I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what leads to true bliss and happiness in relationships. What the magical combination of ingredients is that leads to true everlasting love.

Now I realize that many people will say that there is no such thing as everlasting love, but I’m going to adamantly disagree with the sentiment upfront and disclose that I am your typical romantic. I fully believe we can fall head-over-heels in love at first sight and make it last a life time. I believe in high school sweet hearts. I believe in all the mushy gushy lovey dovey movie stuff. Feel free to judge.. because honestly, in the world of Tinder and Thrinder (is that how it’s spelled?) – it just keeps getting harder and harder to believe it. But for now, I’m not a love skeptic.

I think one of the most important things in a relationship is to have an attitude of gratitude. Be thankful for all the wonderful, lovely amazing things that your significant other does for you – and encourage the same in return. Thank you for picking me up from xyz, thank you for being there for me, thank you for listening, etc etc. Yes, all of these seemingly simple things are part of your normal healthy relationship, but expressing gratitude for those things.. just encourages more of them.

Secondly, and more importantly- don’t apologize all the time. Yes, sometimes we make mistakes, but other times the things we say “sorry” for were actually intentional actions. Sorry is a word that quickly loses its value when it’s overused. This goes for all your relationships! I used to be the constant apologizer “Sorry for canceling tonight, something came up” .. no I just want to sit home and not see anyone and I really shouldn’t have to apologize for that.

Part of not apologizing for our possibly awkward but still intentional actions is being ourselves. Every relationship is just a pre-qualification test for marriage (or whatever your long-term commitment variation of marriage might be) and the truth is that if you’re going to potentially spend 60+ years with someone, you might as well know that they can’t handle being social all the time, or that they leave their socks on the floor for 3 days. Don’t fake it until there’s a ring on it… or make excuses for your significant other if they have behaviors you can’t handle.

Be wholly unapologetically yourself!

Lastly, someone said something to me that really clicked home. Happiness is a moving target. What makes you happy when you’re 18 will be different than what makes you happy at 25 and 30 and 45 and so on. You will change. Your significant other will change and in order to stay happy in your relationship, you have to be able to effectively communicate those internal changes. And you have to accept whatever internal changes your significant other will go through during your lives together.. there will be many and you have to be prepared to deal with every single one of them. Or be subjected to a lifetime of arguing which is well.. miserable. I have many things to say to those people that think consistent arguing is a ‘normal’ part of a relationship.

The largest part of ALL of this is being happy with yourself and accepting all the internal changes that come your way. Spread the love people! Even Facebook has started encouraging it!

XOXO