The mundane is heroic

We recognize that having a long-standing relationship is an achievement. But that achievement is built on a nearly infinite series of actions, including a daily, hourly, moment-to-moment commitment to each other. It is certainly not always easy, and the rewards are not always immediately apparent, but sacrificing your immediate preferences and being committed to sharing, caring, and listening are mundane but heroic steps toward your lifetime relationship goal. 

We ‘re a team every day, helping if we can, watching if we can’t.

The ability to maintain open, healthy communication in a relationship is associated with strong levels of such highly regarded personal qualities as self-restraint, generosity, commitment to justice, and good judgment.

See possibilities where others see obstacles

Even the strongest, best relationship experience problems that suggest it might not last. The real question is which evidence you pay more attention.

Set rule for conflict

While every relationship has disagreements, you are never going to agree on everything, and you shouldn’t try to agree on everything. But one vital agreement will help you reduce the pain of disagreements: choosing a method for your discussion.

Anyone can find a happy relationship

People of every kind of background have found happiness in relationships, and people of every kind of background have encountered difficulties. Fulfilling relationships have everything to do with who you are but not with what you are.

It’s not just a fantasy. I believe there’s something like a soul mate out there, something close to that true connection, that feeling when you know you can’t live without this other person and you don’t want to.

I’m not working on a deadline. I’m not a product on the shelf that’s going to expire. I’m going to live my life and find someone. I have no doubt. Look around you at the evidence—all sorts of people are finding each other all the time, all over the time, all over the place. I’ll find the right people for me.

Age, income, education, and religion are unrelated to the likelihood of relationship satisfaction.  

It’s not how hard you try

We’ve heard platitudes about hard work all our lives. But trying really hard, by itself, is not a recipe for success. In fact, maximum effort can be a great source of frustration and pain when our efforts are not rewarded with a better relationship. Work on your relationship with meaningful goals that will contribute to your relationship’s health and your happiness.  

You have nothing to envy

If you are thinking about potential partners, you would no doubt be excited about finding someone who was very successful at work. And yet in a relationship, people often find themselves envious of the success of their partner. They begin to see the success of their partner as a personal failure of as a score in some kind of competition. Yhis makes little sense and does no one any good. There is no trophy for bettering your partner. The real prize foes to those who refuse to compete with their partner. That prize is contentment and a more satisfying relationship.  

Attitude triumphs over outcome

There is no way to predict exactly what will happen or when it will happen. What you can do is continue. Continue being someone who contributes to others’ happiness. Continue being someone who sees the good around you. Continue being someone who would offer love, affection, and support to the right partner.

Looking for a relationship in the city can be harder than finding a seat on the subway at rush hour. Everyone has their guard up, and everybody has a busy schedule and an agenda. It is sometimes hard to just relax and meet someone.

I get a good laugh out of all it.

Don’t be bound by tradition

Over time the patterns in relationships have been evolving dramatically. For a relationship to function and thrive, we must live within our own standards, not those imposed from another time.

Being a real man, a family man, means communicating, not wanting to be left alone. It means never being afraid to show love.  

The past is not the future

You can learn from your experiences and avoid mistakes of the past. Most people who exited an unhappy relationship were in a happy relationship within three years, and 74 percent said that their new relationship was significantly different.

I don’t believe you can ever be what you were in the past because of so many things, your experiences. You cannot be the same person. I live in the present. There is no other way, because you cannot worry about the past or the future.

Even after climbing all the way back, she admits the deep desire is no longer there on a daily basis.  

No one wins the comparison game

Your relationship must be evaluated based on your own needs.

A consumer mentality: anything can be replaced if it stops meeting our needs. I was doing that to my relationship—treating it as a product and wondering if I couldn’t trade it in for a better one. I was free to put my energy into it, instead of putting my energy into wondering whether this was worth it.  

See the love around you

Feeling loved and knowing that you are worthy of love are necessary to creating or maintaining any relationship.  

Doing nothing is rarely a solution

Approach your relationship with all your attention and abilities, the way you would approach anything that is important to you.

The biggest predictor of staying together is how well they’re able to work through their differences. 

You’ll forget the disagreement but remember the disagreeing

Regardless of the disagreement at hand, remember to always put the feeling of your partner ahead of specific complaint because the feelings will linger long after the complaint is solved of forgotten.  

Pursue what you need forever, not what you want today

View the search for a happy relationship not as a process of immediate satisfaction but as a means to pursue your fundamental needs.

Couples that pursue a hedonistic dorm of happiness, seeking to fulfill their desires regardless of their needs, endure twice as much conflict as couples that pursue more altruistic forms of happiness (that is, based on creating feelings of unity and mutual satisfaction).  

Seek harmony in your life

A satisfying life is not one in which you feel good about one part of your life and ignore the other parts, but one in which you feel rewarded in everything you care about.

In spite of all the usual bustle and chaos, there was a hushed aura surrounding him, like the quiet at the center of a storm.

It’s the little things that matter the most

The peaks of life may be wonderful and the depths of our life painful. We define our relationships based not on the best days or the worst days but on the average days. Strive to be supportive in average ways on average days, and you will set in place a major building block of a relationship.

A relationship requires two equals

Relationships crumble under the weight of imbalance. Neither person can be more important. Neither people can be more involved or committed. Neither person can make all the decisions. Neither person can make all the sacrifices. In the project that is a relationship, no one gets top billing because without two equals there is no relationship.

An individual woman who could do everything and more than a man stayed in the lower-paying, less pleasant job.

The relationships of partners who characterize each other as equal in making decisions, in sacrificing for the relationship, and in performing household chores are likely to last more than twice as long as relationships in which these factors are not equal.

Beware of fairy tales

Our first concepts of relationships, love, marriage, and life happily ever after are powerfully influenced by classic stories we read and films we see. But don’t riddle yourself with expectations of a fairy tale in which the story is strictly about the search for love and the rest of life is just supposed to figure itself out.  

Cultivate a common interest

Each of us wants to be a positive part of our partner’s life and have our partner be a positive part of our life. Common interests encourage positive communication and fun, and they strengthen the sense of connection between partners.

We are in no hurry to get back to the pressure of everyday life. The world can go on without us knowing about it.  

There is no point in putting on a show

In fact, many people who are discontent are satisfied to remain where they are. They are unhappy with their relationship but have little inclination to end it. They want to remain their relationship not for the relationship but because they see the social benefits of it. They seek the presentation value to family, friends, and colleagues of being in a relationship. There is no satisfaction, no fulfillment, no point to being in a relationship that does not meet your needs.

You make your own history

We’ve all seen many divorces and countless failed relationships. Take what you can learn from the relationship mistakes and triumphs you witness, but don’t limit yourself to reliving someone else’s experience.

Maintain your sense of control

In all aspects of your life, you will feel greater sense of satisfaction and less stress if you maintain a sense of control. You have to recognize that your decision shape your life, regardless of what else might be happening around you.  

Money can’t buy love, but it can buy stress

What is the single most important part of your life? It’s not money. It never has been, and it never will be. But how many times has a disagreement about money—how to spend it, how to get it, how much is enough—gotten in the way of your enjoying time with loved ones? When we let the superficial things get in the way of the substantial, our relationship cannot possibly remain healthy. We will be disturbed if we don’t have enough money and even disappointed when we do have enough money because it will not bring us the joy and fulfillment we need. Put money in its place—behind what really matters to you.

The average people abuse money, which is the inability to control ourselves with regard to spending. It is a recurrent, often unconscious, use of money to overcome underlying issues.    

There are no mind readers

When you need support, explain the situation. The response you receive will be not only more meaningful but also more powerful. We have to say what we mean—with no underlying messages. If the emotional message is different from the content, that’s a problem.  

There is no need to hurry

The age at which people choose to marry has been rising every decade for the past hundred years. The age at which those who have children first do so has also been rising every decade for the past hundred years. People are starting these life-altering courses later and later for many reasons, including financial pressures and a desire to obtain and maintain independence. There’s no need to hurry. Relationships are not a race, and there’s no prize for finishing first.  

Friends speak from experience—their own

When we ant validation for our decisions we often turn to friends for advice and approval. But our friends can speak only from their own experience. And while in most things the words of an experienced veteran would be highly valued, in making decisions about your relationship, your friends will be speaking from their experience, not yours. Neither you nor your situation is something that your friends have experience with. Value their friendship, but understand that their advice applies primarily to themselves.

The advice that you shouldn’t allow things to change in your life just because you’re getting married was a disaster. I realized that pretty early on that to stay together, each partner must make the other number one. I realized that I could love someone as much as I love myself—and even more. And that the reward is in the caring, not in the selfishness.  

Decide whether you want to win or be happy

In truth, there are only two outcomes in relationship argument, either you both win or you both lose. Couples are not enemies. Focus not on the other person, but on the problem that stands between you.  

A sense of humor helps

A good joke can brighten any day, bringing joy to both the teller and the listener. In a relationship, a good sense of humor helps to make the average day more fun, and it lessens the burden of the bad days.  

See the friendship in your relationship

The great struggles, dilemmas, and debates in your life are likely to happen within your relationship, and by comparison your friendship looks easier or better. But if you see the friendship in your relationship, you can recognized that the difficulties are a prelude to their strength.  

The most time is not the best time

If we have found the one person in the world we want most to spend our time with, then why not spend as much time together as possible? Because relationships thrives on the quality, not the quantity, of contact. For most people, a little distance every day is necessary for their own independent interests and needs. Time apart also serves to strengthen the relationship by giving both partners a chance to feel an active need for each other and to experience the pleasure of reuniting.