many ways - frustrated and disappointed by the  person they've chosen to share their lives with.  

If pressed for details, they will have  no difficulty coming up with a list:  

their partner, they might complain: Is too loyal to their irritating family 

doesn't share their views on  the layout of the living room 

Never wants to go on camping holidays Plays tennis every Wednesday evening,  

no matter what Doesn't like Moroccan food 

Doesn't share their enthusiasm  for 19th century Russian novels 

Has a habit of adding 'actually' to every  second sentence, when it's actually redundant  

As the list gets longer, they sigh; they  still love their partner and long to be happy  

together, it's just that it seems impossibly  complicated to make this relationship work.  

What's driving the frustration isn't that  they've sadly fallen for an idiot as a mate;  

it's rather that we have all  inherited needlessly complicated ideas  

of what a relationship is supposed to be for. We  are told that love is meant to involve the almost  

total merger of two lives: we expect that a  loving couple must live in the same house,  

eat the same meals together every night, share the  same bed, go to sleep and get up at the same time;  

only ever have sex with (or even sexual  thoughts about) each other, regularly see  

each others' families, have all their friends  in common - and pretty much think the same  

thoughts on every topic at every moment. It's a beautiful vision, but a hellish one too,  

for it places an impossibly punitive burden of  expectation on another human. We feel the partner  

must be right for us in every way, and if they're  not, has to be prodded and cajoled into reform.  

But there's another perspective: relationships  don't have to be so complicated and ambitious  

if we keep in view what in the end actually  makes them fulfilling. If we boil matters down,  

there might really just be three essential  things we want from one another:  

Kindness: a partner who is gentle  with our imperfections and can  

good-humouredly tolerate us as we are. Shared vulnerability: someone with whom  

we can be open about our anxieties, worries  and the problems that throw us off balance:  

someone we don't have to put on a good front for;  someone around whom we can be weak, vulnerable and  

honest - and who will be the same around us. Understanding: someone who is interested in,  

and can make sense of, certain obscure features  of our minds: our obsessions, preoccupations  

and ways of seeing the world. And whom  we are excited to understand in turn.  

If we have these three critical ingredients to  hand, we will feel loved and essentially satisfied  

whatever differences then crop up in a hundred  other areas. Perhaps our partner's friends or  

routines won't be a delight, but we will be  content. Just as if we lack these emotional  

goods, and yet agree on every detail of European  literature, interior design and social existence,  

we are still likely to feel lonely and bereft. By limiting what we expect a relationship to  

be about, we can overcome the tyranny and  bad temper that bedevils so many lovers.  

A good, simpler - yet very fulfilling -  relationship could end up in a minimal state:  

we might not socialise much together. We might  hardly ever encounter each other's families.  

Our finances might overlap only at a few points.  We could be living in different places and only  

meet up twice a week. Conceivably we might not  even ask too many questions about each other's  

sex life. But when we would be together it  would be profoundly gratifying, because we  

would be in the presence of someone who knew  how to be kind, vulnerable and understanding.  

A bond between two people can be deep and  important precisely because it is not played out  

across all practical details of existence.  By simplifying - and clarifying - what a  

relationship is for we release ourselves  from overly complicated conflicts - and  

can focus on our urgent underlying needs to  be sympathised with, seen and understood.