I was working with a client recently talking about relationships. Of course a relationship involves two people getting together, falling in love, having wonderful times, having amazing sex and having a great friendship.

There is another aspect to relationships, though, about which I want to talk. It is a different way of looking at relationships.

A relationship is really just a series of misunderstandings. Think about it.

You’re in a relationship. You’re getting along great. Everything is perfect.

Then, all of a sudden, you have a misunderstanding. What happens when you have that misunderstanding? Both people will usually go into defense mode.

Defense mode is so much fun, it really is. One person hurts the other person. Instead of apologizing, the person will say “The reason why I hurt you was . . . ” and they will give a list. They will say things like, “It’s just because of the way you talked to me. So then I said that back to you.”

It seems like nobody can really just look at each other and say, “I’m sorry.” So many people have trouble saying those two words. Why is it so hard to say ‘I’m sorry?’

If you hurt someone, don’t go into defense mode and let yourself justify needing to get your reasons across. Why not just apologize once in a while?

If you would do this, then maybe you’d have fewer misunderstandings. A relationship is really a series of misunderstandings until you finally give in and understand one another.

So many things in a relationship can go wrong. The problem is that during these misunderstandings, it is hard to let go of that for which you are fighting.

It’s hard to let go of a lot of things. The thing about a relationship is that you need to let go and try to understand the other person better.

If that person asks you for the same things over and over again and yet you don’t do it, obviously you’re not doing something they would like you to be doing. Instead of just doing that thing, however, people will cause a misunderstanding by getting defensive and saying something like “I do all these other things for you, so why aren’t you satisfied?”

That person probably is satisfied. They just want or need more of something. Part of a relationship with someone is to give the other person unconditionally the things that they need in addition to the things you want to do for them.

Relationships would have far fewer misunderstandings if people would get out of defense mode, dropped the ego and really looked at each other as being on the same team. Otherwise, a relationship will just continue to be a series of misunderstandings.