People Who Truly Love Someone Learn To Accept These 4 Imperfect Parts Of Them
La Famiglia | Shutterstock If you want a long-lasting, happy relationship with someone, it comes with some imperfect parts along with the fabulous, good ones. Being with someone long-term means letting go of all your insecurities and boundaries, and learning to accept someone for their most imperfect parts of someone, the parts that make them human.
As Andrea Miller, host of the podcast Getting Open, tells us in her book Radical Acceptance, you have “to just love them.” This means loving all of them right down to the knuckle-cracking and penchant for wearing the same socks every day. If you want your relationship to work, you have to accept all of the human stuff your partner does, the inconsistencies, the emotional blind spots, the quirks, we mean all of it.
People who truly love someone learn to accept these four imperfect parts of them:
1. Their unfixable flaws
Love is the most powerful thing there is, and for a relationship to have true staying power, you need to accept, internalize, and live that truth. Love is about radical acceptance, the ability to love without boundaries or limits to love unconditionally.
“Radical acceptance is about recalibrating the importance and value of love for ourselves and for others. It is a call to action to elevate love and togetherness to their rightful high-priority status in all people’s lives,” Miller writes.
The importance of love is not some trite diatribe of hopeless romantics; it is a critical element in lasting relationships. To love your partner, flaws and all, is easier said than done. But no love worth having ever came easily.
2. Their weird habits
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“If everyone had the wisdom and the ability to offer unconditional love, the failure rate of marriage would be much lower,” Miller says. Love is not something you should give or take away with any given mood.
Research helped show real love isn’t like that. You can’t expect to have a lasting relationship with someone who even inspires the ability to turn off your emotions. True love means that nothing your partner does, no weird habit, nor gross inability to put the toilet seat down could ever change that.
You should love your partner because of his flaws, not despite them. He is a beautiful, glorious, imperfect man. And you adore him.
3. Their common humanity
Thinking that you’re going to do away with every gross thing is unrealistic and sets you up to fail. Instead, a study suggested trying to accept that you are two people who have found each other and are just doing your best.
Aren’t we all just doing our best? Your partner isn’t trying to hurt you by being a piglet; he just is gross. He’s a weirdo, and so are you. If you’re lucky enough to have a weirdo, never let him go. You’re human. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
4. Their most unlovable parts
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Sometimes, your partner does things that are just so weird and icky you don’t think you can handle it. Well, that is not the way to have a long-lasting relationship. You have to love all of him, even the most unlovable parts.
This is Miller’s fourth step and possibly the hardest of all: “Love all of Him — even the 'unlovable' parts. There is no such thing as meeting him halfway when it comes to Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance means you always have his back — even when he's wrong. Radical Acceptance is unconditional love — even when it feels unbearably difficult, when you feel deeply hurt or disappointed, or when you feel he is at fault.”
Obviously, Miller wasn’t specifically referencing your boyfriend’s disgusting habits here, but they most definitely apply. Personally, I cannot stand it when my partner trims his beard and leaves piles of brown fur all over the sink. I’ve tried to train him to rinse the sink, but he always forgets. He means well. It would be pretty offensive if he didn't. He’s not deliberately being disgusting to upset me. He simply forgets. I’ve learned to live with it. I’ve even come to find it slightly endearing because I love him.
If your boyfriend picks at his nails with his teeth, a study explained how you’ll just have to be okay with it and practice radical acceptance and unconditional love. If he eats with his mouth open, you’ll have to deal with that too.
If you're upset or anguished because your boyfriend doesn’t listen when you tell him not to leave dishes on the ground, or if you are distraught, he never picks up his nail clipping, you have to choose to love these habits and flaws.
You must take all of that annoyance and put it aside in favor of your love for him. Remember you, too, are not perfect. You may not be nearly as gross, but you still are a human being with human habits. He owes you the same level of unconditional love that you’ve afforded him. Unconditional love goes both ways, and it is a golden rule for making your relationship last forever.
Gigi Engle, ACS, CSE, CSC, is an award-winning author, writer, and certified intimacy educator. Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Elle Magazine, Marie Claire, Glamour, Ravishly, Mashable, Esquire, InStyle, Refinery29, and many others.
