5 Tips for Making Relationships Last

culled from:psychologytoday.com

#1. Communication. Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it a thousand times before but good communication really is the foundation for everything else. If you can’t communicate – because you are afraid of confrontation or hurting the other person’s feelings – problems never get solved, your needs never get known and addressed.
I’ve seen many couples who have a blow-out argument, make up next day by saying they’re sorry, but are afraid to go back and address the problem for fear of starting another argument. The problem is that the problem doesn’t go away, it just becomes another pothole you have to consistently walk around. Over the years these potholes accumulate and your only safe topics are the weather and the kids’ soccer.
Communication is also the bedrock of intimacy, the foreplay, so to speak,for everything else. I hear women complain all the time about wanting to understand what their men are thinking and feeling, what makes them tick. This is where guys need to learn to step up in spite of how they're wired. No, they don’t have to talk about their day in real time, but they do need to not do the man-cave thing and pop out after a week of sulking and announce that they’ve decided to quit their job.
Good communication and intimacy often involves taking a risk. Actually, you’ll know when you’re being intimate when you when feel that edge of anxiety, the hesitation, letting you know that you are crossing into new emotional territory – this is good.
Finally, good communication is about being responsible with your emotions, specifically broadcasting your emotional state, letting your partner know when you are stressed and need to be left alone or needing a hug, rather than coming home and snipping at everyone.
#2. Accentuate the positive. You’ve heard this one as well – that famous 4:1 ratio of positive comments to negative ones for the other guy to even hear anything positive. Under stress you need to ramp it up even more.
But there’s also the longer-term view of this, that is cultivating a mindset that helps you appreciate what you…well, appreciate. Working this mindset is what keeps the relationship in balance, offsets those days when your stress is telling you that your husband’s nose is too big, or that you hate it that you wife leaves her shoes in the middle of the living room.
#3. Expect change. Again research bears this out that like it or not you and your partner are going to change in some way every 7-8 years and your relationship needs to keep up with these changes. We’re back to communication, where you need to assess where you’re at and speak up and let your partner know what you need now. If you don’t or can’t, these essential needs go underground. You’ll either wind up distracting yourselves from these important issues by getting over-involved with your kids or jobs, or use distance to avoid conflict, feel like roommates and run on parallel lives, or eventually act out – have the affair, the drinking binge, the shopping spree or file for divorce.
The key is checking in with yourself on a regular basis and proactively talking about what’s working and what’s not. To help you skip the drama, think of this like a performance evaluation on your job -- just rationally letting each other where you are at and what needs to change. Did we mention communication and risk-taking?
#4. Keep your relationship on the front burner. Back-burner relationships are those where you are child-centered, going to 20 soccer games a week; where you work 12 hours a day 7 days a week or spend every weekend engaged with relatives; where you crash within 10 minutes of the kids going to bed, where you haven’t had a date night in…who can remember.
Front burner relationships are where you make time to debrief each other’s day for even 15 minutes without the kids around, where you schedule date nights and even sex dates in advance so they don’t get lost in the harried mix of everyday life. Front-burner is checking in with your partner during the day when you know he has the big meeting that afternoon that he's worried about, or when she complains in the morning of feeling under the weather.
#5. Focus on you. This final tip of about putting your head down and focusing on you, not in a narcisstic way, but in terms of simply and deliberately carrying your half of the relationship. It’s all too easy in times of stress to shift into the tit-for-tat mode, to keep score, to get sulky when you feel you’re not getting anything back and you’re tired of being the martyr. Don’t be the martyr but focus on you and implementing as best you can all of the above. If you do, not only do you avoid the build-up of resentment, but your actions will in turn change the emotional climate in the relationship for the better.
So there you have it. Hopefully food for thought. Again the themes are clear – proactive, responsible, honest, considerate. It’s a skill, not personality, it’s practice and perseverance not perfection.