Unravel the wisdom of 1,500 individuals as they share their most valuable relationship advice. From the heartwarming to the practical, these insights will guide you through the complexities of love and partnership, offering a roadmap to a healthier, happier relationship.
A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP Means Two Healthy Individuals
Don’t expect your partner to make you happy. Figure out what makes you happy as an individual.
- A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy individuals – two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time.
Be Together for the Right Reasons
Only be with someone if you genuinely love being around them.
- Don’t enter into a relationship for the wrong reasons: pressure from friends and family, feeling like a loser, being together for image, being young and naive, thinking love would solve everything.
How to Stop ******* Up Your Romantic Relationships
Few people know that there are some pretty clear signals to know if a relationship is going to work or not.
Give Each Other Space
Create space for each other
- Have your own interests, friendships, and hobbies.
- If you can’t trust your partner to have a simple golfing trip with his buddies, or you’re afraid to let your wife go out for drinks after work, what does that say about your respect for their ability to handle themselves?
Get good at fighting
John Gottman is a hot-shit psychologist and researcher who has spent over 30 years analyzing married couples, looking for keys to why they stick together and why they break up
- He gets married couples in a room, puts some cameras on them, and asks them to have a fight
- Analyzes the couple’s discussion and is able to predict with startling accuracy whether or not a couple will divorce
- Things that lead to divorce are not what you might imagine
- Successful couples fight consistently
- Four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to breakups
- Criticizing your partner
- Defensiveness
- Contempt
- Stonewalling
The ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE to End All RelationSHIP Guides™
Ask anyone who has been married for 10+ years and is still happy in their relationship: What lessons would you pass down to others if you could? What is working for you and your partner?
- Almost 1,500 people responded, and the answers were overwhelmingly positive.
Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance.
“You are absolutely not going to be gaga over each other every day for the rest of your lives, and all this ‘happily ever after’ bullshit is just setting people up for failure. True love-that is, deep, the kind of abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy-is a constant commitment to a person regardless of present circumstances. It brings true happiness, not just another series of highs.”
- Tara Mather-Shapiro
Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts
If something bothers you in the relationship, be willing to say it out loud. Doing so builds trust, and trust builds intimacy.
- You and your partner need to have a good understanding of each other’s insecurities and the way you each choose to compensate for them.
Get good at forgiveness
If you have two different individuals sharing a life together, it’s inevitable that they will have different values and perspectives on some things and clash over them. The key here is not to change the other person, but to simply abide by the difference, love them despite it, and when things get a little rough around the edges, to forgive them for it.
- Everything in the relationship should be given and done unconditionally-without expectation of reward or manipulation of feelings.
The Little Things Add Up to Big Things
Staying connected through life’s ups and downs is critical
- Don’t stop doing the little things that make life easier
- Say “I love you” before going to bed
- Holding hands during a movie
- Doing small favors here and there
- Even cleaning up when you accidentally pee on the toilet seat
- These things matter and add up in the long run
You and Your Partner Will Change
Each individual will change as the decades roll on, and it is up to the couple to communicate and make sure that they are consistently aware of the changes going on in their partner, and to continually accept and respect those changes as they occur.
- Being open to this amount of change isn’t easy, of course, it will be downright soul-destroying at times.
Be pragmatic, and create relationship rules
You’re sharing a life together, so you need to plan and account for each person’s needs and resources
- Division of labor makes everyone better off
- Figure out what you are each good at, what you each love/hate doing, and then arrange accordingly
Learn to Ride the Waves
Relationships exist as waves-people need to learn how to ride them
- Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love, regardless of where they go
- If you have been happy for such a long period, that is the case for good reason. Be patient and focus on the many aspects of her that still exist that caused you to fall in love in the first place
- The final bit of wisdom is to afford your spouse the benefit of the doubt
The most important factor in a healthy relationship is not communication but respect
People who have been through a divorce talk about communication being the most important part of making things work
- Respect your partner and respect yourself
- Never talk shit about your partner or complain about them to your friends
- If you have a problem with your partner, have the conversation with them and not with anyone else
