47 Essential Pieces Of Advice For Couples Who Want To Have A Healthy Relationship
Everything you need to know if you want your love to survive.
Getty Images A friend recently asked me for my opinion about which relationship advice is most essential, and which common tips are really just useless fluff.
When I got to thinking about it, I realized that, while tips on a wide range of topics related to love, dating and marriage are super easy to come by, that kind of just makes it a lot to sift through and absorb — especially when you're smack in the middle of dealing with a problem that needs to be solved.
That’s why I’ve chosen to distill what I believe are the most important truths I know about making relationships work here in one place.
Here are what I believe are the 47 best pieces of advice on how to have a healthy relationship:
1. Keep your pink slip both financially and emotionally.
2. Water rises to its own level.
If you want to attract the right partner, be the right partner yourself.
3. Keep your own hobbies, interests, and goals.
4. Make sure the relationship conforms to your lifestyle rather than the other way around.
5. Don’t chase after men.
6. Never settle.
7. You need physical attraction, but once you’ve got that, choose someone based on emotional compatibility.
If you pick a partner for shallow reasons, you’ll end up with a hollow relationship.
8. Don’t try to convince anyone of your worth.
Believe in it yourself, and only include people in your life who appreciate you.
9. Require — and give — respect.
10. Don’t treat the other person like a fix-it project.
11. If you’re not happy, deal with yourself first.
Don’t automatically assume the relationship is at fault or that your partner can magically fix it.
12. Your relationship can and should only supply about 25 percent of your happiness.
Trying to get any more out of it is asking too much.
13. Stay in your own lane.
Don’t compare yourself to other people’s love affairs. So much happens behind closed doors that it’s laughable to compare yourself to anyone else.
14. Acting out your jealousy is damaging for everyone involved.
15. Marriage and commitment are not a destination, they are a road.
16. Don’t convince, nag, or negotiate with a man about having a relationship with him.
Never try to talk anyone into valuing or spending time with you.
17. The white picket fence dream gets old fast if you don’t have a solid mission and purpose in your life.
18. The grass is never greener on the other side.
19. People want what they can’t have.
That’s why sharing everything all the time with anyone gets old fast.
20. Acceptance and appreciation are love glue.
21. Never, ever tolerate abuse.
22. You’re beautiful, worthy, and valuable just the way you are.
23. If you’re in a committed, monogamous relationship with someone, you can’t expect them to give up sex for an extended period of time unless you’ve both explicitly, honestly agreed to it.
Withholding intimacy of any kind is powerfully dangerous and selfish.
24. Cheating is expensive, both in energy and emotional toll.
25. Being emotionally honest does not mean brutal honesty about anything and everything.
26. Strive to be kind.
If you have to choose between kindness and brutal honesty, choose kindness.
27. Pick your battles.
28. Don’t ask someone else to compromise their family of origin for you.
29. Defend your partner to your family and friends if they deserve it.
It’s your job to make your partner feel welcome with your people and theirs to make you feel welcome in their clan.
30. Allow space so that both of you are free to cultivate and enjoy your own separate interests.
31. Learn new things together.
32. Don’t expect to have a happy relationship when you continually give the excuse that you’re too busy, exhausted, distracted or whatever to spend time with your partner.
If you want a great relationship (or any relationship at all), you’ve got to make the time for it. Otherwise, no matter how much love there is between you, it won’t work out.
33. Don’t assume the worst.
34. The more duty and obligation you heap onto a relationship, the harder it is for love to breathe.
35. Deal with your relationship fears by yourself.
If you try to make someone else reassure you, you’ll always feel insecure.
36. Before you talk about expectations, consider whether they’re reasonable and understood by others.
37. Don’t let the bastards get you down.
38. Don’t give solely for the sake of what you think you'll get.
39. Staying attractive to your partner is important.
No one wants to feel like they’re settling.
40. Sometimes no amount of effort on your part will make love last.
41. You may fall, but never stay fallen.
42. Revenge is not worth it.
One day, all anyone will have of you is a memory. Don’t make yours needlessly sour.
43. If you’re brought to your knees by something they said or did, consider whether the wound is new or brought on by past hurts and disappointments.
Having a huge reaction to something means this present hurt is likely tapped into something in the past.
44. Trying to get someone’s love or approval is a surefire way to not get it.
45. Attachment is not love.
Love is not attachment. Attachment leads to dependency and pain. Love never does.
46. All of your emotions, thoughts, and ideas come from you.
Someone else cannot EVER, make you feel anything. Take responsibility for your own emotions.
47. Defensiveness invites attack.
Elizabeth Stone is an author and relationship coach who helps people get the love they deserve. If you keep ending up in painful, dead-end relationships with men who don't appreciate you, she can help.