Ingredients of Successful Relationships

Ingredients of Successful Relationships

Developing and maintaining successful and enduring relationships and marriages is one of the primary and most important challenges that we will face as adults. A lot of things may go right or wrong in our lives, but few are as critical to our happiness and well being than a happy relationship with a life partner.

Truly good relationships don’t just happen by accident. While it is not uncommon for new relationships to be blissful and relatively problem free, when some of the newness and excitement wears off, problems are likely to emerge if we haven’t made an effort to nurture the relationship. Having a successful relationship is not too dissimilar from any task. You have to identify the key components of the task, acquire the skills, do the needed work and then follow up to maintain the work you’ve accomplished. Below are a number of key ingredients that many marriage counselors and psychologists would agree form the basis for successful relationships. Using this list, do a brief assessment of your current relationship and identify those areas in which you and/or your partner may need to improve.

Friendship
Recent research has identified that the quality of the couple’s friendship is very important. Being each others best friend, and making that friendship an ongoing priority, can not only provide a couple with joyful companionship, but can also help them weather the storms and crises they will undoubtedly face over the years. Consider the marital friendship as the essential foundation of the relationship. Ask yourself honestly whether you treat your partner as well as you would another close friend, and if not, take steps to correct this.

Honesty and Trust
Other essential core ingredients are honesty and trust. It is very difficult to risk being vulnerable, open and communicative with our partners if we cannot be sure they will protect and honor our trust. Any behavior that undermines the trust and honesty in the relationship also undermines its potential success.

Effective Communication Skills
Effective communication is much more than just talking back and forth. It includes multiple skills such as listening closely so that you accurately receive your partner’s message, not interrupting, trying to understand your partner’s point of view even if you don’t agree with it, giving fair and supportive feedback, expressing your feelings clearly and many other skills. Couples with successful relationships have often had to learn good communication skills, as they don't always come naturally.

Time commitment
Regardless of how busy a couple is, it is always possible to carve out some time for the relationship. Couples who have difficulty doing so may need to resort to a standing marital date night and regularly scheduled time to talk.

posted by Robert Heard at 1:57 PM