15 Tiny Reasons Your Relationship Will Last While Others Fall Apart
Lasting love is in the little daily details.
Dean Drobot | Canva The most successful couples possess two “secret weapons” that protect instead of destroying their marriages.
- One partner has the skills to quickly identify a potential derailment and possesses solution-creating skills.
- One partner has peacemaking skills that work in even the most stressful argumentative environments, even when a solution is a long-term one.
Sometimes in the most skilled couples, they both have all these skills and use them with ease. Some happy, loving couples include only one spouse with these skills. The great news is even if your partner has no interest in learning, you can be the one who keeps your marriage on track and creates all the joy, love, passion, and peace.
Here are 15 tiny reasons your relationship will last while others fall apart
1. You calm yourself before speaking every time
Whether you’re a fan of yoga breathing or counting to 10 to avoid exploding, you must resist the urgent desire to “get it out” because that begins the conversation as war, not peace. Each time you calm yourself before speaking you can congratulate yourself for adding to your lifespan and your partner’s, as well as being a great example for family and friends. But remember you can’t “put frosting on a brick and call it a cake”; you have to learn how to calm yourself to create a true loving relationship.
The fastest way to self-soothe is breathing and this saved my life in a terrible car accident:
- Inhale with both nostrils
- Hold your breath to the count of 3
- Form your mouth into an “O” and slowly exhale to the count of three.
- You are calm before sending any text or email to your partner
Once you have a habit of self-soothing before speaking, level up and avoid all communication until you’re rational and peaceful and you move forward avoiding painful pushback.
2. You calm yourself before sending any text or email to your partner
Once you have a habit of self-soothing before speaking, level up and avoid all communication until
you’re rational and peaceful and you move forward avoiding painful pushback.
3. You practice compassion and empathy considering your partner’s needs, not just your own
When you became a couple, it was because you regularly get enough of one another’s needs. The key to any resilient, joyous, long-term relationship is that you continue to meet those needs, and when needs change; you each use empathy to adjust accordingly.
4. Your chosen words are motivating and inspiring
In business, motivating a client or customer is a learned skill but few spouses consciously motivate their partner the same way. As you practice with small issues you’ll become able to do it about the biggest things you face in the future.
Here are a few suggestions of what you want to avoid:
Example 1: Telling your partner the following will usually create a bigger problem than you already have so please avoid these:
- “We need to ……”
- “I have to……”
- ‘You better”
If you believe that you have an agreement that your partner willingly and happily agreed to follow, then you still need to avoid:
- “You promised you would”
- “How many times have we been over this!”
- “Not again!”
- Your brain is focused on finding solutions and how to arrive at them.
How often does a spouse get stuck in the complaining mode instead of moving forward on how to fix a problem?
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Example 1: “Honey, I’m really in the mood for Indian food tonight, would you like that, too?” Then you listen because you care.
If your partner doesn’t want to have that cuisine, doesn’t want to go out, or has a different idea you silently consider where your desire intersects with your partner’s preference.
You might say,
- “Since you want Thai and I want Indian how about using the delivery service that provides take-out from different restaurants in one delivery?
- “How about having Indian or Thai tonight and over the weekend, go to the other restaurant so we both get our favorites this week?"
Why does this work? Because this spouse gets a reputation as easy-going and a problem-solver.
5. You remind yourself daily why you love your partner, which makes it easy to resist gossiping
Instead of the trap of complaining that has destroyed millions of relationships, you break that habit and focus on the things for which you feel grateful. Every marriage has downs mixed with ups so you need to regularly appreciate your spouse to encourage the behaviors you love instead of the other things they may do. But remember, if you’re feeling furious you have to deal with that first instead of pretending you’re in love.
6. You remember to say “please” and “thank you” like you learned in kindergarten
Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D., founder of Nonviolent Communication® once asked 500 clients if they were kinder to their children or their neighbors and 498 admitted their neighbors received better treatment.
7. You avoid agreeing if you don’t mean it
Pretense is easy with strangers but nearly impossible in marriage because over time pretending builds resentment. Instead of giving in and giving up, learn to motivate your partner to a solution that works for both of you.
The key to feeling peaceful and powerful is using skills to persuade others rather than trying to force them. Always begin by discussing what the other person enjoys that is relevant to the conversation:
You say, empathetically, “Honey, I know that your favorite time for intimacy is early in the morning, right?”
Your spouse replies- “Yeah; always has been, always will be!”
“I know it makes you happy to make love most mornings, yes?”
“Yes, it does, and I’d like some cooperation instead of arm-twisting!”
Here is the moment you see resentment has been building for a long time so you give more empathy: “I know that you have felt very disappointed that while we both love making love to one another; I’m a nighttime person and you’re a morning person.”
Your partner continues complaining and the sooner you shift your vibe to be fully present and shift from resistant energy to agreeing with the conversation; different from agreeing to a morning schedule every day. Your partner will begin to relax, and you will be on the verge of a solution. Then you can say,
“I have a thought about how to make this work for you more of the time, would you like to hear it?”
If your partner is angry or had many arguments about this, you’ll have to be sweet and empathetic for much longer before suggesting a solution. Eventually, you’ll calm your partner, and the opening will appear in which you can express your idea.
“What do you think about my going to sleep earlier on some nights so that the next morning I’m well-rested at 5 a.m. or 6?” In this way you avoid suffering from exhaustion; you avoid fighting and worse, and you practice demonstrating to your partner how cooperative solutions are created.
8. You avoid arguing 100% of the time
If a topic is important to you, you work out the solution together that works for both of you. No, it's not always going to be simple, but you will avoid the arguments that don't matter. If it’s not important to you, let go of petty grievances the day they happen to avoid putting “the hand brake” on in your marriage.
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9. You avoid using the words, “always!” or “never!”
You know how soon you’ll have to eat those words. Instead, you consider your and your partner's needs and take enough time to clarify your point of view and your partner’s so that finding a solution that works for both of you becomes easy.
10. You learn skills to become a happier more peaceful person
The more you self-soothe and calm your partner when needed, the happier and more peaceful your relationship becomes. Little by little this will be your go-to way of life.
11. You learn to create mutual agreements
This is the key to lifelong marriage and monogamy. It’s also the secret to most marriages where spouses say they are happy. When asked if their partner is also happy husbands and wives who can generate cooperative co-created agreements almost always said, “Yes, my spouse is happy and so am I”.
12. You avoid keeping score of how wonderful you are compared to your partner
The more you express gratitude to your partner for how your life is enhanced by your relationship, the more the relationship blossoms. However, the opposite can destroy a partnership in days.
13. You avoid threatening your spouse with the “D word”
The word divorce creates fear and anger in the minds of many spouses even if they know that it’s an idle threat. It’s best to eliminate it from your vocabulary.
14. You never go to bed holding resentments
When a spouse harbors resentment at night, they suffer much more by losing sleep than their spouse. When you have learned “Brain-breathing”, you no longer hold onto fear, anger, and sadness; you begin to solve problems quickly.
When mothers used to tell their daughters “Never go to sleep angry” that was a lovely idea but they didn’t tell us how to do it; here is the #1 Cooperation Key for you. Most agreements go sideways when a particular behavior is forced or demanded without giving your spouse a chance to talk it through and amend the agreement to meet both needs.
Some partners want to make their spouses happy and will say almost anything at the moment even if they later realize it isn’t a real offer, a promise, or an agreement.
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Our job is to be sure that they want to do this; that they intend to do this and that they feel safe enough to come back and talk to us if they have a problem.
You may consider this; the best employees and executives take a job without expecting to get ill and miss work. We give them leeway to alert us, if possible, and make up the work when there is an unexpected crisis. If you and your partner treat each other with the same consideration, respect, and empathy used at an office, your relationship has a high probability of lasting for a long time! Please remember to pay attention to your tone of voice as well as your words so you create love and peace every day.
Susan Allan is a Life Coach whose Evolution Revolution Trainings offer proven tools to experience joy, and happiness and let go of suffering.