Rethinking 90{5b9f563a7a2e6b7b2d34a427a1561b50c976146c48f179b1a0ad4076b173fbc6} of what I knew about relationships
When I first met my partner, I thought I knew exactly what it took to have a happy, healthy relationship. After all, mutual respect, trust, and love didn’t seem too difficult to arrive at with the right person. But being in a committed relationship with a serial entrepreneur has forced me to abandon all of my preconceived notions of how these three tenets play out in a successful relationship — especially when one partner has an obsession for what they do.
Here’s everything I learned from falling for a serial entrepreneur — from our rocky start to the future we’re building today.
Lesson #1: Scorekeeping doesn’t work.
We both work. But he works a hell of a lot longer and harder than I do. So I immediately found that expecting him to split the domestic responsibilities down the middle was a tad unrealistic. Instead, I’d need to take care of these on my own so that he could keep working late into the evenings.
While I resisted doing so at first for the sake of fairness, I learned in time just how subjective and counterproductive the concept of perfect fairness in a relationship actually is. In other words, if complete fairness were what I wanted in our relationship, I may then only have to do half of the chores, but I would also be expected to work 80+ hours a week without ever taking time off. Given our plans for the future, that arrangement would lead to burnout and make raising a family next to impossible.
The reality is is that no relationship will ever be perfectly fair. So playing tit for tat is unlikely to produce anything but resentment.
Lesson #2: Texts are too easy to misconstrue.
For the first part of our relationship, we spent a considerable amount of time in separate cities. At the same time, however, our relationship began to progress rather quickly once we found the dynamic that worked for us. But between the distance and my partner’s schedule, miscommunication seemed to abound when important conversations took place over text.
While the limitations of text are plainly obvious in hindsight, we came to rely on it then because we didn’t always have the option delay discussions until they could be had in person. But we quickly found that in those instances, we were far better off marking a topic as important on our shared calendar and then scheduling at least a phone call to address it within the next few days.
Now that we’re in the same city for good, we still label topics for further discussion as they come up throughout the day. That way, we effectively reserve texting for quick reminders and prioritize in person communication.
Lesson #3: Small acts of service go a long way.
Watching my partner put in countless hours day in and day out has shown me just how powerful handing him a warm cookie and a home cooked meal can be after a long day. And the more intense my love for him has grown over time, the more ways I’ve found to make his long hours go by just a little faster.
And as soon as he told me how much these little gestures meant to him, I made it my goal to do at least three of these per day. As a result, we’ve set a rather virtuous cycle in motion. By going just a little bit out of my way every day, my partner feels even more supported and is shown just how much I care without ever having to step away from his desk for very long. At the same time, I get to spend far more time with him during the week than we’ve ever been able to fit in before.
Lesson #4: Similarly, gratitude is a muscle.
Because I love someone who works nonstop, making time to connect after a busy week can be more difficult at times than I ever would have anticipated. While resenting the lack of quality time that I had with my partner had been somewhat tempting early on, shifting my focus toward one of gratitude has been an absolute game changer for my level of relationship satisfaction.
In other words, rather than fixating on all the time that we didn’t get to spend together, thanking him for the time that he did take away from work became my focus. And much to my surprise, this change in tone resulted in far more time spent together.
Lesson #5: Frugality is an invaluable asset.
Having never dated an entrepreneur before, I lacked a true appreciation for the risk tolerance and level of dedication required to succeed in that line of work. And while I’d been saving well over half of my income for at least a few months before we met, I was practicing frugality as a point of personal preference rather than doing so out of necessity.
But once I met my partner, living below my means took on an entirely new meaning. That’s because living below our means could now grow his business even faster — not just support my early retirement via index funds every month.
