3-legged races

At some point you realize that your best isn't good enough. Or maybe you were fooling yourself all along into thinking that the effort you were putting forth really was your best but in reality it wasn't. I'm so worried about being fair. I'm so worried about making sure that Johnny and I are meeting exactly in the middle. Maybe that's an unfair expectation. Maybe instead meeting in the exact middle is an average you strive for over an entire lifetime not at every single moment of every single day. Sometimes I'll be giving 70% when he is giving 30%. But at other times I'll be giving 10% when he is giving 90%. That should be what relationships are about. When your partner can't give their all, you pick up the slack because you know that person would do the same for you. How do you learn to do that? How do you learn to work together like partners in a three-legged race instead of as opponents in tug-o-war? Does it work to sit down and say "This is you and me together. If I fail we both fail. We have to be working together, not against each other. We both have to want what's best for the other person and put forth every effort to acheive that goal." If we both can't agree to that then is all lost?

Why do relationships seem to come naturally to some people? I struggle with them! Does everyone struggle and we just don't know about it? Why can't it come easy sometimes? I'd like to think that I'm putting in my dues now so that later in life the relationship will be very easy.