If only loving someone was as easy as it seems in the movies.
Yet, real love takes work. A love that goes the distance, is possible when we first know ourselves and love ourselves.
It’s true that if you are not complete as a person, marriage will not help you. Looking to someone else to complete us is misguided.
A lasting relationship can exist when we are ready to do the emotional heavy lifting within ourselves.
Whether you are currently in a relationship, or hopeful about the future, remember these 3 tips for creating a love that lasts the test of time:
1. Know thyself.
A partner that comes to their relationship whole, with everything to offer, knows themselves. When we know ourselves, recognizing our patterns and triggers, we navigate our relationship with more grace and patience. Psychologists have found that knowing ourselves leads to greater self control, tolerance, understanding of others, vitality and pleasure, which all serve to strengthen your union.
2. Set up clear expectations.
Being a supportive partner starts with knowing your limits and expectations. When we are upfront with our partners about our expectations regarding family, friends, finances, etc. all of our cards are on the table. If this did not happen at the beginning, reset those expectations now.
3. Start with joy.
We can make it last forever by always finding ways to share joyful experiences with each other. Life hits us with so many challenges; it’s commonplace to vent to our partners, not even realizing the burden placed on their shoulders. The world is rough enough. At home, and when you are spending time together, always make sharing joy a top priority.
4. Be honest with each other.
Honesty is the key to any long-lasting relationship. To keep your relationship strong, you should be able to be open and honest with your special someone. You should be able to share your most intimate thoughts and feelings with your loved one, or you’re not really communicating.
Don’t be afraid to tell your loved one if he disappointed you. Being honest about your feelings will help you work through the problem, and is far better than being passive aggressive if you’re upset about something.
Share your feelings with your loved one. If you’re really upset about something that happened at work or something your mother said, then don’t keep it all inside.
Know when not to say something. Though honesty is almost always the best policy, you don’t have to share every little feeling with your loved one. For example, if you don’t like his new shirt or think one of his new friends is kind of annoying, you may want to keep it to yourself.
Time your honesty. If you want to open up about something important, make sure you do it when your loved one has time to talk and is relatively unstressed. Your news will be better received if he has time to listen.
5. Learn to compromise.
In any strong relationship, being happy should be more important than being right. If you want your relationship to last, then you should learn how to make decisions with your loved one, and to find a way for both of you to be happy with the decisions, or to take turns giving in to each other. Here’s how to do it:
When you’re making a decision, have your loved one rate how important it is to him on a scale of 1 to 10, and then state how important it is to you. Then talk about why it’s so important to both of you, and what you can do to make it matter less.
Be thoughtful. When the two of you are making a decision, take the time to discuss the pros and cons and what you can do to meet halfway.
Take turns giving in on small decisions. If you picked the restaurant for date night, let your girl pick the movie.
Make sure both people are compromising. It’s not a compromise if your girl is always giving in to what you want in the end because you’re more persistent.
The dream and concept of TOF was birthed in March 2016
We post on a daily basis, nugget and devotions from seasoned men of God across the globe ranging from motivation, Inspiration, Devotional etc.
So we at TOF took on the mandate to reach out to the un-churched and to also take the gospel to the four corners of the word through the most widely accepted means of the internet.
God has been faithful and we trust even as you read more from Men of God across all race and color, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will be a light unto your path.
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