Being in a long-term relationship is tough. Whether you have been dating for a long time, are engaged, or are married, you aren’t born knowing how to make your relationship successful.
If you are looking to improve your relationship, here are eight proven and simple tips that will empower you both to be better partners make your relationship stronger.
Simple Tips To Improve Your Relationship
1. Try to Resolve Fights, Rather than Avoid Them
Have you ever been surprised by a sudden breakup? Everything seemed like it was going well, and then everything went downhill out of nowhere. You and your significant other have never fought, so where did this come from?
Relationships aren’t about how often you fight, it’s about how you recover. Although you might think it better for the relationship to let small things go, you need to address problems head on, or they will surface when you least expect it.
2. Don’t Hold Grudges
When something hurts your feelings or bothers you, talk to your partner about it. You can’t expect them to read your mind, and if it’s something habitual, you can’t expect them to change it on their own.
Bottling up an issue will make you resent your partner. Instead, you need to address what’s bothering you head on.
3. Spend Some Time Apart
This might seem unromantic, but it’s absolutely true. As studies repeatedly show, spending time apart and keeping your hobbies separate is the secret to a healthier and happier relationship.
As strange as it may sound, the more time you spend apart, the more you learn to value the time you spend together. Nothing could be healthier for a relationship than making those moments count.
4. Learn Your Love Languages
In 1994, Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. He argues that every person speaks in a different love language, and that many relationship conflicts result from cross communication. These love languages are: gift giving, quality time, words of affirmation, physical touch, and acts of service.
Everyone has a way of expressing and receiving love, and learning the right love language will dramatically improve your communication skills.
5. Find Something to Talk About
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “When marrying you should ask yourself this question: do you believe you are going to enjoy talking with this person into your old age? Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time that you’re together will be devoted to conversation.”
Always have something going, a mutual interest, a television show, a topic to talk about. If you are running out of things to talk about, find something new to be passionate about together.
6. Listen to Each Other
Sometimes your partner just needs someone to listen to them, not someone to give them advice. Always be ready to give them your ear, and pay attention to what they’re saying.
Always try to take an active interest in their day, ask them about work, how they feel, what their plans are, and genuinely listen and remember what they tell you.
7. Making Love Frequently Will Improve Your Relationship
You should be having sex frequently, and if you’re not, it can cause an extra amount of stress in your marriage. However, if you are waiting for sex to spontaneously happen, it often can be difficult to get into the mood, which is why many relationship experts actually recommend scheduling sex.
As unromantic as it sounds, setting a specific time will ensure that you don’t get so caught up in the stress of work and family that you ignore each other’s basic needs. Scheduling romance sessions will help you mitigate this stress, and reap the health benefits of a regular sex pattern. Regular, rather than spontaneous sex, will help achieve hormone balance, making it easy for everyone to get in the mood.
[Read also: Simple Ways To Make A Good Impression On A First Date]
8. Remember Things Can’t Always be Equal
The majority of fights in a relationship are about money.
It’s important to treat your marriage like a single enterprise, rather than separate enterprises. Although getting a joint bank account isn’t always economically ideal, you have to treat your expenses as shared expenses.
A five dollar bill is the same amount of money as any other five dollar bill, no matter who earned it. If you earn more than your partner, understand that they work just as many hours as you and can’t always match what you earn. When budgeting, try not to think about “your money” versus “their money,” but about how you are going to use what you’ve earned together to cover your shared expenses.
