We go into relationships in order to be ‘ourselves’ but were we to really be entirely ourselves, there is a high risk we would be left.

我們建立一段關係是為了成為「自己」，但如果我們真的完全做自己，有很大的風險會被遺棄。

Silence seems the price we so often have to pay for companionship.

沉默似乎是我們經常為了陪伴而不得不付出的代價。

However much we may claim to be open minded, very few of us genuinely make room for another person's complexity in so far as we are its targets.

不論我們多麼宣稱自己思想開放，其實很少有人真正在對方是其批評目標時，能夠真正容納對方的複雜性。

We say they can ‘tell us anything’ but in practice, the topics any of us are really prepared to listen to is small, and lovers unconsciously mutually know it.

我們說他們可以「告訴我們任何事情」，但實際上，我們真正願意聽取的話題很少，而且情侶之間不自覺地彼此都知道這一點。

Tell me who you really are - just leave out most of the details.

告訴我你真正是誰，但是省略掉大部分細節。

How quickly most relationships would end if one were to say,

如果有人這麼說，大多數的關係會多麼迅速地結束：

"I love you but sometimes I’d like to have an affair," or,

「我愛你，但有時我想要外遇」或者，

"Sometimes I catch you from a certain angle and I despise you," or,

「有時我從某個角度看你，就厭惡你」或者，

"Sometimes for a while, I wish you weren’t in my life," or,

「有時候，我希望你不在我的生命中」或者，

"Sometimes you bore me," or,

「有時候，你讓我感到厭煩」或者，

"Your flaws have been driving me to despair."

「你的缺點讓我感到絕望。」

And yet, while saying something like this puts a relationship at risk, saying nothing is not unproblematic, either.

然而，儘管說出這樣的話可能會使關係面臨風險，但保持沉默也並不是沒有問題的。

We can’t go through love being simply ‘polite.’

我們不能在愛情中只是 「彬彬有禮」。

Our entire emotional system goes numb when we have to keep a lid on a gigantic lie.

當我們不得不掩蓋一個巨大的謊言時，我們整個情感系統變得麻木。

Emotions that haven’t been expressed tend to end up simply being acted out.

未被表達的情感往往最終會被實際行動所表現出來。

It seems we can’t easily either say nothing or something.

看起來我們既不能輕易保持沉默，也不能輕易說些什麼。

It would help hugely if society were to give us a better picture of love that prepared us at a collective level—way before this or that lover was in question—for the legitimacy of ambivalent feelings,

如果社會能在集體層面上為我們提供更好的愛情觀，讓我們在這個或那個愛人受到質疑之前，

including anger, disappointment, and disloyalty.

對矛盾的情感，包括憤怒、失望和不忠有所預備，那將會有很大的幫助。

And reassured us that we didn’t need to panic at such feelings’ occasional emergence, that they were likely to pass and were generally just a sign of two people getting very close.

同時也讓我們放心，我們無需在這些情感偶爾浮現時感到恐慌，它們很可能會過去，通常只是兩個人關係變得非常親近的一個跡象。

The greatest favour we can pay our lovers is to allow them (so long as there is never contempt or violence in the mix) to hate us a lot sometimes.

我們對愛人最大的恩惠是允許他們（只要不包含蔑視或暴力）有時對我們產生極大的憎恨。

The people who are the experts at this are parents of three-year-olds.

最擅長這一點的人是三歲孩子的父母。

When a small child says, "Mummy, or Daddy, I hate you a lot today," parents do what we should all generally do: they manage not to take it personally.

當一個小孩說「媽媽，或爸爸，我今天很討厭你」時，父母所做的是我們通常都應該做的：他們不往心裡去。

They understand instinctively that love is very complicated;

他們本能地理解愛是非常複雜的；

they don’t hold honesty against a person whom they know is fundamentally good and kind.

他們不會因為知道對方基本上是善良和友好的人而對誠實心懷惡意。

They know the mood will alter, and most importantly, they remember how often they have felt exactly the same.

他們知道情緒會改變，更重要的是，他們記得自己有多少次感受過完全相同的情感。