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THE BEST ARTICLE ON LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS THAT IVE EVER READ {AND THAT YOU NEED TO READ TOO}
~9.8 mins read
Every Successful Relationship is Successful For The Same Exact ReasonsBe together for the right reasons ….everything that makes a relationship “work†(and by work, I mean that it is happy and sustainable for both people involved) requires a genuine, deep-level admiration for each other. Without that mutual admiration, everything else will unravel. It’s useful to point out that love, itself, is neutral. It is something that can be both healthy or unhealthy, helpful or harmful, depending on why and how you love someone else and are loved by someone else. By itself, love is never enough to sustain a relationship.
SPACE Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance There will be days, or weeks, or maybe even longer, when you aren’t all mushy-gushy in-love. You’re even going to wake up some morning and think, “Ugh, you’re still here….†That’s normal! And more importantly, sticking it out is totally worth it, because that, too, will change. In a day, or a week, or maybe even longer, you’ll look at that person and a giant wave of love will inundate you, and you’ll love them so much you think your heart can’t possibly hold it all and is going to burst. Because a love that’s alive is also constantly evolving. It expands and contracts and mellows and deepens. It’s not going to be the way it used to be, or the way it will be, and it shouldn’t be.
True love—that is, deep, abiding love that is impervious to emotional whims or fancy—is a choice. It’s a constant commitment to a person regardless of the present circumstances. It’s a commitment to a person who you understand isn’t going to always make you happy—nor should they!—and a person who will need to rely on you at times, just as you will rely on them.
That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to.
But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs.
SPACE The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect As we scanned through the hundreds of responses we received, my assistant and I began to notice an interesting trend. People who had been through divorces and/or had only been with their partners for 10-15 years almost always talked about communication being the most important part of making things work. Talk frequently. Talk openly. Talk about everything, even if it hurts. And there is some merit to that (which I’ll get to later). But we noticed that the thing people with marriages going on 20, 30, or even 40 years talked about most was respect. My sense is that these people, through sheer quantity of experience, have learned that communication, no matter how open, transparent and disciplined, will always break down at some point. Conflicts are ultimately unavoidable, and feelings will always be hurt. And the only thing that can save you and your partner, that can cushion you both to the hard landing of human fallibility, is an unerring respect for one another, the fact that you hold each other in high esteem, believe in one another—often more than you each believe in yourselves—and trust that your partner is doing his/her best with what they’ve got. Without that bedrock of respect underneath you, you will doubt each other’s intentions. You will judge their choices and encroach on their independence. You will feel the need to hide things from one another for fear of criticism. And this is when the cracks in the edifice begin to appear.
SPACE Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it. Saying it builds trust and trust builds intimacy. It may hurt, but you still need to do it. No one else can fix your relationship for you. Nor should anyone else. Just as causing pain to your muscles allows them to grow back stronger, often introducing some pain into your relationship through vulnerability is the only way to make the relationship stronger. There can be no secrets. Secrets divide you. Always. Learn to discern your partner’s own shady behavior from your own insecurities (and vice-versa). This is hard and will likely require confrontation to get to the bottom of. But in most relationship fights, one person thinks something is completely “normal†and the other thinks it’s really grade-A “fucked up.†It’s often extremely hard to distinguish who is being irrational and insecure and who is being reasonable and merely standing up for themselves. Be patient in rooting out what’s what, and when it’s your big, gnarly insecurity (and sometimes it will be, trust me), be honest about it. Own up to it. And strive to be better. Trust is like a china plate. If you drop it and it breaks, you can put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into twice as many pieces and it will require far more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you do.
SPACE A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals A healthy and happy relationship requires two healthy and happy individuals. Keyword here: “individuals.†That means two people with their own identities, their own interests and perspectives, and things they do by themselves, on their own time. A lot is made about “sacrifices†in a relationship. You are supposed to keep the relationship happy by consistently sacrificing yourself for your partner and their wants and needs. There is some truth to that. Every relationship requires each person to consciously choose to give something up at times. But the problem is when all of the relationship’s happiness is contingent on the other person and both people are in a constant state of sacrifice. Just read that again. A relationship based on sacrifices cannot be sustained, and will eventually become damaging to both individuals in it.
SPACE Give each other space Among the emails, one of the most popular themes was the importance of creating space and separation from one another. Some people are afraid to give their partner freedom and independence. This comes from a lack of trust and/or insecurity that if we give our partner too much space, they will discover they don’t want to be with us anymore. Generally, the more uncomfortable we are with our own worthiness in the relationship and to be loved, the more we will try to control the relationship and our partner’s behaviors. BUT, more importantly, this inability to let our partners be who they are, is a subtle form of disrespect. After all, if you can’t trust your husband 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 well? What does it say for your respect for yourself? I mean, after all, if you believe a couple after-work drinks is enough to steer your girlfriend away from you, you clearly don’t think too highly of yourself.
SPACE You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways; embrace it One theme that came up repeatedly, especially with those married 20+ years, was how much each individual changes as the decades roll on, and how ready each of you have to be to embrace the other partner as these changes occur. One reader commented that at her wedding, an elderly family member told her, “One day many years from now, you will wake up and your spouse will be a different person, make sure you fall in love with that person too.†Now, you’re probably reading this and thinking, “Sure, Bill likes sausage now, but in a few years he might prefer steak. I can get on board with that.†No, I’m talking some pretty serious life changes. Remember, if you’re going to spend decades together, some really heavy shit will hit (and break) the fan. Among major life changes people told me their marriages went through (and survived): changing religions, moving countries, death of family members (including children), supporting elderly family members, changing political beliefs, even changing sexual orientation, and in a couple cases, gender identification. Amazingly, these couples survived because their respect for each other allowed them to adapt and allow each person to continue to flourish and grow.
SPACE Get good at fighting “The relationship is a living, breathing thing. Much like the body and muscles, it cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You have to fight. You have to hash things out. Obstacles make the marriage.†– Ryan John Gottman is a hot-shit psychologist and researcher who has spent over 30 years analyzing married couples and looking for keys to why they stick together and why they break up. What Gottman does is he gets married couples in a room, puts some cameras on them, and then he asks them to have a fight. He asks them to pick something they’re having problems with and talk about it for the camera. And from simply analyzing the film for the couple’s discussion (or shouting match, whatever), he’s able to predict with startling accuracy whether a couple will divorce or not. But what’s most interesting about Gottman’s research is that the things that lead to divorce are not necessarily what you think. Successful couples, like unsuccessful couples, he found, fight consistently. And some of them fight furiously. He has been able to narrow down four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to divorces (or breakups). He has gone on and called these “the four horsemen†of the relationship apocalypse in his books. They are: Criticizing your partner’s character (“You’re so stupid†vs “That thing you did was stupidâ€) Defensiveness (or basically, blame shifting, “I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t late all the timeâ€) Contempt (putting down your partner and making them feel inferior) Stonewalling (withdrawing from an argument and ignoring your partner) I think when people talk about the necessity for “good communication†all of the time (a vague piece of advice that everyone says but few people seem to actually clarify what it means), this is what they mean: be willing to have the uncomfortable talks. Be willing to have the fights. Say the ugly things and get it all out in the open.
SPACE Get good at forgiving To me, perhaps the most interesting nugget from Gottman’s research is the fact that most successful couples don’t actually resolve all of their problems. In fact, his findings were completely backwards from what most people actually expect: people in lasting and happy relationships have problems that never completely go away, while couples that feel as though they need to agree and compromise on everything end up feeling miserable and falling apart. To me, like everything else, this comes back to the respect thing. 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 it. The key here is not changing the other person—as the desire to change your partner is inherently disrespectful (to both them and yourself)—but rather it’s 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. Follow me for more update on love also share for friends and like
SPACE
That form of love is much harder. Primarily because it often doesn’t feel very good. It’s unglamorous. It’s lots of early morning doctor’s visits. It’s cleaning up bodily fluids you’d rather not be cleaning up. It’s dealing with another person’s insecurities and fears and ideas, even when you don’t want to.
But this form of love is also far more satisfying and meaningful. And, at the end of the day, it brings true happiness, not just another series of highs.
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
SPACE
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Promiseroxie
The 10 Biggest Reasons People Fall Out Of Love
~1.9 mins read
Love. Sometimes it doesn’t last a lifetime.
Here are ten reasons why people fall out of love:
1. They stopped communicating. Conflict went unresolved, needs went unexpressed, and affirmations went unspoken. If good communication is key to building a healthy relationship, the lack of it can surely dissolve one.
2. They took each other for granted. It’s easy to assume that love is unconditional and to subsequently get lazy with each other. When respect and kindness disappear, so can the love.
3. Expectations weren’t met. In the beginning, it’s easy to accommodate your partner’s needs and wishes. Over time, however, people often default to “just being themselves†and stop bending to the expectations of their partner if those expectations are not shared ones.
4. One of them discovered something new about his/her partner. Betrayal can radically alter how someone feels about their partner. Discovering that your partner has hidden something from you, cheated on you, or behaved in a way that’s inconsistent with who you thought they were can do irreparable damage to the relationship.
5. Overwhelming jealousy took over. Yes, it’s reassuring to know that your partner wants you for himself. But when jealousy takes over, there’s no room for trust.
6. The relationship wasn’t built on a solid foundation. If the relationship started poorly, moved too fast in the beginning, or was the product of an affair, it’s likely not rooted enough to withstand time or overcome any real relationship obstacles.
7. Incompatibility. As a couple gets to know one another better — and the initial fireworks die down — they may discover that their lifestyles, priorities, and values don’t align.
8. Boredom. Or exhaustion. The relationship has either lost its spark or become too much work for one or both people to handle.
9. A major life event changed things. She’s given birth and he no longer sees her as a lover, just as a mother. He got fired and suddenly retreats into depression and refuses her help. Instead of embracing life’s adventures together, some couples crack under the pressures of hardships or the unknown.
10. It wasn’t love in the first place. Lust can disguise itself as love. Once the honeymoon is over, however, it can also leave a relationship feeling empty and lacking.
Have you fallen in…and then out of love? What was the reason?
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