Coughing or Cuffing Season? 5 Tips To Keep Your Relationship Strong
You need to keep your relationship strong during these dark and troubled times. Who knows how long this will last and your relationship may become strained as a result.
I know how hard it is to commit to a long-distance relationship but in this case, you may not have a choice.
1. Communication is Key
Love isn’t all you need to make a relationship work, let alone keep it strong. One of the things that destroy a relationship is a lack of communication.
This means, accurately communicating your feelings to one another, despite the fact you may hurt the person’s feelings.
For example, when I was in a long-distance relationship, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of attention my significant other needed. I mean, she wanted to facetime me every single day. At least, that’s what it felt like.
Clearly, I didn’t communicate my feeling well enough. Don’t be like me. During this quarantine, you’ll have little to no opportunity to see your partner unless you live together.
You should have a constant line of communication, set a block of time for when you both are completely free, just to talk. It’s imperative that you stay in contact with one another.
And let’s face it, you don’t have shit else to do. Aside from communicating just because you can’t see each other, you need to be able to communicate your feelings and thoughts as well.
This includes things you wouldn’t say to most people. If you want to keep your relationship strong then you need to communicate.
2. Respecting Boundaries
Now that your line of communication is open, you also need to respect each other’s boundaries. As I stated earlier, I felt bombarded by my previous relationship and failed to communicate the boundaries I needed.
When you set these boundaries, they need to be respected. For example, now, when I feel as though someone is bombarding me, I simply tell them that I need alone time.
You need to find what boundaries you both want to set for each other. That doesn’t have to mean that you value alone time, but it could also apply to the bedroom or even your financials.
Regardless, the point is that in order to keep your relationship strong, you should be able to respect each other’s boundaries.
Find out what those are and respect them. It’s not that hard.
3. Honesty is the Best Policy
Honesty is crucial in order to keep your relationship strong. Nobody likes a liar, although they can be good at it and quite charming.
However, you need to be honest with each other because otherwise, you won’t be able to fix whatever problem you are having. Often enough, you might not even be lying to each other, but to yourself.
Being honest can be a tough task, I must admit, but your relationship will be all the better if you are. I recommend being honest with why you love each other to start out or why you really like each other.
Start with the simple things first, then gradually become more honest with each other. If her cooking is terrible, tell her that she needs to work on it. There’s a difference between being honest and brutally honest.
Honesty will keep your relationship strong, but it’s also a two-way street. One person can’t be the only one in the relationship that is being honest.
I know it’s tough, but if you want what you have to survive, you’ll have to do better. And you can’t get any better than being honest with each other.
4. Be Supportive
Nothing, and I repeat nothing is worse than a negative response to something you’re passionate about. I know I said that you should be honest with each other and you can do that, while still being supportive.
However, you need to be in support of something that’s actually realistic. For example, let’s say your significant other wants to be a singer, but they are just flat out god awful.
You can’t just say that to her, but you can guide her in the right direction. Tell her to work on her voice or take lessons before she posts a youtube video that will bring utter disappointment and ridicule.
Now, being supportive of each other is highly important because you want your goals recognized. Sometimes when we have unrealistic expectations and having someone who is supportive, yet realistic, can help you achieve those goals.
Even if it means being supportive of buying a pet, it will keep your relationship strong. We all know what keeps a house standing right? A strong foundation and it’s support beams.
I can’t make any particular promises, but I can definitely assure you that being supportive of your significant other will keep your relationship strong.
5. Trust
The term, “trust no one” is sometimes applicable, but not in this case. There’s a reason why spouses can’t testify against each other in court. Being in a relationship can never work unless there’s a strong sense of trust.
Trust means that when you are separated from each other for an extended amount of time, like in quarantine, you have no fear of the other cheating.
This also means that you don’t have an overwhelming need to hack into your significant others social media and check the DMs.
Yes, that actually happened to me. The trust was lacking so bad that she once thought I was having an affair with one of my friends who just happened to be a girl.
Mind you, this friend of mine was not attractive to me at all and actually looked like a turtle. Trust is a valuable, intangible virtue that must be earned and respected.
And once that trust is broken, it completely lost forever. Keep in mind that trust is the main component to keep your relationship strong.
