It sounds nice to say that no relationship should be hard, but it’s not very realistic. Humans are complicated creatures and sometimes they’re awkward and confusing and difficult and have messy emotions. If you care about them though, you have patience. You don’t walk away unless you’ve really put that effort out, and especially not until you’ve been open and willing to truly communicate with them. That involves being open to their opinions as well as just your own. If you can genuinely say that you’ve done all that but it’s still not working, then walking away from that relationship is the healthiest thing to do. But expecting every relationship to be smooth and easy is just like expecting fairy tales to be true all the time.

I knew someone that basically said the same thing after they had me jump through one hoop after another for them. They were constantly moving the goal post followed by putting up one stonewall after another stonewall all the while feeding their own ego off the energy I was putting into them. This person is so self absorbed, so entitled, and they're so completely oblivious to the piece of work they made themselves out to be. You know what I realized? I realized the only people worth the work are the people willing to likewise do the work, and I hope I never fail to recognize, acknowledge, and be grateful for the effort someone puts into me.

That’s how I feel too. I’ve dealt with someone exactly like you described and although they would say that they “tried so hard”, in reality they just demanded that everything be done their way! So that’s not a relationship, it’s a dictatorship.