I’m only 26, and I wouldn’t say I know much about relationships. Some have been good, and others have been bad. But from what I have learned, the best ones are those you put the most work into. While you shouldn’t be with someone you are constantly screaming at, fighting in a relationship isn’t a bad thing, and can actually be necessary to maintain a healthy one.

A woman I look up to once told me a story about her being separated from her husband. One time she was on the phone with him in front of her sister, and things were getting heated. When she hung up, her sister looked at her and said, “How could you end a marriage with that much passion there?” She realized then how true that was. She realized if she didn’t care she wouldn’t be fighting with him. Human beings only fight for things we care about.

Think of this saying: “Sometimes the hardest things in life are the things most worth doing.” The people I’ve loved the most are the ones who I’ve had some of the hardest and roughest fights with. The relationships that I’ve cared the most about have been some of the most stressful. But the stress you get from loving a person is different from the stress that comes from other hard times. The hardships of a relationship with someone you love is the kind of stress that’s worth it.

I recently loved someone, and I’ve loved someone before that. The biggest similarity in the two relationships is that both were hard, love is hard. The biggest difference is the way we fought. In my past relationship whenever we would fight it would get ugly, sometimes becoming disrespectful. And after so long I began to not even want to fight. I began to think that our fights weren’t worth it, so I quit. When that happened the relationship slowly fell apart. In the most recent relationship whenever we would fight it was different. No matter what the fight was I knew I’d never give up. This person was worth fighting for, not just with. The hardships were worth it. The stress was worth it. The person was worth it.

If you look at any relationship in your life, the best ones are probably with people you’ve had the hardest times with. What made it stronger was getting through those hard times together. Of course, the person you’re with shouldn’t be making you miserable every day. But there will be times they do. When it comes to love, you’re not always going to like that person. There will be times when you think you never want to be with them. But when you stop fighting, that’s when you know you have a problem, because we fight for those we love. The best things are sometimes the hardest things. When we get through life’s demons with another person we realize how much we truly love that person. Life isn’t easy. Life isn’t stress free. Relationships should be full of happiness and joy. But, just like life, love will never fully be that way. You just need to find the kind of “hard love” that is worth fighting for because that love is the kind that lasts forever.

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