Bill and I spend a ton of time together, but we accept each other’s limitations every day. Being in a good relationship requires that. There’s always going to be stress on your day-to-day life, which makes it easy to push a partner away. To me, it’s like you build a private religion with another person, and honesty and vulnerability have to be a part of it. You have to revisit what you each need and are afraid of. And tolerating someone else’s vulnerability is a challenge if you’re a tough person. I’m pretty tough, but I still have to encourage my husband to look at how he feels and unpack it, and then be patient with what he finds. He is seven years older than me and loves to complain about his back. I have terrible neck issues too, so I understand, but I don’t complain. The problem is, if you say to yourself, ‘I don’t want to hear about your pain because I don’t complain about mine,’ then that’s the death of love. You have to be tolerant and give the other person what they need. If you don’t do that, it’s easy for both of you to drift into your own worlds and to stop sharing yourselves. There is a callus that’s always threatening to build up, and you have to break it down as a team somehow, again and again.