What’s the most important thing in a relationship? Most people will answer ‘Love’. Don’t get me wrong, love is important, but I honestly don’t believe that it’s enough.
That ‘in love’-feeling, science has agreed, lasts for about two years. This is an average number, so give or take a few months. After that phase, love becomes a choice.
You make a conscious decision that you will still love this person through all their flaws, including the ones you never noticed in the first two years of togetherness. Doesn’t sound very romantic, does it? What can I say, I’m a practical person.
So if not love, what does make a relationship work? I looked around in my own environment, and looked at relationships that are still going strong decades in, and relationships that ended despite the couple being head over heels for each other, sometimes leading to them breaking up while still loving each other. I present to you: my findings.
Trust
The best thing about being in a healthy relationship is knowing that you have a support system. Whatever it is you’re going through, you can trust this person in that they’re looking out for you, that they have your best interests at heart.
Honesty
If you can’t be honest with your SO, then there might a problem in the relationship. I’m not saying that you should be hurtful or anything, not at all. But you can’t tell the truth, for whatever reason, you have to wonder to yourself why that is and if that’s really a life you want to live.
Respect
This should be a given, honestly. To me this is also directly related to trust and honesty. Without respect, you won’t have honesty, and without honesty, there’s no trust. So yeah. But of course there’s more to it than that. Respecting someone also means that it’s OK if you don’t see eye to eye on everything, as long as you can respect their opinion. Respecting someone’s opinion doesn’t just mean listening without interrupting, by the way. In this case it could mean that you have to work together to find a compromise, a solution that’s workable for you both. It means taking the other’s feelings, thoughts and opinions into account, it means not recklessly shoving your views and ideas down the other’s throat. Don’t just hear, listen to each other.
Shared goals
This one’s a lot more difficult than it sounds. That’s partly due to it being such a broad term. Here’s the thing though: if you’re going to build a life together, it’s good to have the same endgame in mind, at least when it comes to the part where you are both involved. If one of you wants to lead a nomadic lifestyle and the other one dreams of a farm in the country, you might have some issues. I’ve seen relationships destroyed because of stuff like this. Sure, in the beginning you don’t mind, because you get to be with the one you love, right? So what does it matter where in the world you are, as long as you have each other and can live relatively comfortably? But this almost always leads to resentment later in life. You start to blame the other person for taking something away from you, something you actually gave up willingly.
Just goes to show it’s OK to have dealbreakers. Just make sure they’re actually dealbreakers and not some bullshit excuse.
Anyway, having shared goals is something that will get you through rough patches, because you know what you’re doing it for. And there’s nothing better than looking at something, knowing that you two built that up together. It’s something that belongs to just the two of you, something you worked and continue to work on together.
As you may have realized, this little recipe doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships. The same principles apply for friendships, family and maybe even a business partner. The emphasis might shift a little bit from one principle to another, depending on the relationship you’re applying it to, but the general ideas remain.