Why Are Relationships Hard?

The Boone Center for the Family in collaboration with Pepptalk, a Pepperdine University podcast, has launched a new series centering on one of the most common yet complex aspects of our lives: relationships. In this inaugural episode, hosts Alexa Borstad and Coby Dolloff, along with our own Executive Director Dr. Kelly Haer and Senior Director of RelateStrong Dr. Dee Dee Mayer explore the complexities surrounding relationships. 

“The greatest hurt and the greatest healing can happen in the dimension of relationship.”

In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, released an advisory on the healing effects of community entitled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. In his advisory, he declares loneliness as a nationwide epidemic, and its impact on the individual is associated with “greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity.” 

Relationships and connection are more than an optional pastime. They are essential to our wellbeing, and yet they can be one of the most challenging aspects of our everyday lives. So, what makes them so difficult? 

In this episode, Dee Dee and Kelly unpack some of the difficulties surrounding relationships. Sometimes, Dee Dee argues, it’s us. Our stories and experiences shape the way we view the world and this includes the way we both view and engage in relationships. While those stories and experiences are large factors in how we view the world around us, they do not remove the responsibility of how we engage with each other. There is a popular therapeutic model that involves co-regulation: “I need you to believe or act a certain way for me to be okay.” The reality is that we have more agency over ourselves and our ability to remain stable and nonanxious. When we choose self-regulation (“I will bring a calm and grounded self to whatever environment I encounter”), it begins to allow true depth, intimacy, and a sense of safety into relationships. It is in the acknowledging and addressing of what we bring into relationships that will begin to strengthen and deepen those connections we have with one another.

“Tending to the care of my own soul and my own identity is key to me stepping into healthy and thriving relationships, so I know that what I’m bringing to the equation is valuable.”

Another unique part of relationships in the 21st century is technology. Alone Together by Sherry Turkle unpacks some of the negative side effects of modern technology. Kelly specifically uses the book’s examples of a group of people that are together but alone because they are connected to their phones but disconnected from the people around them. Conversely, when we are alone using our phone to find a sense of togetherness, it can lead to a lesser ability to connect with ourselves and with God. We lose the ability to care for our own identity. Technology as it stands can be a powerful tool to engage and grow and learn, but it is important to recognize that the connection we receive over a screen is only a taste of what we experience when we connect with another human being in person. 

In the context of dating, technology can be a creative way to meet people you wouldn’t have met otherwise. It is the number one way people are meeting their significant other, but it can be easy to only view dating in the context of technology and apps and miss out on in-person encounters and opportunities.* This idea can even extend into the workplace. While there are positives to working from home instead of an office, there are skills that are cultivated in person and with coworkers that atrophy when not in use. We can lose the ability to navigate conflict and collaboration in person and instead rely on the comfort of a screen to remove some of the stressors of in person interactions. 

True, deep, intimate relationship carries a beauty of knowing another person and being known by another person. We can love and be loved both because of and in spite of each other. We can step into relationship and be encouragers of one another. We are relational human beings, and when we forgive and acknowledge the weakness we bring, we can find closeness, depth, and connection in the way God designed.

Listen to the full episode here.

*For more on dating, listen to "Is Dating Worth It?" here.