I was listening to an episode of Lewis Howes’ podcast The School of Greatness a few years ago and he had a guest on named Matthew Hussey. If you don’t know who Matthew Hussey is, he is a relationship expert who is known around the world. On this particular episode Matthew shared a metaphor about building a castle with your partner. This particular metaphor has stuck with me since the day I listened to it, and I return to it time and time again in my relationships.

Matthew says,

…To me the relationship is the castle. When you meet someone and you have a connection…an incredible connection is like you meet someone, you connect, and you have a great plot of land. This plot of land could be great because it’s in the middle of a forest. It could be great because it’s on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It’s a beautiful place to build. See it for what it is, its potential. It’s still just a plot of land. Now what you need is two builders. Two people who are going to build something here. And that requires two people who are going to show up each day and lay brick, after brick, after brick, after brick, and slowly, but surely create a castle. Most people have the experience of someone who joins them on that plot of land and they both look at it and say, “isn’t this great!”…and they get real excited, and one of them might be willing to build. One of them might be a builder, the other one might just really like the potential of this plot of land. And then you have someone’s who is there building every day, they’re doing the investment…then you have a builder who left the building site for three weeks and called in from home and went, “how’s the castle going?” Meanwhile she’s over their building the castle on her own. You can’t build on your own. And the problem we have right now is that we have too many people who value the connection instead of the castle. The castle is where it’s at…That’s what’s a relationship, is a castle…A castle becomes a castle because two people work on it.

This concept of two people building a castle together has been a beacon of light in my relationships. Although I have spent a good amount of time in relationships where I was the only one building, it wasn’t until I met my current partner that I began to realize the joy, grit, tenacity, and solidity that comes with having someone who chooses to build a castle alongside me.

In the past I thought that if I built long enough, or hard enough, they would begin to see the masterpiece I was creating and want to be a part of it. Time and time again they chose to leave me in the dust and rubble to fix, patch, and repair all of the crumbling walls. Eventually the weight of the brick became too much and I couldn’t hold it all together on my own.

These past three years with my love have given me a plot of land so large that it is filled with many opportunities for years to come. We have begun to build the castle of our dreams and slowly erect wall by wall. We paint beautiful colors, we collect souvenirs from our travels to display on shelves, and we fill the halls and rooms with love.

Our castle is in its early stages, but the years that we have ahead of us will give us the materials to expand upon our foundation and fortify the heart within.

Love always,

Jess