Is everything fixable in relationships?

I grew up on tales of American ingenuity and "candoism."

I devoured books about scientists and inventors who, given enough time, seemed to be able to deal with any problem. I was Tom Swift Jr.'s companion as he traveled around the world and into space, ingeniously solving one unsolvable problem after the other.

Our society as a whole has thrived on such a belief in our ability to deal with any dilemma, fix any flaw, right any wrong and conquer any challenge. Whether they be problems of science, engineering, economics, medicine, or human relations, anything is possible.

Now, I'm not a scientist or engineer or economist or physician. I have spent a bit of time studying people and how they work. And more and more I'm coming to the conclusion that people - and their relationships - are not always "fixable."

That probably sounds strange coming from a person whose job would seem to be just such fixing, so let me explain what I mean.

I think many of us, even including some of my colleagues in the mental health professions (and just about all managed care health plan administrators), believe that, if we can simply find the right answer, all our emotional and relational problems can be neatly solved and put behind us. All we have to do is find the right drug, or see things the right way, or change the right behaviors, and "presto" everything will be fixed.

That may often work with building bridges, fixing cars, balancing a budget, or curing a disease (though, I've noticed it actually doesn't work as often as we'd like to think), but people and relationships are about a hundred times more complex than even the most ambitious bridge or tenacious virus.

We really don't always know for sure why some people feel the way they do (or seem not to feel at all) or how it is that some relationships work very well, while others fall flat on their faces. And even when we can puzzle it all out, we aren't always too certain about what to do to set things right.

Before you give up totally on the possibility of dealing with emotional and relational problems (and give up on my profession as well), let me reassure you that I believe we do know enough to help people make things better. We can assist someone who is struggling with feelings of anger, or depression, or loneliness, or emptiness. We do have ways of helping couples and families get along better.

But we can't fix things and though we wouldn't drive across a wobbly bridge or settle for a tuneup of our car that left it running better, but still rough, that's just what we have to accept in our own emotional and relational lives. We will never fix things so that we won't experience difficult and uncomfortable feelings. And our relationships will always be a bit troublesome at times.

Often in my work as a therapist, bringing clients to just this realization is one of the first tasks in our working together.

Actually, once we give ourselves permission to have some emotions now and then that we'd rather not have, or once we accept that ups and downs are a normal part of a relationship, we've taken a big step toward making things better (that may sound crazy, but it is true).

Such acceptance gives us the foundation we need to work on doing what we can do to deal with our uncomfortable feelings and to make our relationships more satisfying. Even therapy, then, becomes not the path to perfection, but simply a tool for making things better.

Everything is not fixable, especially people and their relationships. But things can get better. Tom Swift Jr. might not be able to live with such imperfection, but we'll just have to.

• Ken Potts' new book, "Mix, Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement, and Remarriage with Children," will be available this spring.