heard a harsh word between them.  Mom and Dad seemed to prove that the fairy tale was real.

Alas, for me, after ten years of marriage to my high school sweetheart Jo Anne, the “happily ever after” part was shredded by conflict.

Then I met Jill.  We lived “happily ever after” for three years.

Next I met and married Susan.  It took four years for “happily ever after” to fade into a vague memory.

After breaking up with Jo Anne and Jill I knew the problem was simple.  I had chosen the wrong person.  But when Susan and I tumbled off the precipice of divorce I began to realize that the problem was not Susan.  Or Jo Anne.  Or Jill.  The problem was me.  At that point I decided it was more important for me to be the right person than to find the right person.

This is when another of my favorite fairy tales fell apart.  I had expected to find my “one and only.”  Yet I had met not one, but three “one and only’s.”

Today I realize that I could be perfectly happy, or unhappy, with any one of ten thousand one and only’s.  I know this isn’t romantic, but based upon my personal experience it is true.  By putting more energy into being the right person than into finding the right person I have been married to Daveen for 35 years.

How do I seek to “be” the right person in a relationship?

1. I have to be authentic.  I don’t pretend to be someone I’m not for the sake of winning favor. I don’t act as if I want to travel if, in reality, what I really want to do at the end of each day is fall asleep in my own bed.
2. I recognize I am not the right person for everyone. Daveen likes me as I am.  Mostly.
3. I need a partner who is authentic with me.  Daveen was recently at the wedding of Bob and Ellen.  Immediately after the ceremony Bob’s new “one and only (but not for very long)” said to him, “Now I never have to set foot on your damned sailboat again.”  Neither Daveen nor I want to own a sailboat.  In fact, she says that “camping out” is when the hotel does not have twenty-four hour room service.
4. We each need to be clear about our needs and expectations.  Thirty-five years ago Daveen and I discussed our living together basics.  We verified that we shared similar values, interests, and a vision for our long-term happiness.  At night, for example, we like to go to bed at the same time.
5. I practice the art of compromise with a smile.  I know that Daveen does not find me to be perfect.  This is not a secret.  She has told me so personally.  More than once.  I am not able to provide everything Daveen wants, and neither of us is going to gain every single thing we want from our marriage, or from our lives.  We have to compromise and be cheerful about the concessions we make.
6. I look at the positives in our marriage through a telescope.  I look at the negatives through the other end of the telescope.
7. We each have outside interests and friendships.  Few people do well together 24/7, even on the beach in Hawaii.

In order to give life direction and meaning, each of us needs a dream.  But to help our dream come true we must seek not only to find the right person, but also to be the right person.

Alan