As anybody living in the period of discouraging separation rates knows, a glad long haul couple is practically similar to a unicorn: If by some marvel you experience it, you can't quit gazing, and you have an inclination nobody will ever trust you when you reveal to them you saw it.
Here's a totally informal rundown of 31 approaches to know you're in the correct relationship:
1. Humble yourselves.
You know you can’t hide your flaws for long, so you don’t try. You recognize that this person is going to have to take you as you are, as foolish or charitable (or both) as that may seem to make him or her. You know you’re both going to mess up endless times and have to apologize and be forgiven and forgive. You’ll wonder if one of the bigger mistakes is the one that will end it, and you’ll have to prove to one another that the relationship transcends that. You recognize that you signed up for all of this.
2. Fight.
If everything is going on just fine and no one is arguing about any thing and you agree on everything, someone’s not telling the truth.
3. Take care of your body.
You know that you won’t enjoy sharing it with someone else if you don’t like, respect, and nurture it. Your partner feels the same way.
4. Make time.
You realize that if this is it, one of you is going to be around some distant day in the future to lose the other. In that moment, you will not regret not checking your email in this one.
5. Have times when you don’t talk.
Not because you’re angry with each other but because you can be quiet together. When you find yourself with silences you don’t need to fill, when you find you can just walk along or lie about or work side by side and feel together without needing to verbally affirm that, you’ve got a good thing going.
6. Fear it.
If you’re afraid of commitment, best to work that out before you put yourself in a situation where it’s hoped you’ll eventually commit.
7. Hide anything more significant than a surprise party from each other.
That includes exes, cheating, debt, STDs, chronic illness, felonies, whether you want a marriage and/or children, genetic abnormalities (if you both want kids), a strong desire to live somewhere else, professional failures and successes, doubts about your sexual orientation, a strong preference for un-vanilla sex.
The truth will come out, and if you’re with someone you feel the need to conceal any of this from, he or she probably isn’t right.
8. Snoop.
If no one’s hiding anything, why are you looking? Going through your significant other’s email, phone, Facebook account, or journal strongly indicates that you don’t trust the person you’re with. You’re also violating his or her trust in you.
9. Hide the relationship from other people in your life.
If you’re unwilling to introduce the person you’re dating at appropriate junctures to the most important people in your life, that’s usually a bright, flapping red flag.
In general, if you have a good thing going, you can’t wait for him or her to meet your friends, siblings, parents, the guy at the deli, and you wouldn’t have any qualms about presenting this person to professional acquaintances, people you knew in college, family friends, even your ex.
10. Think you’re superior.
If you feel that your significant other is your inferior in any way you know matters to you in a mate — morally, intellectually, socially, financially or professionally — you’re never going to respect him or her as much as you hope to be respected.
The best relationships make you feel that you’ve convinced a person more exceptional than you to love you.
11. Resent the other person’s success.
Professional jealousy can be as poisonous to a relationship as constantly thinking he or she is flirting with your best friend. It also suggests that you’re spending a lot of time comparing yourself to a person you supposedly adore, rather than sitting back and marveling at how amazing he or she is. In a good relationship, you quit (or refuse to ever engage in) the one-upmanship.
12. Let any substance or behavior come before the relationship.
Any addict or over-user of a substance or behavior is cheating on you with his or her drug of choice. You deserve more.
13. Stew.
When something the other person does annoys you or turns you off, you don’t push it to the back of your mind and hope it will go away, because it won’t. You bring it up in the moment or sometime in the next 24 hours.
14. Damage property, animals, children or each other during an argument.
You think this goes without saying until you read something like this New York Times “Modern Love” and realize that human beings can rationalize staying with someone who leaves holes in their walls.
On the other hand, if you damage a vase or two in the heat of a different kind of passion, totally fine.
15. Challenge each other on personal issues in front of other people.
You know which conversations you shouldn’t be having at brunch with friends.
16. Depend on each other for things no one can or should supply.
If you’re looking to your significant other to resolve your emotional issues, make you more responsible/successful/adult, support you financially, improve your social standing, expand your group of friends, provide you with the family you never had, or make your parents finally accept you, it’s possible you shouldn’t be in a relationship at all, or at least not yet.
You know you can’t hide your flaws for long, so you don’t try. You recognize that this person is going to have to take you as you are, as foolish or charitable (or both) as that may seem to make him or her. You know you’re both going to mess up endless times and have to apologize and be forgiven and forgive. You’ll wonder if one of the bigger mistakes is the one that will end it, and you’ll have to prove to one another that the relationship transcends that. You recognize that you signed up for all of this.
2. Fight.
If everything is going on just fine and no one is arguing about any thing and you agree on everything, someone’s not telling the truth.
3. Take care of your body.
You know that you won’t enjoy sharing it with someone else if you don’t like, respect, and nurture it. Your partner feels the same way.
4. Make time.
You realize that if this is it, one of you is going to be around some distant day in the future to lose the other. In that moment, you will not regret not checking your email in this one.
Not because you’re angry with each other but because you can be quiet together. When you find yourself with silences you don’t need to fill, when you find you can just walk along or lie about or work side by side and feel together without needing to verbally affirm that, you’ve got a good thing going.
6. Fear it.
If you’re afraid of commitment, best to work that out before you put yourself in a situation where it’s hoped you’ll eventually commit.
7. Hide anything more significant than a surprise party from each other.
That includes exes, cheating, debt, STDs, chronic illness, felonies, whether you want a marriage and/or children, genetic abnormalities (if you both want kids), a strong desire to live somewhere else, professional failures and successes, doubts about your sexual orientation, a strong preference for un-vanilla sex.
The truth will come out, and if you’re with someone you feel the need to conceal any of this from, he or she probably isn’t right.
8. Snoop.
If no one’s hiding anything, why are you looking? Going through your significant other’s email, phone, Facebook account, or journal strongly indicates that you don’t trust the person you’re with. You’re also violating his or her trust in you.
9. Hide the relationship from other people in your life.
If you’re unwilling to introduce the person you’re dating at appropriate junctures to the most important people in your life, that’s usually a bright, flapping red flag.
In general, if you have a good thing going, you can’t wait for him or her to meet your friends, siblings, parents, the guy at the deli, and you wouldn’t have any qualms about presenting this person to professional acquaintances, people you knew in college, family friends, even your ex.
10. Think you’re superior.
If you feel that your significant other is your inferior in any way you know matters to you in a mate — morally, intellectually, socially, financially or professionally — you’re never going to respect him or her as much as you hope to be respected.
The best relationships make you feel that you’ve convinced a person more exceptional than you to love you.
11. Resent the other person’s success.
Professional jealousy can be as poisonous to a relationship as constantly thinking he or she is flirting with your best friend. It also suggests that you’re spending a lot of time comparing yourself to a person you supposedly adore, rather than sitting back and marveling at how amazing he or she is. In a good relationship, you quit (or refuse to ever engage in) the one-upmanship.
12. Let any substance or behavior come before the relationship.
Any addict or over-user of a substance or behavior is cheating on you with his or her drug of choice. You deserve more.
13. Stew.
When something the other person does annoys you or turns you off, you don’t push it to the back of your mind and hope it will go away, because it won’t. You bring it up in the moment or sometime in the next 24 hours.
14. Damage property, animals, children or each other during an argument.
You think this goes without saying until you read something like this New York Times “Modern Love” and realize that human beings can rationalize staying with someone who leaves holes in their walls.
On the other hand, if you damage a vase or two in the heat of a different kind of passion, totally fine.
15. Challenge each other on personal issues in front of other people.
You know which conversations you shouldn’t be having at brunch with friends.
16. Depend on each other for things no one can or should supply.
If you’re looking to your significant other to resolve your emotional issues, make you more responsible/successful/adult, support you financially, improve your social standing, expand your group of friends, provide you with the family you never had, or make your parents finally accept you, it’s possible you shouldn’t be in a relationship at all, or at least not yet.
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