Last week I began describing the building blocks of a great intimate relationship and presented the first five building blocks. In this post, let me share with you the remaining fifteen.
6. Building block six: each partner demands discipline from himself and gently demands discipline from his partner. Each partner strives to work in a regular, undramatic way on his or her life purposes, with few complaints, tantrums, or excuses.
7. Building block seven: partners engage in a gentle exchanging of the truth. When there is something that must be said, even if it’s painful or embarrassing, it gets said, carefully, thoughtfully, and compassionately, but also clearly and directly.
8. Building block eight: both partners accept the limits of the human and the facts of existence. Each partner expects a lot from himself and his partner while at the same time accepting that failures of nerve and pratfalls do regularly happen.
9. Building block nine: partners strive to minimize their own unwanted qualities. Each partner will bravely look in the mirror, take a fearless personal inventory, and identify and then change those aspects of personality that harm the relationship.
10. Building block ten: each partner supports the other’s dreams and ambitions, including his or her career ambitions. If a dream can’t be supported—if, say, one dearly wants children and the other absolutely doesn’t—that reality is put on the table.
11. Building block eleven: the couple maintains a real friendship. They share stories; they share memories, they share secrets; they laugh; they walk hand-in-hand; they smile at one another; and they shake their head at each other’s hilarious antics.
12. Building block twelve: partners stay alert to their own moods and to the moods of their partner. Each partner will sometimes feel blue and despair may prove an uninvited guest in the relationship. The couple addresses sadness when it appears.
13. Building block thirteen: each partner accepts that the other may sometimes have a hard time of it. Each kirist is on his or her own rollercoaster ride, maybe caught again in a recurrent negative loop, and partners notice this—and offer assistance.
14. Building block fourteen: with luck, the couple will share values and principles. If they do, then their unit of two will prove a powerhouse. They will fight the same fights and take the same stands. If they don’t, they know to expect that a reckoning is coming.
15. Building block fifteen: each manages his or her own journey. Each partner has the job of taking responsibility for his or her own life, for setting goals and for planning, for making choices and for taking action, and for proceeding as a responsible adult.
16. Building block sixteen: each partner communicates carefully. The two speak clearly, promptly, gently, and mindfully about all those large and small matters that continually arise and that, if not addressed, fester and breed misery.
17. Building block seventeen: the partners bring artfulness to the partnership. As creative people, they have a repertoire of talents: whimsy, imagination, meticulousness, and several dozen more. They bless their relationship with these talents.
18. Building block eighteen: they promptly let go of yesterday. Partners let go of past grievances, not so as to excuse them, not so as to invite more of them, not so as to lose themselves in the relationship, but because they know the value of forgiveness.
19. Building block nineteen: partners treat each other fairly. They demonstrate fairness in everything large and small—by honoring agreements, by distributing resources equitably, and by not doing what they wouldn’t want their partner to do.
20. Building block twenty: they invest time in their relationship. Even if they find it naturally easy to relate, even if both are “low maintenance,” the two partners still know to pay real attention to this excellent thing that they have created together.
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Eric Maisel is the author of 50+ books. You can learn more about him at www.ericmaisel.com, subscribe to all of his blog posts at https://authory.com/ericmaisel, learn more about kirism here, and write him at [email protected]
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