1. You both have very distinct individual personalities and lives in your relationship; and that’s okay.
You don’t always have to be like-minded people. You don’t always have to be the same person trapped in two different bodies. You just have to be able to respect the fact that you are two very different souls who are looking to love one another as you make your way through this world.
2. You shouldn’t be treating your relationship like some sort of competition where you can both keep score.
Love isn’t a game that you win or lose. Relationships are not competitions where you should be keeping score. Love is the single most beautiful experience that two human beings could ever share with one another. And it’s a total bastardization of the experience when two people treat it like a game.
So you shouldn’t be trying to outdo your partner. You shouldn’t be trying to compete with one another. You shouldn’t be keeping score. You don’t have to love one another as a means to something else. You love one another because you love one another – and there should be no complicated rhyme or reason to it.
3. You are never going to be without your problems in the relationship and you have to accept that early on.
It takes two to tango, as they always say. A healthy and happy relationship is always going to be composed of two committed and mature individuals who are willing to do whatever it takes to make things work. Relationships are no joke. They are never easy. And anyone who underestimates just how serious relationships can get is a fool. So even if you have superhuman emotional strength – you alone will never be good enough to make your relationship last if your partner isn’t going to be invested in it too.
4. It always pays to build your intimacy with one another the longer you stay together.
It’s really easy to be intimate with your partner when you’re just starting out your relationship. But the deeper you get into the relationship, the harder things are going to get. The stakes are definitely going to be higher. You are going to be more invested in your relationship and that’s why you need to work so much harder to keep things together.
Intimacy gradually fades over time when left alone. And that’s why both of you need to take active and conscious roles in building your intimacy with one another for as long as you stay together. If you take it for granted, you could risk losing your relationship entirely. And you know you don’t want that.
5. t’s okay to think that the grass looks greener on the other side, but you shouldn’t act on it.
You are going to be tempted to think about what life would be like if you weren’t in your relationship. You might wonder about all the opportunities that you’ve lost just because you needed to choose your relationship first. You might think about the possibility of falling in love with someone else. And that’s fine. It’s okay to have these thoughts. But what isn’t okay is when you let these thoughts get in the way of your love.
6. You should always be willing to compromise.
Compromise – it’s the glue that binds two very distinct and different people together. You are your own individual people with individual lives and individual personalities. That is a point that has already been established in this article. But how can two very distinct and unique people possibly coexist in a happy relationship together? It’s through compromise. You aren’t always going to be seeing eye to eye on everything.
You aren’t always going to be sharing the same worldview on a particular issue. You won’t always be able to get what you want. And that’s fine. That’s where compromise should kick in. That’s when you just have to swallow your pride and try to meet your partner halfway. Because at the end of the day, keeping your relationship afloat is better than being selfish.
7. The amount of time that you devote to your relationship directly translates to how much you value your love for one another.
In life, there is nothing more valuable than time. It’s the one thing in the world that we can’t purchase. It’s the one thing in the world that we can’t extend. It’s the one resource in the world that we can’t ask for more of. We get whatever time that we’re given. And that’s why a lot of us will always make it a point to make the most out of the time that we do have. So whatever time you choose to devote to your relationship says a lot about how much you value that relationship.
If you want to prove to yourself and to your partner just how important the relationship is to you, then you really need to devote lots of your time to it. You can’t just be making promises – you have to walk the talk.
