10 Rules of Keeping a Happy Relationships

Love is true, but yet, it is fickle. Long lasting love has to evolve and grow over the years, and at times it takes a few unique measures too.

Like everything else, successful love too is based on a few rules. To get the best from a relationship, we need to understand the rules surrounding it. It is one thing to get attracted to someone, and another to love the person but the most important thing is sustaining it. Here are a few tips to help you keep your relationship fresh and happy

1.  Be best friends. Love is important but can fade away while friendship lasts forever. l have seen love fade away in relationships and things never got back to being the same.
l have also seen best friends disagree, fight and come back to being friends again. Apply that friendship to your relationship and your relationship will last long.
2. Communication. Spend time with each other because that’s the only way you can know each other better. In its absence, people drift apart and all of a sudden become strangers to each other. If you don’t like or understand something your partner is doing, talk about it and find out why he/she is doing it. Don’t just assume because you could be wrong. Try as much as possible to talk issues through.
3. Setting your pride aside. Sometimes you will have to put your pride to the side, go against what you really want for once in the relationship and agree to disagree (this also goes with compromise). If your partner is really observing, he’ll remember this and love you more for it.
4. Trying new things. There really isn’t a nice way to say that after being in a long term relationship for so long things tend to get pretty boring. So its’ a constant struggle to try new things whether it be new ideas for dates or spicy ideas for sex everything counts and it all works in your favor in creating a fun relationship.
5. Respect. Respect needs to be number one on everyone’s list of ways to maintain a healthy relationship because if you don’t have respect you have absolutely nothing. Once the respect in a relationship is lost, your partner has the freedom to disrespect you in any and every kind of way.
6. Compromise. Relationships are a two way street. It’s all about giving and receiving. You give a little of something once, they receive it and vice versa. You can’t just expect gifts if you never give them yourself, as with respect, you can’t receive respect if you don’t give it.
7. Space. This is one of the most important factors in maintaining a healthy relationship and quite frankly I’m a little jealous I didn’t think of it. Couples tend to forget more often than not that we are still human beings, and everybody needs their space sometimes, and I for one can most definitely.
8. Learn how to manage your differences. Disagreements/conflicts shouldn’t end a relationship but strengthen it. Learn how to handle anger, jealousy and other negative feelings that are unavoidable because of the differences between two people.
9. Anger is a waste of time. Anger is also a relationship killer, because it makes you self-absorbed and won't allow you to see the good. If you are annoyed with your mate, give yourself some time to calm down and then gently discuss what's going on for you.

10. Be willing to apologize when wrong. Anyone can make a mistake but the willingness to make up after an argument is important in every happy relationship.