I am trying to remind you to be humble about your own flaws and to remember that you too regularly require forgiveness. If you want a successful relationship, you need to be gentle with the inevitable flaws of your lover. I also want you to understand that dealing kindly with the mistakes and wounds of your partner is how you open yourself up to true love…. Coming home to a passionate sex partner who was also a great cook, hard worker, high wage earner, good communicator, and all-round fabulous person would be great. The problem with that scenario is twofold. First, what would such a perfect person want with us, and second, how would we learn to really love if our needs were always met with a smile? It is easy to love those who never test us because they are always giving and never in a bad mood. It is difficult to love real people because they ask us to give and give and forgive and be humble….
There must be something we need to learn from our partners’ weaknesses and our own weaknesses. It may be that when we love our partners in a way that includes their differences and flaws, we go deep enough to create an enduring partnership. When we are cruel and dismissive about our differences and our partners’ weaknesses, we impose our fantasy of how a lover should be on a live human being…. Forgiveness emerges once we accept the challenge of loving the real person we are with. Only then can we begin to develop a deep and lasting partnership.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 105