The 4 Basic Tenets of a Good Relationship

Your relationship will be as complicated as you allow it to be.

To cultivate a good relationship, you don’t need to follow more than a few basic tenets. The key isn’t to keep a lot of rules, but to be willing to put in the effort — and practice kindness above all else.
Appreciate your partner

Appreciation sustains love.

It’s too easy to get comfortable around someone you love. It’s too easy to believe you’ve won them over for good, to take them for granted, to stop putting in that extra effort that made your relationship special in the beginning.

Appreciate your partner in the small things. Say “please” and “thank you,” even when it doesn’t seem necessary. Notice their efforts around the house. Show interest in their careers, friends, hobbies. Respect and show interest in their family.

Appreciate your partner with gestures. Hold them tight as soon as you wake up. Cook them breakfast. Do a chore without being asked to. Take initiative to make their day a little easier. Go to bed together and hold them tight one last time before going to sleep.

Always kiss goodnight.

Commit to making an effort. Commit to being appreciative.
Know when and where to argue

Just don’t argue in public. Ever.

Don’t be that couple tensely arguing at a restaurant, shout-whispering at each other, trying to hide the scene they’re causing and failing miserably.

Don’t be that couple having a blown-out fight in the street, walking kind of side-by-side, but away from one another at the same time, as you vaguely make for a common destination.

Don’t be that couple bickering and snapping at each another, dressing one another the other down with bitter, sarcastic remarks badly disguised as jokes.

Pro tip: actual jokes don’t hurt.

Knowing when and where to argue means you swallow your mean responses when out in public. It means you respect your partner and your relationship enough to put away all distractions and calmly sit down to discuss the issue when there’s only the two of you.

Knowing when and where to argue means you value solving the issue above coming up with the right come-back to whatever your partner might have let slip at a dinner party with your best friends, or to whatever you might have misinterpreted at Christmas in front of your whole family.
Be careful with the story you tell yourself

The story you tell yourself is how you fill in the blanks of what you don’t know, it’s how you interpret your partner’s words and actions, forming a narrative to help you make sense of your relationship.

When your partner is late for dinner and forgets to shoot you a text, the story you tell yourself might be that they got held up, or it might be that they’re rude, and don’t actually care about you.

The stories we tell ourselves are so powerful, there’s a whole theory in Psychology dedicated to understanding the process, it’s called Narrative Identity Theory.

As we create a narrative to connect our past, present and imagined future, we make sense of events in an attempt to give meaning to our lives.

In relationships, the story you tell yourself can either shift your mood towards negative, resentful and bitter; or towards positive, appreciative and happy.

When in doubt of what the story actually is, clear it up with your partner. What you discover may surprise you.
When you forgive, you forget

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” — Rita Mae Brown.

Nothing poisons a relationship quite like keeping score and holding grudges.

Once your partner has apologized and you have forgiven them, put it behind you and let it go. Don’t bring it back on your next argument. Don’t keep hanging on your hip like a cowboy’s loaded pistol, ready to go off should you need it at your next duel.

Bringing up issues from the past over and over again means two things: 1) you haven’t actually forgiven your partner when you said you did; 2) you value your ego over your relationship.

Of course, forgiving someone doesn’t mean you let them hurt you over and over again. But walking away from a repeat offender is different than continuously bringing up past mistakes that have nothing to do with the brand new issue at hand.

You achieve nothing productive by reming your partner of past mistakes you’ve supposedly forgiven them for.

Don’t say you forgive if you’re not willing to forget. And if the issue still bothers you, try to understand why instead of adding it to the list of grievances you have against your partner.

If you want a good relationship, you better keep that list as close to blank as you possibly can.

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Previously published on medium

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