The People We Keep Choosing

 A few days ago, I was having one of those conversations at work that begins with something completely ordinary and somehow ends up somewhere you did not expect.

We were talking about siblings and family relationships.

My colleague told me about her older brother. Let us call him John.

John had recently arrived at a family gathering with a new girlfriend.

Ordinarily, this would not have been particularly newsworthy.

Except that the family was not exactly celebrating.

The new girlfriend has three children.

And John already has three children from an earlier relationship.

There was another relationship before that, which produced a child, and the mother eventually left with the baby.

Then came another relationship, three children, and another separation.

More recently, he had been involved with a much younger woman. That relationship also ended, and he eventually went back to live with his parents.

And now, here he was again.

New girlfriend.

Three more children.

You could almost hear the family collectively asking, "Surely, John, we are not doing this again?"

I found the story fascinating.

Not because John necessarily sounds like a bad person.

In fact, from everything I was told, he is not.

He is generally a decent, hardworking, likeable person.

Which raised the more interesting question.

How can a good person be so consistently unsuccessful at relationships?

Perhaps It Isn't About Being a Bad Person

We often assume that people who repeatedly fail at relationships must have something fundamentally wrong with them.

Sometimes they do.

But sometimes they don't.

There are genuinely good people who simply don't know how to sustain relationships.

They may be kind, generous and responsible in almost every other area of life.

But when it comes to intimate relationships, something seems to go wrong.

I know someone like this.

He has been through several relationships and, despite being a genuinely good person, has struggled to maintain them.

Whenever I have asked him why, his answer has always fascinated me.

He says:

"I have more patience with things than I do with people."

I laughed the first time I heard it.

But the more I thought about it, the more profound it became.

Things Are Easier Than People

A machine doesn't argue with you.

A car can refuse to start, but at least it doesn't tell you that you never listen.

A building can develop a crack, but it doesn't accuse you of not caring.

A faulty pump can be repaired.

A stubborn door can be adjusted.

People are considerably more complicated.

They have moods.

History.

Expectations.

Insecurities.

Bad days.

Different opinions.

And, most inconveniently, their own version of the story.

Relationships therefore require something that construction, machinery and business sometimes don't:

patience with another person's humanity.

The Wrong Person

My friend also believes he has an extraordinary talent for choosing the wrong person.

I suspect many people who repeatedly have difficult relationships would say the same thing.

"I just keep meeting the wrong people."

And perhaps they are right.

But after the fourth or fifth wrong person, I begin to wonder whether we should examine the person doing the choosing.

Because if the same pattern keeps appearing, perhaps the problem isn't only who we meet.

Perhaps it is what attracts us to them.

We can be remarkably good at choosing people who satisfy our immediate desires while being completely unsuitable for the life we eventually want.

Chemistry can be mistaken for compatibility.

Excitement can be mistaken for love.

And sometimes the warning signs are so obvious that we practically need a billboard.

Yet we proceed.

Then six months later, we announce that we have once again discovered that the person is difficult.

At some point, even the universe might start asking questions.

Walking Away Is Easy

There is another problem.

Walking away provides immediate relief.

The argument stops.

The tension disappears.

You no longer have to compromise.

You don't have to listen to something you believe is completely unreasonable.

You simply leave.

And for a while, life feels wonderfully peaceful.

Until you meet someone else.

Then, six months later, you are having the same argument in a different house with a different person.

That is when perhaps we should stop and ask:

"Could I be part of the pattern?"

Not "Am I a bad person?"

That question is too easy to answer.

The more useful question is:

"What do I repeatedly do that contributes to this outcome?"

That requires considerably more honesty.

Patience Is Not Endurance

I don't think the answer is simply telling people to be patient.

Patience does not mean tolerating abuse, dishonesty or disrespect.

Some relationships should end.

But there is a difference between a bad relationship and an uncomfortable relationship.

Disagreement does not necessarily mean incompatibility.

Different habits don't necessarily mean disaster.

And discovering that your partner is an imperfect human being should not come as a complete surprise.

Sometimes the healthiest response to conflict is not:

"I'm leaving."

It is:

"I'm angry. Let me calm down before I decide what this means."

That small pause between emotion and action can save a relationship.

And Then There Are the Children

John's story also reminded me that relationships become considerably more complicated when children are involved.

A relationship may end, but responsibility doesn't.

Children don't disappear because their parents have fallen out of love.

You can move on romantically without walking away from your responsibilities.

Perhaps before starting another relationship, especially one involving children on both sides, there is value in cleaning up the unfinished business behind you.

Otherwise, we simply keep adding new chapters to a book whose earlier chapters we haven't finished reading.

Perhaps We Don't Need Better People

The older I get, the more I think some people don't need to become better people.

They need to become better at being with people.

That requires patience.

Self-awareness.

Communication.

Discernment.

The ability to apologise.

The ability to listen without preparing your defence.

And perhaps most importantly, the ability to remain in the room when leaving would be easier.

Because relationships are not machines.

You don't repair them once and expect them to run perfectly forever.

They require constant adjustment.

Much like construction, there will occasionally be cracks, delays, unexpected costs and someone insisting that the original drawing clearly said something it absolutely did not say.

The question is not whether there will be problems.

There will.

The question is whether we have the patience, wisdom and humility to work through the ones worth fixing.

And perhaps that is where some of us need to start.

Not by finding a better person.

But by becoming better at choosing, understanding and staying with the right people.

Because sometimes the problem isn't that we keep meeting the wrong people.

Sometimes, we keep choosing them.