A Question for Readers: What’s Your Best Relationship Advice?
Imagine you visit a beach. And there’s this tall, dark and handsome guy; with perfect six-packs, best thick dark hair flashing you a sexy smirk..
Naaaa! Don't fantasize too much. I have bad news to tell you, love life in fiction vs real life is between day and night. That is why I have so much fun writing about them!
On a more serious note today, I’ll like to share a book I’ve recently read and what really stuck to me in Dr. Gary Chapman’s book - The 5 Love Language was that relationship can be “easy” or “hard” depending on how much each person in a relationship commit in the relationship - Quote from the description of the book - “Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?”
Yes! In real relationships, it is not always a bed of roses. We are talking about two people coming together, trying to put in the same effort to stay motivated and stay in love!
Here are three of those compiled learning I thought is essential to all relationships.
1. Settle Matters (often)
If anything bothers you in the relationship, just state them. Or else, it will become a long-tail issue. By issues and deeper thoughts with our loved ones, we build confidence and trust. Remember, trust elevates intimacy. Sometimes It hurts to speak the truth. but, remember, no one can fix your relationship. Besides you and your partner.
Just as causing pain into your muscles, make them grow back stronger, bringing in some pain into that your relationship through vulnerability improves the relationship.
• If you have cancer tomorrow, would you trust your partner to stick with you and take care of you?
• Can you imagine your spouse caring for your child for a week, or longer, by himself?
• Can you trust them to handle your money or make sound decisions under pressure?
• Do you trust them not to blame you when you screw up?
We got tough questions, and they're even more challenging to contemplate early on in a relationship. However, the deeper the commitment, the more intertwined your lives become, and the more you will need to trust your partner to responsibly and take care of you. See, if you want to enhance trust for both of you in that relationship, be ready to settle matters. If any pass issues/problems bother you, just voice out. Yes! it is easier said than done. But by solving problems as they arise, and make it clear to your partner that what you stand for and listening to what’s important for him/ her can come along way in enhancing communications. Those icky, insecure things you despise sharing with people? You gotta share them with him/ her.
Benefit in sharing not only is healing, but both of you need to have a fantastic understanding of your insecurities and how you each choose to compensate for them. Make promises and then stick with them. The only way to genuinely rebuild trust after it's been broken is through a reliable track record over time. You wouldn't build that track record until you have up to previous mistakes and set about correcting them. Learn how to discern your partner's unethical behavior from your insecurities (and vice-versa). This is a difficult one and will likely require some form of confrontations. But in most relationship fights, one of them thinks something is entirely "normal," and the other thinks it's grade-A "fucked up." It's often tough to distinguish who is being irrational and insecure and who is being reasonable and merely standing up for themselves.
2. Why are you in a relationship?
A little fun facts here!
No matter how you started your relationship, according to case studies below, these are some of the absurd but actually - happening reasons that some couples are in a relationship:
• Pressure from your family and friends;
• Feeling like a "loser" because they weren't yet dating or settling for the first person that came along;
• Being together merely for pictures -- because the relationship appeared good on paper (or in photos), not because the two people admired their uniqueness;
• Being a novice and hopelessly in love and thinking that love could resolve everything. Everything that makes relationships "feasible" (and by feasible, I mean that it is joyful and sustainable for the two people involved) requires a genuine, deep-level admiration for each other.
Without that mutual admiration, everything will unravel. It's helpful to point out that love, itself, is impartial. It could be both unhealthy or healthy, harmful, or even useful, depending on why and how you love him and are adored by him. Love isn't enough to sustain a relationship.
3. The honeymoon phase over too soon?
The honeymoon phase generally only lasts for a couple of years at most. That dizzying high you get looking into your lover's eyes as if they are the stars which constitute the skies -- yeah, that mainly goes away. Once it's gone, you must understand that you've buckled yourself down with a person you genuinely respect and enjoy being with. Otherwise, things are going to get rocky.
Pure love is an in-depth and ever-living treasure that is impervious to emotional whims. It is a constant commitment to a person, irrespective of the present, or even future circumstances. It's a constant commitment to a person you understand isn't going to make you happy -- nor should they! -- And a person who will have to rely on you, just as you will depend on them. However, this form of love is also a lot more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the close of the day, it brings true happiness, not another series of highs. On top of that, several couples suggested laying out rules for the relationship more commonly.
• To what degree will you share finances?
• How much does every person spend without consulting the other?
• What shopping should be done together, or do you anticipate each other to store individually?
There are more serious and complicated topics, of course, the big question here is how can you share a life together where you need to plan and account for every person's needs and resources, feelings and needs.
Do check out this book for some life-changing experience.
My question still remains: what’s your best relationship advice? Comment in the box section below.