7 Qualities Relationships Need to Be Successful
A long term commitment is a leap of faith. Take the leap only after careful consideration.
Easy Communication
Is your significant other easy to talk to? Are you interested in what they have to say? Do they listen to what you share with them?
If you find someone you can speak easily with, your connection will only become deeper over time.
My husband and I met on Match.com back in olden-times. 1999. This was before text messaging if you can imagine such a thing. We emailed for a while and then it was phone calls. Only then did we meet.
By the time we met for dinner and a movie, we already had a fairly good idea we were genuinely interested in each other. I wasn’t looking for a spouse at the time. A nice guy to go to the movies with occasionally was the height of my expectation.
That isn’t completely honest. A hope of reviving my sex life was in there, too. I’d been divorced a couple of years. I had two young children, a job, and an uncomfortable relationship with my ex-husband. The energy for a full-fledged relationship seemed beyond my ability.
That first dinner, in a romantic Italian restaurant, we found we had a lot to say. He was interesting and charming in a real way. Not in an “I will say whatever you want to hear” way. After dinner, we went to a bar for drinks and more conversation.
It was a great start to a relationship that, so far, has lasted twenty years. I have never gotten tired of listening to him. I like hearing about his work as a software designer. I don’t follow the math, but I love hearing him speak about something he finds interesting.
We discuss the books we read, the films we watch, and the random thoughts that go through our heads. He listens to me. I would forgive him if he didn’t listen to everything I say. I talk a lot. Days later, though, he will make a comment that proves he heard every word.
He will even talk about feelings. He is more sensitive than I can be in picking up nuances with other people. That’s not exactly it. Each of us is better at picking up different things. Then we discuss what we noticed and sometimes can get a fuller picture of a situation.
Communication is our strong suit. If you find someone you can speak easily with, your connection will only become deeper over time.
Respect
Do you respect the other person? Do you feel their respect in return?
A lack of respect leads to being treated with contempt. Eye rolling, sarcasm and put-downs have no place in a healthy relationship.
They have 90% accuracy in predicting whether a couple will divorce.
Dr. John Gottman and Robert Levenson have done groundbreaking research into martial interaction.
Gottman and Levenson discovered that couples interaction had enormous stability over time (about 80% stability in conflict discussions separated by 3 years). They also discovered that most relationship problems (69%) never get resolved but are “perpetual” problems based on personality differences between partners. The Gottman Institute
The information that came out of those studies was used to create a predictor for marital health. They have 90% accuracy in predicting whether a couple will divorce. What were they picking up in their testing? A big part of it was contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Personally, I would group all of those under the umbrella of contempt, but I’m not a psychology researcher.
Sexual Attraction
No doubt you are wondering why this is not at the top of the list. Obviously, at the start of a relationship, there is a spark of attraction. If there isn’t, why are you even bothering to analyze whether you are in it for the long haul?
Being with someone who makes your toes curl with a kiss is priceless.
Sexual attraction isn’t the most important part of living together long term. It isn’t as important as knowing how to live together without fighting over “small” things. Things like which brand of toothpaste to buy.
The answer, in case you are wondering, is to get separate brands or flavors if you each care that much.
There have been times, in the last twenty years, though no fault of his, that sex wasn’t as interesting to me. I’ve had health issues and hormonal imbalances and simple exhaustion. If all we had, or even most of what we had, holding our relationship together was sex, we would have been done by now.
That all being said, being with someone who makes your toes curl with a kiss is priceless. People now know why I wear sandals most of the year. My feet aren’t hot. My toes need room to curl.
Emotional Support
Can you allow yourself to seem vulnerable to your significant other? If life is tough and if you’ve hit an emotional wall, do you feel supported? Does he or she have your back?
I realized that after that moment I hadn’t trusted him with my emotional well being ever again.
A significant issue came up in my first marriage. Six years into it, I had a miscarriage. It was one of those long, drawn-out experiences. I tried bed rest, but it did no good. At a certain point, you know a healthy baby isn’t going to appear at the end of this journey.
After three weeks, the miscarriage finally completed. I hadn’t been far along. I wasn’t showing yet although I had started wearing loose dresses. I am sure the pregnancy didn’t feel real to my ex-husband.
His way of dealing with whatever his feelings were had been to go to a happy hour more often. About two weeks after the miscarriage, he came home to find me crying. The kids were tucked in and I was sitting alone in the dark.
As I again explained how I felt, he asked me why I wasn’t over it by now. It had been two weeks. I shut my mouth, stood up and walked into the bedroom. I never talked to him about it again.
Did he have his own feelings to deal with? Yes. Did he mean to hurt me? No, but that moment was a huge one in our marriage.
I didn’t realize how huge until I raked through the ashes of our relationship during our divorce. I realized that after that moment I hadn’t trusted him with my emotional well being ever again. Not really.
That brings us back to the first item on my list: communication. If we had discussed what he said, how it made me feel, and how he was feeling, maybe I wouldn’t have shut down so hard. Harder than I realized.
If you do not feel that you can show your soft underbelly to your romantic companion, there is a lack of trust and a lack of support. Don’t trust your future to that relationship.
Basic Compatibility
A long term relationship needs basic compatibility. If it isn’t there, why bother? If you have determined not to live together, this looks a little different but still applies. In whatever capacity you are together, to you get along? Do your wants and needs fit with each other?
I need to talk. A lot. Anyone with me needs to be able to deal with it.
My husband needs alone time. A lot. Anyone with him needs to be able to deal with it.
After honest communication, we developed a lifestyle that supported both. These are not the only basic needs we have that fit together but you get the idea.
Team Approach
If you are working at cross purposes, the relationship won’t thrive.
Do both of you take a team approach to the relationship? Are you in it together? The one relates to all the items on the list, and all the items on the list work together to make this one work.
If you are working at cross purposes, the relationship won’t thrive. You need to have each other’s backs and you need to know it.
Problem Solving
How do you solve problems together? When things come up, can you discuss and develop a plan?
Things are going to come up. Sometimes even with honest communication and respect, you will disagree. How do your work through that?
Sometimes the answer is that you will agree to disagree. Sometimes the answer will be to buy two brands of toothpaste.
Personal relationships are complex. If you think about it long enough, you will come up with other items that should have been included on this list. If you do, include it on your list.
My purpose is to inspire you to evaluate your relationship carefully. Hopefully, before making any life-changing decisions.
Some people jump into joint living arrangements and even marriage without the proper due diligence. Love is wonderful. I am an enthusiastic supporter of love.
I am a bigger supporter of healthy relationships. Having both together is the goal.
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