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Why People Don’t Have Great Relationships

Matthew Kelly  /  02/22/10

In Matthew Kelly's article Who Wants a Great Relationship, he examines how everyone wants one, but only a few ever experience it. This article explores the ten reasons WHY people don't have great relationships.

Reason 1: They Don't Establish a Common Purpose

Most people meet someone, become infatuated, fall in love, date, and marry, without ever taking the time to discuss or explore the purpose of their relationship. As a result, they are constantly disoriented in their relationship, which is always being drive to and fro by the conflicting and competing winds of individual egos and selfish desires.

Our essential purpose is the foundation upon which we build a life filled with passion and purpose. This essential purpose also provides the common purpose for every relationship, which is to help each other become the best-version-of-themselves. It doesn't matter if the relationship is between husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend, neighbor and neighbor, or business executive and customer. The first purpose, obligation, and responsibility of a relationship is to help each other achieve our essential purpose.

Reason 2: They Don't Clearly Define What Makes a Relationship Great

We have diverse visions and different ideas about what makes a great relationship. Most people never define what it would take for them to feel that they have a great relationship. As a natural consequence, they never find that relationship. If you don't know what you are looking for, you will never find it. Worse still, even if you do find it, you will not recognize it.

Reason 3: They Make It a Moving Target

When we don't take the time to establish what makes a great relationship for us, we are constantly window shopping. Driven by our whims, cravings, ego, and self-centered interests, our vision of what makes a great relationship changes every day.

Under these circumstances, we are never satisfied, we keep moving the goalposts, and this creates enormous dissatisfaction in us and a great frustration in our partner. This is why it is so important to step back for a moment, look at the big picture, and take your time in formulating your vision of a great relationship.

Reason 4: They Make It Seem Impossible

The fourth reason most people don't have great relationships is that they make it seem impossible. They define a relationship in unrealistic terms -- for example, as one where a couple never argues.

People with this unrealistic vision have forgotten that their significant other is an individual with likes and dislikes, with preferences and opinions, with a past that is rich in experiences and education that may be vastly different from their own. Above all, they have forgotten that no human being is perfect or programmable.

If you define a great relationship as one without unresolvable problems, or one without any conflict, then you are setting yourself up for frustration and disappointment. Strive to become the best-version-of-yourself and strive to have a great relationship, but make allowances in your planning and goal setting for the wondrous imperfections and limitations of the human person.

Reason 5: They Don't Believe

People make their vision of what makes a great relationship so grand and unrealistic that they never really believe that they can achieve it, so they don't even try. It all seems too hard, too high, and too far.

Create a vision. Establish a purpose of your relationship. Commit to a plan that is realistic and commonly agreed upon. Believe. For without belief no good thing was ever accomplished.

Reason 6: They Never Make It an Absolute Must

If you need a great relationship to survive, you would have one. Most people are more interested in simply surviving than they are in thriving. If you took a few minutes to sit down and write down all the ways a great relationship would cause you to flourish and thrive, then establishing a great relationship would likely become significantly more important to you.

Great relationships are not achieved by luck or chance. Couples with great relationships decide that they are unwilling to live without a dynamic collaboration. They make it a must. They treasure their relationship above all the fleeting and superficial things that most of us give our time and attention to, for they realize that a dynamic relationship causes them to thrive in the emotional aspect of their lives, and encourages and challenges them to thrive in the physical, intellectual, and spiritual aspects.

Reason 7: They Don't Follow Through

Every year, millions of people make New Year's resolutions and more than 90 percent of them fail to keep those resolutions within the first month of the year. Some fail because their plan is unrealistic, but most fail because they simply don't follow through.

We don't follow through for a plethora of reasons, but usually they boil down to the fact that we just don't want it badly enough. We attend to other things of relative insignificance and ignore the plan we made that would help us create a great relationship.

Reason 8: They Have No Accountability

A wonderful and difficult part of intimacy is holding each other accountable. Many couples formulate a plan, but fail because they are unwilling to hold each other accountable to the plan, or unwilling to be held accountable to it themselves. We all need accountability. It keeps us honest and brings the best out of us.

Reason 9: They Give Up in the Face of Major Challenges

Times of great triumph and celebration rarely improve the character of a person. Good character is usually formed in the furnace of life's great struggles and challenges. And so it is with relationships. It is easy to be together when everything is wonderful, but our togetherness is tested when life's trials come knocking on the door.

Couples that have great relationships are not the ones that never experience tough challenges, but those that face them together bravely. The ninth reason that people don't have great relationships is that they give up when they face major challenges.

Reason 10: They Never Get Quality Coaching

The final reason most people never have a great relationship is because they never get quality coaching. Good coaching is available in thousands of different forms and methods. You are being coached right now.

Books change lives. Books expand our vision of ourselves, and our vision of the world. You may not have time to read, so pick up one audio book about relationships each month for the next twelve months.

Another way to get coaching is to go to a couple's counselor. I realize that most people only go to marriage counselors when they have a problem, and you might not have a problem. Perhaps therein lies the problem.

Retreats and seminars are also a great way to expose your relationship to new ideas and coaching. The most powerful sources of coaching in relationships are other couples who have great relationships. We learn more from our friends than we ever will from books.

Coaching is invaluable in our quest to become the best-version-of-ourselves, and we should not overlook the power of coaching in helping us to establish a great relationship.

This article has been adapted and reprinted with permission from The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved, A Fireside Book copyright 2005 by Matthew Kelly, published by Simon & Schuster.

Click here to purchase The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved.

Matthew Kelly books are also available at http://www.matthewkelly.org/bookstore/books-by-matthew

Matthew Kelly is an inspired man and contributing writer for iibloom.com. Matthew is an extraordinary author and speaker who relays that God's dream for each of us is to become the-best-version-of-ourselves. Visit http://www.matthewkelly.org.