First up, there is no perfect relationship. You’re not perfect. Your girlfriend or wife or anyone isn’t going to be perfect. There will be mistakes and misunderstandings. What really matters in a relationship is not being perfect, but how you handle the imperfections of yourself and your spouse in a respectful, reasonable way.
Don’t
Don’t lose yourself as an individual in a relationship.
Don’t expect the other person to be able to read your mind.
Don’t be afraid to lose a relationship, people fall in love again, and often we learn and mature and it’s better than a heart broken past you could ever imagine.
You’re attracted to someone for their positive traits. You love someone when you can live with their negative traits.
When you disagree, remember that you’re on the same team. You’re supposed to fight a problem, not the other person.
In a perfect ideal relationship
In a perfect ideal relationship the contributions are 40%-60% where both partners are the one trying to give 60%.
Before you yell at him/her for something (anything) ask yourself if you would yell at your friend for the same thing.
Get Bored Together
Learning how to be bored together is important. You don’t have to be on the go, doing stuff and planning stuff and being fun and exciting all the time. It’s okay to just sit around and not do anything and not talk to each other. It’s not unhealthy. Its life.
Relationships Are
Relationships are work – they aren’t always fun, you won’t always be madly in love, and you can’t put them on a shelf and ignore them.
Always put your relationship with your partner above other relationships.
Relationships are hard and never perfect and take a lot of work. Go into them understanding that Build the habit of communicating everything. Even the little things, communicate.
Make sure you have the same long term goals. And check in with them every once in awhile to make sure you and your partner have similar goals
Learn how to be independent from each other. You both need your own spaces, activities and even friends that are separate from each other. That individual time is so important
Love is a choice.
Love is a choice. Every day you’re choosing to love someone. Pretending you’re perfect for each other and “meant to be” is naive and will lead to problems in the future
You have to allow the other person to be themselves completely, without judgment.
Don’t be afraid to lose a relationship, people fall in love again, and often we learn and mature and it’s better than a heart broken past you could ever imagine.
Learn how to be happy with yourself outside of a relationship.
Don’t take advice from the internet, what worked for a couple might not for someone else.
No matter what, you will always be two different people. Your wants and needs will always be different, even if only a bit but also sometimes a lot.
When you have an argument, don’t view it as me vs. you, view it as us vs. our problem(s). Make sure you approach whatever issues you’re having as a team, and don’t try and beat the other person at an argument.
Listen to understand, not to just reply. Very often people are just waiting for their turn to talk, rather than actually hearing what the other person is saying.
Learn how to be happy with yourself outside of a relationship.