Healthy Relationships Support Group
No relationship is perfect. A long-term relationship requires constant effort to understand each other, fix misunderstandings, solve problems and continue to grow as both individuals change and evolve. How we deal with our misunderstandings is the focus of this community. Join us to find support, get advice, and share your experience with your relationship.
I've found the best way to alleviate problems down the road is know what you want BEFORE you get into a relationship, so here is how I try to "craft" mine:
A sense of warmth, compassion, adoration: It comes straight from the heart.
A sense of serene calm: Being able to calmly, intelligently discuss problems as they arise, and try to think up solutions. If we alone can't come up with solutions, acquiring the necessary professional resources to help us.
A sense of the future: We like where we are now, and we agree on liking where we're going. Requires brutal honesty, about finances, the desire to have kids or not, spiritual beliefs, what "works" for both of us.
A sense of visual sizzle and excitement when we look at each other. Nuff said.
A sense of humor. We're going to need it, when dealing with each other, and external forces that conspire against us! Humor is greatly helpful when it comes to cultivating extreme flexibility.
Feel free to add.
A sense of warmth, compassion, adoration: It comes straight from the heart.
A sense of serene calm: Being able to calmly, intelligently discuss problems as they arise, and try to think up solutions. If we alone can't come up with solutions, acquiring the necessary professional resources to help us.
A sense of the future: We like where we are now, and we agree on liking where we're going. Requires brutal honesty, about finances, the desire to have kids or not, spiritual beliefs, what "works" for both of us.
A sense of visual sizzle and excitement when we look at each other. Nuff said.
A sense of humor. We're going to need it, when dealing with each other, and external forces that conspire against us! Humor is greatly helpful when it comes to cultivating extreme flexibility.
Feel free to add.
I will add........
100% mutual trust and respect for each other at all times.
Both partners being able to openly and honestly communicate about everything and anything.
Don't go into a relationship with hopes of changing your partner. Love and accept him/her fully "as is", not for someone you wish they were with hopes of changing them into someone you want them to be.
Embrace your similarities and your differences.
Agree to disagree. Difference of opinion doesn't mean one partner is right and one is wrong, they're just different.
Listen to each other, don't just hear words running out of their mouth, really listen to what they're saying and try to get an understanding of where the other is coming from.
A sex life shouldn't be "her" way or "his" way, it should be "our" way.
Both partners feeling secure and trusting enough to lean on the other when he/she needs to. Both partners should be the "soft place to fall" for the other when needed.
Never go to sleep angry with each other because tomorrow might never come for one of you. Words of wisdom from my grandmother many years ago and words I've always lived by not only with a partner but with my sons, my parents, sister, even my pets.
"Listen to each other". This is a tough one for me, sometimes, when I could care less about 75% of what my partner is saying, and that 75% sounds like garbage, mental diarrhea. I find myself "selectively listening", "tuning out" the rest.
I think it's good to know what you will and will not tolerate, as everyone is different. Some things are annoyances to one person and a deal breaker to another so you have to be specific about how you define things like loyalty, support, connection, common ground.
For example, I'd have a hard time with someone who was religious and conservative, as I'm neither. But my brother's like me and his wife was both and they got along really well and had a beautiful marriage (she died).
I think for me common interests are so important; I want to talk with my partner and not feel like a space alien with them. They have to be as eccentric (or at least tolerant) as I am. Or else it won't work.
Also really important is someone who will never blame me for their problems; I had a good boyfriend, but he broke that rule and it ended it for me. That's too sharp a nerve for me. He's a sweet guy, but that was a deal breaker.
Also I have to have someone who has a big sense of humor or at least tolerates my crap jokes!
Someone I won't feel insecure with, one who will not play upon my weaknesses nor I theirs.
One where you both grow together; not just isolate and stagnate.
One where you both can have all kinds of friends, including opposite sex, without relentless mistrust and paranoia.