“Falling in love is bullsh*t, staying in love is all that matters” is a quote that I’ve paid attention to for many years. But, even those poetic words couldn’t give me the answers to the questions I had when it came to creating a long-lasting happy relationship. Through my own personal experiences and interviewing couples over the years that have survived all of the challenges that relationships come with, I’ve found two simple, often overlooked items, necessary for cultivating and maintaining a long-lasting healthy relationship. Just to be clear, the term “long-lasting” doesn’t define a “Happy” relationship. There are many “Unhappily Married” people out there. Many people stay together for many different reasons but this isn’t about that right now, this is about the butterflies in the heart type of relationships. This is about the “you hang up first, I miss you, can’t wait to see you, touch you, kiss & hug you type of relationships; long after the honey moon phase is over. This is for the, we’re very great alone but amazing together relationships. If this is the type of relationship you aspire to have then keep reading and never forget what you learn today.
The funny thing about the mind is that it may store information deep within your subconscious to a point that you seem to forget you know it and then BOOM!!! When you need it, it’s there. If you’re not currently in a relationship or currently dating, and can’t apply these things right now, hopefully when the time comes, you’ll be able to recall this information to use it. There are obvious principles required to have a relationship that will last, such as trust, love, and communication, but those are a few of the obvious. We can talk about another time. Today, we’re going to talk about two factors that aren’t so obvious yet, extremely vital but often overlooked.
Here are two things that will allow you to save yourself from heart break and time wasted with individuals that aren’t ideal for you. We aim to give you more of a chance to have a successful happy relationship with someone that you could share a life with. We’ll start with the foundation: “Friendship”- I’ve learned a long time ago that Friendship is a foundational piece for happiness within a relationship. You could have love, sex, money and lots of other things in a relationship and yet, NOT be happy because you and your partner aren’t true friends first. I’ve told many people over the years that you want to truly be able to do just about ANYTHING with your partner. Your best friend is supposed to be your partner and it seems to make not only natural sense but the relationship flows much smoother. Not only should you be able to do just about anything with them, but also the things that perhaps aren’t your favorite but you know it’ll make them happy. Examples of this may be like going to an event or show of some sort that you may not be a fan of etc. This goes both ways though. Relationships are a give and take, a two way street that needs more selflessness than selfishness. We all have individual needs but when you’re with the right person, you gain joy from seeing them happy from what you give and they feel the same excitement from what they share with you. It’s usually time, energy and understanding that are very favorable things to receive. Friendship is especially beautiful when you can spend countless hours with a person doing absolutely nothing and be completely satisfied. A long-lasting happy relationship requires more than great sex, hot partners and vacations. You must be able to hold a conversation about more than sports or reality tv stars, you need to be able to laugh together, crack jokes together and create memories together while being in sync with each other for always.
The second part of the foundation is “Respect”- You’d think that this would be an obvious one but the way I see women and men talk to and about each other on social media, tv and in real life is mind blowing. You’d think some of the words used were towards an enemy, not your future wife or husband. If you don’t believe in marriage, that’s fine as well but a level of respect should always me maintained with all that you care about. I don’t have to get into detail which specific examples of disrespectful lingo come to mind because I’m sure we’re all aware of what I’m referring to. I’m a firm believer that when you first meet a person, depending on how often you get to see and talk to them, you may not get to the real them until about one-year time. We all wear these imaginary mask and costumes to hide and protect ourselves from showing off our faults, bad habits or other imperfections too soon. It’s usually not with the intent to be deceptive, but more of a way to wait and see who’s worthy of getting to know the layers under the mask or costume. We all have layers to us similar to an onion with our own defense mechanisms. A year is about the average time it takes for a person to get comfortable enough to completely let their guard down. This is the point where you get to notice the things you really don’t like about your potential partner and this is the time you should be asking yourself if the things you truly dislike are things you could see yourself eventually loving. An example of this may be the way a person eats, the sound they make when they sleep or their morning routine. It could be a wide variety of things, from the smallest detail, like leaving the toilet seat up, to a much larger issue like addiction to certain vices or terrible financial habits. At this point you’re probably wondering, “What does all of this have to do with RESPECT?” Well the reason I brought these things up, is to illustrate that this is around the time arguments begin to be more serious if you have them, and this is around the time the differences seem to be amplified, causing damaging friction in the relationship. You need to know that even in the moments when you may disagree, or may not like each other, that you both still RESPECT each other. No tolerance for physical violence should go without saying but verbal abuse is just as serious. Words, once they leave the mouth can never be taken back and so the RESPECT line should never be crossed by calling each other vulgarities in a heated argument. The flip side to that means, those same vulgarities shouldn’t ever be used when joking or playing around with each other either. If you would feel uncomfortable about your partner calling your Grandmother, Grandfather, or young child that then you shouldn’t allow yourself to be called it or say it to your partner.
Although there’s more to every relationship then these two things, I feel that these two are the most overlooked, but extremely vital to the success of your relationships long term happiness. If you haven’t already, please sign up to the Ultimate you Inner Circle right here at www.UltimateYouLLC.com to see all that we have to offer in an effort to help you IMPROVE. Thank you for reading, we hope you enjoyed this topic and please feel free to email us with comments about this or future blogs you’d like to read about at UltimateYou@email.com
~Life Skillz~
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