Faults and Attributes

Relationships are fragile.

Many categories of relationships exist: friend, lover, soul mate, and relative are a few examples. Whatever type of relationship you are involved in—a large amount of work that goes into keeping that relationship healthy and whole.

A wrong statement, a forgotten birthday, or an inappropriate comment can destroy years of trust and reliability in an instant. Accepting individuals as humans who make mistakes is often hard and requires more effort than people are willing to exert. Communication, understanding and acceptance are key when providing a strong foundation for successful relationships.

For acceptance and understanding to occur good communication must exist between people. Partners who hide their feelings or dismiss those of their significant other create "trouble in paradise." Relationships of all types have been torn apart because of lies and deceit. Small lies such as "No, I love spending time with your parents," or "I love it when you hug me constantly" cause slow but painful damage to relationships. What starts out as a desire to please your partner eventually corrupts happiness and leaves feelings of maltreatment and misuse.

If I sound like I know what I'm talking about it's because I have encountered bad communication among family, friends, and romantic interest. The inability of others to realize that every person has a unique character is infuriating. When people try to pigeon-hole their partners into being just like themselves they create discord and unpleasant situations.

For example, there are individuals who like being in close proximity to others and enjoy invading people's space. I am not one of these people and get grumpy when my space is invaded. This situation has created problems between myself and others because I did not demonstrate good communication skills. Simply saying "I don't like it when you do that," would have eliminated the problem allowing those people to accept that I don't like being touched and providing me with the personal space I desire. By not doing this I created a tense situation because those persons did not understand why I was upset with them.

Having faults is part of being human. Relationships would run smoother if everyone spent less time trying to hide or change their failings. Good communication requires that individuals be as honest about their shortcomings as they are about their talents. When I started dating my boyfriend we decided we would be honest with each other and share both faults and attributes.

He learned I love 80's music and have an addiction to reading in addition to hating having my personal space invaded, and living in a sloppy house. I learned that he loves comics and cooking, hates talking on the phone and cleaning house. Instead of trying to change to please the other person we accepted who we are and presented both faults and attributes at the start of the relationship. This paved the way for acceptance and understanding to prevail.

Now if only I could learn to use this tactic with my friends and family.