The following post is on loan, it wasn't written by me, and will be featured here for a few days during Valentine's celebrations. The writer of this beautiful piece is no longer blogging.


Is She Worth It?

Relationships are hard. They are hard to start, hard to maintain and hard to end. Relationships are also complicated. No matter what we say, any relationship worth having is both hard and complicated. The question that I often ask myself when I look at a woman is: Is she worth it? You see, in my opinion when I start a relationship, I take on a series of responsibilities and challenges. Starting a relationship means not running away at the first sign of trouble, it means sticking by her during the good times and the bad times, it means accepting the unacceptable, it means compromising on what you thought was un-compromisable, it means swallowing your pride to preserve hers, it means loosing yourself so that she can find herself. These are not easy things to do. But once you start the relationship, this is what you must be prepared to go through.

So, back to my question: “Is she worth it?”. “Would I be willing to go through the gates of hell for her?”. If the answer is no, then better to walk away. I always feel that relationships are out of 10. If one party gives 8, the other will give 2, if one party gives 4 the other will give 6. When I explain this concept to most people, they immediately assume that the successful relationships are those where both give 5. This is, in my opinion, not correct. Successful relationships are those where the numbers change constantly and no one keeps track.

Unfortunately it is very difficult not to keep track. It’s human nature. It is human nature to bicker and count mistakes and to re-open dead issues over and over and over again. That’s just the way we are. It takes a supreme effort that goes against everything we stand for as human beings to not do that. So, my second question for a relationship is “Is she worth it?”. Is she worth that effort? When the day comes that I have to choose between her and the bickering, who/what will my choice be?

Relationships are hard. They end. They end badly. They end in disaster. And they hurt. However, there are also good things in relationships: The companionship, the closeness, the sharing, the intimacy, the comfort and so much more. How do you balance those two? For me, I simply try to weight one against the other and just ask myself “Is she worth it? Is she worth the risk?

The beauty about such a question is that it really allows me to test everything against it. For me, it just comes down to that simple equation. Is everything that will happen next worth the risk of what might happen afterwards?

I know it might sound selfish at first glance. But when you really look at it, it is not really. It is a question that insures that I will try my very best, each and every time. No compromises on that. If she’s worth it, then she deserves my best, nothing less.