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Posted by
on 2007-11-17 21:32:00
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The 5 secrets to living ‘happily ever after’
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on 2007-11-17 21:32:00
Smilie _WRITES: " 1. Be flexible — or pick someone similar to you. In terms of maintaining a long-term love, one of the best predictors of longevity is how similar your morals, values, goals and ways of thinking about important issues are. Obviously the farther apart you are, the more likely there will be frequent disagreements, unless you and your partner are particularly flexible people who are good at compromising. Of course there will be still be arguments — that is a part of even the strongest relationships. But if the gap between the two of you is relatively small, your task of compromising will be less onerous.
2. Give 80 percent to your partner. Nothing solidifies love and trust like being thoughtful and giving toward your mate. If both of you are doing this, then each feels pretty satisfied and loved. Of course, there will be and should be times when you need to put yourself first — but these times should be in the minority. If you give to your mate, he or she will really enjoy giving to you. Nothing breeds love like giving love.
3. Love on balance. By this I mean that no one is perfect and you will not love everything about anyone. Unfortunately, many people think they are supposed to love everything about their partner and so when there is something they don’t like, they begin to fixate on this characteristic and even try to change it. When it comes to love, you must take the good with the bad, because in the grand scheme of the relationship, the positive should outweigh the negative.
4. Determine the source of your unhappiness. Marital dissatisfaction often has its roots in personal unhappiness (which can be related to work, level of success, health or weight, etc.). Often these personal shortcomings are blamed on the marriage. In fact, many couples that at one time chose to remain in unhappy marriages end up happy five years later — even though nothing in the marriage itself has changed. So if you feel it’s your relationship that is making you miserable, try to step back and see if it is really you.
Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21818739/
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