I was always very serious when it came to relationships. This must be one of the reasons why I’ve long been in a steady relationship and got married soon.
Over the years I’ve spoken to many people about relationships and am always interested in different takes on what makes a good marriage, and what some of typical behaviors and traits are that keep a marriage strong. There are many different ways, but I’ve distilled a couple that work very well for us
- communication and collaboration
- pro-actively sharing your thoughts, worries and reasoning
- empathically listening and supporting mentally
- consider efforts to be back-and-forth 100% effort instead of expecting everything 50/50: indicate your energy levels and allow the other to take over initiative
- individual development
- create space for both to develop individually: process trauma’s and insecurities and learn how to wield your strengths and recognise the corresponding pitfalls
- prioritise the discussion these developments together and find ways of facilitating further developments with concrete pragmatic changes
- aligned life goals
- no matter how good you communicate or develop personally, if your overall common life goals don’t align, staying committed is hard
back-and-forth 100
giving and taking is not 50/50, but more like alternating 100% based on the balance between each others energy levels
What we do is we quantify where we are. So if Steve comes home and he’ll be like I got 20. ‘In terms of energies.’ Just energy, investment, kindness, patience…I’m at 20 and I’ll be like, I’ll cover you
Marriage is not something that’s 50/50. A partnership works when you can carry their 20 or they can carry your 20 and that when you both just have 20 you have a plan where you don’t hurt each other.
- Brene Brown
individual development
A bit short sighted quote that struck me:
I believe that ultimately all marriages live or die by the way both partners deal with the other’s occasional need to be alone.
- Keith McNally
I would interpret being alone more as spending time apart from each other
aligned life goals
- having kids, moving abroad, life style, careers