After counseling many friends in crisis over the years, and having received advice myself many times, I have been forced to consider the key elements for love and a lasting marriage. While I am no expert, there are a few essentials for lasting love that my conversations and readings have taught me over the years. These insights are easy to write and hard to live by, but they appear to work. Rough spots are inevitable in any relationship. Many couples find their interests diverging, some experience infidelity, and some even fall out of love. Children and the stress of life events can tax even the strongest bonds. However, if the following essentials are in place, a couple has a good chance of working through their issues to develop a deep and lasting relationship.
A Shared Sense of Reality
Communication is essential to all good relationships and a shared sense of reality is a prerequisite for good communication. It's hard to talk when you exist on different planes of existence. If he thinks he works all hours God sends to keep the kids clothed and fed, and you think he's a lazy bum who needs to get a real job, then you are seeing the world differently. If you can sit down and come to an agreement about how things really are, based on factual observations to get you both on the same page, then you can begin to work through the issues and come through the other side a stronger couple.
Shared Values
Your values are what keep you grounded and determine how you make decisions. If one of you is an impulse buyer while the other saves for purchases, then you both value money and possessions differently. If one of you is a 24/7 workaholic and the other sees home time as strict family time, then you value time differently. If one of you is highly spiritual and the other lives in a materialist frenzy, then you value life differently. The more your values diverge, the more difficulty you will have making big decisions and getting through tough spots. You may not be able to communicate properly and it is likely the respect you showed each other at the start of your relationship is wearing thin or has been replaced with contempt. Values can be difficult to agree on as they are deeply ingrained in each of us. Ehen a mismatch occurs in fundamental values, the relationship can be difficult to repair.
Genuine Care for the Well-Being of the Other Person
No matter what your other half does or says, their well-being should be at the heart of your concern for the situation. This is not to say you put your own mental and physical health aside. On the contrary, you should be number one for you. Only when you love yourself can you truly love another. Genuine caring for another person makes you a better human being. Make compassion a priority in your relationship and you will build trust and love in return.
Common Life Goals
Each of us has goals for our life whether we ever acknowledge them openly or not. Whether it be a retirement house by the sea, getting the kids through college, or learning to play an instrument, our goals often inspire us through difficult times. A mismatch in goals is one major reason couples get out of synch. Talking about where you want to end up in your life and agreeing on a few common goals you both can work towards will help you focus on a positive future during good times and bad.
Willingness to Listen to and Hear the Other
Listening is not a passive activity. It requires hearing the other person, interpreting what they are saying, and applying it to the future. If he says he doesn't like to go out on a Friday at the end of the work week, and you keep making dates for him to see you friends for drink, then you may listen to what he is saying but you are not really hearing him. If you ask him to take care with laundry and he consistently mixes colors and white, he is not really hearing you either. Commit to taking comments seriously and make an honest effort to compromise when the other has an axe to grind about something.
A realistic View of the Past and How it Influences Behaviors
Many of us repeat the mistakes of our past, including those of our parents. Having a realistic view of how our past affects our current behavior allows us to work through those areas with humor and compassion. Learning to see how we reflect past family values and habits allows us to grow up and move on to be the independent contributor our partner expects. While learning from the past is important, living in the present is essential to a happy relationship.
Ability to Respect Differences
Sometimes we are attracted to a mate because they represent something that has been missing from our early lives, or because they excel in an area we hope to master. They may be the type of person we one day hope to be. Sometimes, we grow up and overtake our mates in the areas we once revered them for. We often call this growing apart and it is real. It is also common in early stages of a relationship for each party to conform to a way of being they think the other person wants to see. In other words they become more alike on the surface. As relationships evolve, basic differences emerge in how we perceived our mate when we met them and what they have matured into. Provided the other essentials in this list are aligned, we can respect our differences and even enrich our relationships from the variety of experiences they can offer.
