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So we've learned / several / big lessons / about / relationships, / about good relationships. // One of them / is that / childhood experience really does matter. // What happens / to us / in childhood / sets the stage / for what we come to expect / from the world. // That's often a good thing / if / we are / raised by / people who are / warm / and caring / and reliable. // But / some people / are raised in environments / where / they feel like / the people who are supposed to take care of them / aren't trustworthy, / can't be / relied upon, / and so / many of those people / come into adulthood / with / the expectation / that the world / is not a safe place. // Well, / it turns out / our study shows / adult experience can correct / for / some of those / unfortunate lessons / that / people learn in childhood. // Becoming connected / with a good partner, / with good friends / who you can count on / can go a long way / to change / those gloomy expectations / about the world / and about relationships. // Another lesson / that we learned / is / that / all relationships / that are important / have some disagreements / or some difficulties. // Actually, / facing / those difficulties / goes a long way / to strengthen relationships / much of the time. // It's normal / to have disagreements, / it's normal / to have difficulties, / and / the more skill / we can develop / in working / through difficulties, / the better / our social / worlds are. // And finally, / one of the biggest lessons / is that / our connections with other people / help us weather / the hard times / of life- / and hard times are there / in every life. // Our original participants / were born / during the Great / Depression / and many were / of an age to go / and serve in / World War II. // And when / we asked them, / "How did you / get through / these really difficult times?" // All of them, / to a person, / talked about / their relationships. // "Our neighbors / shared / what little we had / during the depression. // My fellow soldiers / in the trenches / were the people / who kept me going. // The letters / that came to me / from back home / while I was overseas / in the war / were / what sustained me." // And so / what we find / is that / these connections / turn out / to be / the best protection / against the difficult times / that are always coming our way. //