The Beautiful Mess of Being Human: Exploring the Complexity of Relationships

From the earliest days of my counseling career, I knew one thing for sure: I was fascinated by relationships. Romantic, familial, platonic, professional—it didn’t matter. I wanted to understand what made some thrive and others fall apart. What were the secret ingredients of lasting connection? How do we build safety, trust, and intimacy? And why, when relationships are so central to our well-being, do they often feel so hard?

It’s easy to trace this curiosity back to childhood. Like most of us, I learned about relationships by watching the ones closest to me—my parents, siblings, extended family. The subtle (and not-so-subtle) cues about communication, affection, boundaries, and safety get etched into us long before we can name them. And these early patterns often shape the way we connect well into adulthood.

But beyond personal history, I believe the study of relationships is essential because connection is a biological imperative. We are wired for it. As humans, we are relational beings—built to live in community, to co-regulate, to be seen and known.

Why Relationships Matter (More Than Ever)

We can’t talk about relationships without acknowledging just how crucial they are to human survival and thriving. According to a Harvard study that has tracked people for over 80 years, the single most important predictor of long-term health and happiness is not money, fame, or even career success—it’s the quality of our relationships.

Other key findings:

• Loneliness is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015).

• People with strong social relationships have a 50% increased likelihood of survival compared to those with weaker social ties.

• The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic in 2023, linking it to a wide range of health risks including anxiety, depression, and cardiovascular disease.

And yet, we’re more disconnected than ever.

Childhood: The First Blueprint for Connection

As children, we absorb relationship dynamics like sponges. We learn not just through what is said but what is modeled:

• Parent-to-parent interactions

• Parent-child communication

• Sibling dynamics

• The presence or absence of emotional safety

These early experiences create unconscious “maps” for what love, conflict, repair, and trust look like.

Attachment Theory: A Tool or a Trap?

It’s impossible to talk about relationships today without mentioning attachment theory, which offers a helpful framework:

• Secure attachment: Comfortable with intimacy and autonomy

• Anxious attachment: Preoccupied with closeness, fear of abandonment

• Avoidant attachment: Struggles with closeness, values independence

• Disorganized: A blend of both, often due to trauma

While these categories can be illuminating, I sometimes wonder: Have we gone too far with labeling?

Everyone seems to be diagnosing themselves—or others. One minute it’s anxious-avoidant attachment, the next it’s ADHD, then narcissism. The more we pathologize ourselves, the more we risk disconnecting from the essence of what relationships are about: connection, repair, and growth.

The Influence of Culture and Politics

Today’s landscape is trickier than ever. Polarization, social media, and political division have added new layers of tension:

• We’ve become more concerned with being understood than understanding others.

• Ideologies are now litmus tests for connection.

• Conversations quickly escalate into arguments—or avoidance.

We are, quite literally, struggling to relate.

This is especially dangerous when we consider the rise of singlehood and isolation, particularly among younger generations. According to Pew Research (2023), nearly half of U.S. adults under 30 are single, and many express fear of vulnerability and being hurt as reasons for avoiding relationships.

Practical Tools for Better Relationships

So where do we go from here?

Here are a few principles I believe can help us reclaim the art of relating:

1. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood

This wisdom from Stephen Covey is timeless. Most people listen to respond, not to understand. Curiosity, not certainty, should be the default posture in relationship.

2. Clarify the End Game

Ask yourself:

• What do I want out of this relationship?

• Is my goal connection, or is it to be “right”?

• How will what I say or do affect trust?

This is especially important in parent-child and co-parenting dynamics, where emotional stakes are high and modeling matters.

3. Redefine What “Work” Means in Relationships

Yes, relationships take effort—but the best ones don’t feel like a grind. In truly healthy relationships:

• Effort is joyful, not exhausting.

• Conflict exists, but repair is possible.

• The foundation is friendship, fun, and mutual respect.

If your relationship feels like constant work, it may be time to ask why.

4. Respect is the Cornerstone

After years of asking couples the secret to long-term connection, one answer emerged repeatedly: Respect.

When we respect someone:

• We speak more kindly.

• We listen more deeply.

• We act in alignment with their well-being.

• We build trust through consistency.

5. Grow Together—and Individually

Long-lasting partnerships often share this truth: both people grow as individuals within the relationship. They have lives outside of one another, and that freedom enhances the bond rather than threatening it.

6. Don’t Abandon People for Thinking Differently

We must stop equating disagreement with danger. If we continue to cut off everyone who thinks or feels differently, we’ll all end up alone.

The Relationship That Sets the Tone for All Others

Here’s the truth I keep returning to: your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship in your life.

Ask yourself:

• Do I speak to myself with kindness or criticism?

• Do I keep my promises to myself?

• Do I treat myself with respect, compassion, and curiosity?

• Can I sit with myself in silence—and enjoy the company?

When you begin to relate to yourself differently, your capacity for healthy connection multiplies. You stop projecting unmet needs. You become more resilient in the face of rupture. And you bring more empathy, patience, and grace into every interaction.

Broken Doesn’t Mean Unworthy

There’s a Japanese practice called Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. The idea is that the object is not only not ruined, but actually made more beautiful through its history.

Our relationships are the same.

We all carry wounds. We all break and get broken. But these cracks can be the very thing that makes us whole, if we let them.

Final Thoughts: Coming Home to Each Other

If we want better relationships, we have to start with kindness, curiosity, and courage—toward ourselves and each other. We must resist the pull to isolate, to label, to cut off. And we must re-learn how to truly see and hear the people in our lives.

The truth is: relationships are not optional. They are the very soil in which we root our lives. Let’s make them rich, forgiving, and real.