You Can Still Save Your Relationship By Doing These 5 Things

Being in a relationship (intimate one, of course) is a lot more than just connecting with someone. People always think they’re doing good in their relationships if they still connect with their partners. We all do, sometimes. But doing good at all goes a long way. Way longer than a mere connection.

What’s a connection without friendship? Or love? Or a reciprocation of a feeling? Because we’ve seen people that connected but didn’t love each other. Maybe one did, and the other just wasn’t interested?

Better yet, what if the connection is weak? Inconsistent, maybe? Without mutual emotional involvement?

Everyone will have a different point of view as to what a good relationship is or should be. And they’ll all have a thing or two they expect from their partners. But even though we’re all not the same, there are always a few things we look for or so much as the value in a relationship.

They might not always be the same (because, well…tastes and preferences problems), but all people in relationships or those that think of being in one will agree they are doing good in a relationship if they had most or all of these things.

From a literal viewpoint, I love to assume that LOVE is existent in a relationship. Because, why would one be in one if not for love? So, apart from love, what’s that other thing that keeps you going in a relationship? For the biggest number, male or female, these are almost obvious;

Your Relationship Will Not Survive Without These 5 Things

1. Trust

The most percentage of people in love, and would-be lovers, including the non-lovers, can vouch for me on this one. It almost goes without saying, the most obvious thing almost everyone will say they’d love to have in a partner or even a friend is trust.

You know how you do or intend to do something you know your partner won’t take really well, but they let you do it anyway because they trust you’ll make the right decisions and do what’s right?  Or when they are not afraid of you taking the driver’s seat, confident you’ll bring them home safe?

They do not doubt or question your ability. They believe in you, and they are not afraid of you taking control. I can’t say it’s that simple. But love and relationships are a reflection of trust. Love exists because trust does, and will cease to do so when trust dies, gradually. Maybe even instantly.

When I first fell in love, I thought it was all roses and butterflies in my stomach until that very feeling made me feel sick. I realized that trust is one thing that will always suffer the downs of every relationship, no matter how perfect it looked on the outside. And that once it’s disrupted, it’s hardly fixable.

Whether it’s from arguments, or personal issues or external factors, keeping trust intact should be a goal for all people in relationships. Without it, there is no ‘us’- in most cases. And if you think about it, in any kind of abuse, trust is and will always be the second victim, next to the abused.

Abused trust brings doubt and uncertainty in a relationship. Even though it can be rebuilt once broken, some things don’t always come back the same.

Personally, I’d say it’s the most fragile and yet purest feeling in a relationship. Letting someone in on what makes you weak or vulnerable, or your fears, and being content that they’ll not use your weaknesses to their own merit is a serious risk. But on the plus side, it shows how courageous one is.

Only the brave trust or learn to trust again. Trust will always make you feel safe, that no matter what or how someone’s got your back. Who in the world wouldn’t want that?

2. Compassion

What is that feeling when you’re equally wounded because your partner is? You cry because they cry. You’re happy when they are. You share each of their feelings as though they were your own. It’s compassion. You’re deeply aware of whatever they’re going through and you want to share it. Whether it’s good, bad or ugly.

Compassion is about being selfless. Going an extra mile for the person you love. Jumping the smallest of puddles and largest of whirlpools for them. It is making everything about them. For you, it is no longer about I, it is him/her.

Being compassionate is taking your partner’s troubles and happiness, and making them your own. It is having faith that you can count on each other for anything and everything. It is understanding what or how it feels to be someone but yourself. It is care…only it’s a few letters longer.

3. Respect

Respect in a relationship is not just about treating your partner in a better or acceptable way. It goes farther than words could ever explain. People often mistake respect for fear and the reverse. But there’s a thin line that differentiates the two.

For example, respect for some is being ‘obedient’. Always doing as instructed– doesn’t mean we should break the rules, no — or being afraid of doing otherwise than instructed. Maybe, even being the person they want us to be without caring what we think. But that’s just fear disguised as respect.

Respect in a relationship is understanding one’s viewpoint and regarding it with esteem even when you don’t share it. It is knowing that your partner has a different perspective of things from yours, and you’re fine with that.

It is also sharing and listening to each other’s opinions no matter how eccentric they might be. Respect is not judging each other based on thoughts, words, or actions.

Losing respect for your loved one is almost as tragic as losing that part of us that makes us human. You’ll no longer see the purpose in them, no matter what they do. You don’t value them like when you respected them. You literally just lose the sense of reasoning.

You take their mistakes for intended pain, their reasons as excuses, and might as well start to find faults in whatever they do. But having differences in a relationship is as normal as anything can be.

What is more important is embracing your differences and treating them as though they were similarities. Also, saying you respect them and acting like you say you do.

4. Patience

Just like respect, patience also needs a lot of action than just mere words. Being tolerant with each other and with things requires hope, belief and empathy. Hope because what would be the purpose of waiting if we are not expectant or hopeful that things will turn out perfectly fine. Or that something will change for the better?

Belief, because, we can never lose faith if we’re waiting on something to happen or be. We keep believing that it shall come and that it’d be even much better than we’d hoped for.

Empathy, because, patience, is like a test of how best one can deal with incompetence, of any kind. Maybe of your partner. But what if they are not that proficient? We can’t afford to lose them because we failed to wait on something they had to change or something that had to happen but didn’t, can we?

Being empathetic means you’ll look at things from their viewpoint. It means you’ll stop and try to be them. Ask yourself what it would feel like to be them and how you could handle things if you were them.

If you ever find hardships being or trying to be them, hold tighter on patience. And learn to be tolerant. Because in some way, being patient in a relationship means we learn that things will not always go as planned, but we keep living, loving and hoping.

5. Honesty and Integrity

I chose to put these together not because they almost mean the same thing, but because they complement each other. There’s no honesty where there is no integrity.

A relationship built on a foundation of lies is no different from one with pretence and no open-mindedness. Where are the morals in it?

Needing an honest relationship means we are ready to be truthful and be real, not only to those we love but to ourselves too. Be the person that we are and let our partners love us for that.

“Transformation is my favourite game and in my experience, anger and frustration are the results of not being authentic somewhere in your life, or with someone in your life. Being fake…” – Jason Mraz

So, to be honest, I would say, all else considered, these are like the core values in a relationship. But like I said, we all are different, they won’t be the same. They can’t be. Someone somewhere values something that I don’t and that is fine, or maybe something I did not write here. It’s that difficult to know everything everyone wants.

But if you asked me, being in love is only but a commitment. A sacrifice one should be ready to make once they decide to love and to be loved. Everything else will come naturally if we keep in mind what things we are committed to, our values and what matters the most to us and those we love.

As a matter of fact, we can not be or have everything in a relationship. Somehow, it always lacks. But for the person that we love, we don’t even have to be perfect for them. And no matter how bad or how much we fail at things, nothing is non-fixable when it comes to them. Honestly, I’m saying that figuratively, things can go really bad.

Speaking of commitments, one more thing…

“Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who will give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you are in the wrong house, that is what it means.” – Henny Youngman

When I first read that, I laughed at how it sounded. It wasn’t after I read it for a second time that I realized, that love, is an ALL OR NOTHING commitment. There is no such thing as a little this or a little that about love. We give everything we’ve got or give nothing at all.

We go all-in. Because no one will settle for less. What’s even more, is that we give, expecting nothing. Nothing at all in return. Because love only gets better.

 

Interesting read: 7 Signs You’re In A Toxic Relationship