A Successful Relationship Needs a Smooth Take Off

A rocket wouldn’t make it to the moon without a successful launch. Can the same be said about relationships?

Those first few weeks or even months with a new love interest can make or break a relationship. We all know that relationships have their ups and downs, and part of what makes a strong, successful relationship is being able to weather storms together. But when those challenges and mishaps come early on, it’s usually a huge warning sign.

I like to think of the courting stage of a relationship like the take-off of a rocket or architecting a house. You wouldn’t build a house without first laying down solid foundations. Hours of planning, manual labor, and materials go into the foundation before one single brick is laid. Without this, the house would crumble.

If there were a crack in the foundations, you’d have to stop and start again. But often, at the beginning of the relationships, we choose to ignore these warning signs and continue building anyway. We turn a blind eye, smother the crack in the cement and build around it. But however high you build, that crack will always be there. Perhaps if you got a crack higher up in your house, it wouldn’t be so noticeable or would be easier to patch up, but your house is always going to be a little unstable if there’s a crack in the foundations. One day it might even crumble to dust around you.

What does a crack in the foundations look like?

If someone you have been seeing for a couple of months sleeps with someone else, would you carry on seeing them? Perhaps they didn’t know you were exclusive or they just messed up, but when trust is one of the so called fundamental building blocks of a relationship, you aren’t going to be able to build very high without it from the get go. Maybe you find out they lied to you, whether it be something big like their age or their job or even something as insignificant as where they went to school. Would you second guess everything they told you from then on? Would you feel the need to fact check their entire employment history or conduct an extensive background check? If the fear of distrust or the seed of doubt is planted right from the start, it’s only going to grow.

Those first months of a relationship should be the most exciting. You should be in a constant state of euphoria, your stomach full of butterflies every time your phone goes off. You should want to get to know them and want them to know you. It should be fun and exciting and full of infinite potential. If instead your guard is up, you are riddled with anxiety, and you’re in a constant state of fear and worry that you will say or do something to put them off or that they will say or do something to ruin it, this is not the take off you need or deserve. Don’t confuse the anxious, stomach-churning feeling for the euphoric butterflies. They are not the same.

Sometimes we can like someone so much—or rather the idea of the house we could build with them—that we put them on this pedesta, where they can do no wrong. We create this version of them in our heads, which is made even easier by the fact that we don’t really know much about them yet.

Our version of them has a very good reason for not replying and an even better one for cancelling the date. You justify bad behavior—maybe they spent all day thinking about you so when they came to message they were so lost for words they said nothing at all. They are charming, sweet and you get on so well you feel like this is the person you have been waiting for, your kindred spirit, your other half. So, everytime you learn something slightly less favourable about them you cast it aside, cement over it with another brick, and carry on building, blind to the cracks. This is not a successful take off.

Fuel your rocket before you launch

When we want something to work so badly, we find it much easier to ignore the cracks. Maybe we even put up with more than we should because we are so desperate for them to be the person on the pedestal, for them to live up to our expectation and take us to the moon. It can become easy to convince ourselves that this is in fact the perfect relationship that we have been waiting for, regardless of the game playing, anxiety, and white lies. If a relationship is plagued with these things from the beginning, this is what it will be built on. You can’t build a relationship on games and distrust.

The start of a relationship should be fueled with excitement, laughter, good vibes, and plenty of whirlwind kissing. If you don’t have the right fuel, you’re not going to get very far. The beginning sets the tone for the entire journey. Don’t be blinded by the gadgets and gizmo—when you’re millions of miles above ground, they won’t mean a thing. You want someone who you can be yourself around, who will hold your hand when the journey gets rough and make you laugh so hard that you will never get bored.

You have a much better chance of reaching the moon if the take off is smooth. Wait for the butterflies, the excitement, the person who is genuine right from the start. Don’t be afraid to walk away if there’s a crack in the foundation. Your forever home will be built on trust, friendship, and an indestructible fondation. Instead of trying to patch the crack, start from scratch. Those first stages are the most important; don’t settle for a bumpy take off if you want the rest of the journey to be smooth.

A failure to launch it is much less painful than a rocket crash.