How to Love a Difficult person

How to Love a Difficult Person

My wife and I would both qualify as people who are hard to love. We've been married for 24 years, and as you might expect, it's been difficult.

But I've learned a few things along the way about what love actually requires—and most of it runs counter to what you'll hear in popular relationship advice.

Love Comes from Strength, Not Victimhood

The first rule of love is that it comes from a place of strength and okayness, not from weakness and victimhood. When I feel weak and like I'm a victim, it's really hard for me to love—especially if the person I'm trying to love is the person I'm blaming for my position of victimhood.

Here's the challenge: A lot of my brain development took place when I was very young and vulnerable. I didn't feel strong. Sometimes I didn't feel okay. So I have a pretty strong instinct to feel like I'm not going to be okay, and a pretty strong instinct to occupy a place of victimhood.

Realistically, I probably am going to be okay. But I don't always feel like I'm going to be okay. And when I don't feel like I'm going to be okay, it's really hard for me to love myself, and it's really hard for me to love my wife.

One question I've learned to ask myself: Am I going to be okay? And what can I do about the challenges I face right now?

Both questions point to the same truth: As an adult, I have a lot of power over my future okayness, and I have a lot of power to influence the situation I'm living in.

Love Requires a Strong Sense of Self

Say my wife is having a bad day. She's feeling bad about herself, and she decides to say something designed to tear me down. If I allow her negative perception of me—her criticism of me—to define how I feel about myself, that's going to decrease my ability to love her.

You can see how this quickly turns into a descending spiral. It's hard for me to love her, which makes it harder for her to love me. And down and down we go.

Love depends on my ability to have a solid sense of self that isn't defined by the person I'm trying to love.

Your Ability to Love Is Independent from Theirs

This is one of the differences between an adult's ability to love and a child's ability to love. When I was a kid, I could return love when I received love. But I couldn't generate love toward someone who didn't love me first.

As an adult, I can be the one who initiates love. I can love someone even when that person doesn't love me back.

That act of unilateral love is the key to creating a happy marriage. Someone has to start the process. Most of us spend our lives walking around waiting for someone else to love us first. And when that happens, maybe we return some of that love. But if I want a marriage that's full of love, I have to figure out how to initiate love on my own—from my own position of strength, from my own solid sense of self—without needing my wife to respond in the same way.

My ability to love isn't connected to my wife's ability to love. It's its own separate thing.

Love Isn't Manipulation

When I do something designed to get my wife to love me or treat me well, that's not love. It's manipulation.

A true act of love isn't designed to change another person's behavior. It springs from a desire to treat someone well and offer love and kindness to that person. Full stop.

This comes up in couples therapy all the time. If a therapist said, "James, have you tried treating your wife with more kindness?" I might say, "Well, I tried that." What I'm really saying is that I tried to treat her kindly in an effort to manipulate her into doing something I wanted her to do. That isn't the same as actually loving my wife. It's not even really kind—it's performative kindness.

When I say "I tried that and it didn't work," I'm revealing that what I presented as kindness or love was actually just an attempt to manipulate someone. And that never really works.