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Making someone feel seen and heard doesn’t seem like a big deal.
At least not at first.
It doesn’t come with a parade or a certificate of achievement. There’s no soundtrack swelling in the background, no slow-motion montage of you nodding empathetically while someone pours out the unfiltered version of their soul. Most of the time, it doesn’t even feel like anything happened. You’re just sitting there. Maybe you said, “That sucks.” Maybe you just raised your eyebrows in exactly the right way.
Relationships are hard. Not because love isn’t real or because people don’t care enough, but because real life is complicated. Messy. Unscripted.
And one of the most important skills for surviving — and thriving — in any relationship is this:
Learning to hold two seemingly opposite truths at the same time.
There was a moment—probably around 1994—when boredom died. Like, officially. Quietly. Without a eulogy or a funeral. One day we were all sitting in cars with no music, staring out the window during road trips and inventing games like “count the cows.” The next, we had Game Boys. Or AOL chatrooms. Or eventually, the dopamine cannon that is your phone.
Grief is usually talked about in the context of loss—something tangible, something final. But some of the deepest grief people carry isn’t about what they lost…
It’s about what they never received in the first place.
It’s the ache of looking back on a childhood and realizing:
There’s a common, quiet burden that many adults carry without even realizing it:
They became the emotional parent to their own parent.
They were the kid who learned to read the room like a radar.
A few days ago, a friend texted me asking if I could review her daughter’s college essay. She’d been stressing over it, and they just wanted “another set of eyes.” Normally, I’d say yes—because I like to be helpful, because I like being the person people can count on. But this time, something stopped me.
We all know someone like this.
They walk into the room and instantly put people at ease. Conversations with them feel effortless. You don’t worry about saying the wrong thing or being judged. You feel seen—and strangely, a little more yourself.
It starts subtly.
You’re lying in bed next to someone you love. Maybe even someone you once obsessed over. The light hits their skin in that same familiar way. They reach for you. And instead of feeling excitement, or desire, or even warmth… you feel nothing. Or worse—you feel annoyed. Disinterested. Numb.
A good marriage isn’t something that “just happens.” It’s not the result of chemistry, luck, or choosing the perfect soulmate. And it certainly doesn’t stay strong because of a wedding ring or a shared last name.
A good marriage is built—intentionally, consistently, and with a deep understanding that love is not a feeling to be chased, but a daily choice to be made.
Let me be clear right out of the gate: being friends with an ex isn’t inherently wrong. Life is complicated. People grow. Some relationships end amicably. Some co-parent. Some work together. Some share friend groups. I get it.
But if you’re dating someone who’s still friends with their ex—and I mean actual friends, not just polite at mutual events—it’s worth pausing and asking a simple question:
“Why?”
