The success of any relationship can be boiled down to certain tenants. Being able to work well with your partner and possessing the deep knowledge of what makes people tick is essential to creating and sustaining successful relationships.
Successful and happy relationships are made up of partners who possess a deep understanding of human emotions and their subsequent behavioral outcomes. When partners have this knowledge they unlock the secrets of being able to accurately predict the needs of themselves and their partner.
1. Supportive: For a relationship to be successful each person needs to feel a sense of support and optimism in the connection. When partnerships are supportive they are infused with hope giving each person the consistent sense that things can only get better as they continue to work together.
All people respond to hope as hope sustains motivation.
When people feel supported they can more clearly visualize the process of staying together and each becomes inspired. Therefore, it is essential the relationship be grounded in an unwavering belief in the integrity and honesty of the goals and values of love.
2. Rewarding: Each person in the relationship must see the reward involved in coming together. In successful relationships reward is based on each partner's worth and significance to the bigger picture of the love shared. There is no better reward to inspire continued motivation than to have each partner feel they shine in their own importance and contribution.
3. Cohesion: Trust is a basic need which every relationship needs. Partners must view the relationship as a collaborative effort backed by loyalty and commitment. If the relationship is in trouble and in need of support or guidance the partners trust they can come together in a way where needs and concerns can be met and realized.
Sustaining relationships are made up of people who view each other as necessary equals and show a mutual respect for each other's differences. They find ways to focus on solutions, not problems and are committed to open communication in an effort to keep things together.
4. Open: Successful relationships have partners who are consistently attuned to what is happening within and outside of the relationship, and their possible impacts on the relationship. Each person pays attention with an open mind, are able to set aside preconceived notions about their partner and strive to see each other for who they are and what each brings to the table.
Partners are open to understanding that constant intervention or nagging places blocks to deeper intimacy. Therefore, a certain amount of openness and personal freedom is what makes relationships go the distance.
Great relationships enjoy the element of being open to being surprised by their partner and aren't locked into things having to be fixed in any certain way.
5. Protective: Relationships that thrive give each partner the feeling of protection. The partners feel reassured they are in a relationship that will not let them fail. Each is aware that any threat to the security of their relationships undermines their love, and that any insecurity must be addressed openly so the proper changes can be moved into place. The solutions made are handled via discussion between partners and serve to benefit both people.
However, a healthy relationship does not try and protect a person from themselves. The growth of any relationship is grounded in the self-learning of each person. In this way each partner learns through experience what works and what doesn't work in light of the overall relationship. This type of freedom allows each person to grow within a safe environment, mistakes and all.
6. Challenge: Successful relationships promote competition, reward and achievement. Relationships that are competitive crave more and more challenge to grow and to learn. This type of competition brings an element of fun and comradery into the relationship.
The motivation of the relationship is the desire of each person to keep proving themselves and their significance. As the relationship thrives through up's and downs it becomes stronger. Like a palm tree the more a relationship is forced to bend and flex the stronger it becomes from within. Relationships that thrive can weather every storm and come out even more successful.
7. Catalyst: Exceptional relationships act as a catalyst for each person to grow and succeed. It provides the space for each partner to generate their own innovative ideas about life and love. Whenever a relationship suppresses the creative energy of one or both partners and becomes rigid, it kills the spirit of connection and continued growth.
This is why it is said that rigid structures collapse first. Wherever there is individuality, there must flexibility.
Each partner must adapt and be able to work through issues with a commitment to expressing their true selves, and each must be flexible and yielding knowing that all interventions to the partnership must come from a place of clarity eventually creating harmony between partners. This is the type of relationship that supports innovation, personal expansion, invention and success.
8. Morale: It is vital for each partner to be completely in touch with the mood or emotional state of their significant other, and always seek to raise it. Exceptional relationships intention an environment of positive morale. Each person is open and honest regarding behaviors that aren't working for the relationship, including their own, if it is bringing the morale of the relationship down.
Each partner is wise to pay attention to the silence and empty spaces in the relationship because it is here that the tone of the relationship is most clearly revealed. Endless drama and short-sighted decisions cloud clear thinking and forward moving progress in any collaborative effort.
Successful relationships allow for regular time for each person to embrace silent reflection. In silence each person can see more clearly what is essential for themselves, their partner and the larger goals of the relationship.
9. Cleanse: People sharing vibrant relationships understand it only takes one toxic person to destroy the entire relationship. With forethought, good judgment and quick decision making, effective partners weed out the weak links in their relationship, whether that is certain negative behaviors either partner has personally, or if it means weeding out external people having a negative influence on the relationship.
A partnership cannot be successful when the behavior, manipulation and poor attitude of one person continues to impede the relationship and its intimacy.
10. Service: Successful relationships are based in service, not selfishness. No one person does all the work, nor is any one person seeking more recognition than the other. The collaborative effort comes directly from the efforts of each individual partner contributing to the whole. Being in the mind of service, in the helping of the other, keeps the partnership humble.
Each person keeps a watchful eye in sustaining a healthy and open minded feedback loop of communication. There are no coercive ways of pushing for things to happen by either person. Each partner allows the process of growth and innovation to unfold on its own.
In successful relationships, there is an unceasing commitment to equality, diversity and flexibility. Each person holds their own and leads by example, has a sense of personal freedom and an undying commitment to sustaining the love the relationship is grounded in. In healthy relationships, collaboration is built upon open and honest communication, direct and consistent interaction and each person is allowed the personal time to think things through. Each person understands their role in the relationship dynamic and what each must do to be successful individually and for their partner.
Sherapy Advice: A happy, intimate and successful love relationship is based in each person being fully supported, loved and respected with forethought and consideration in all decisions individually and collectively.