6 Essentials for a Happy Love Relationship

There is nothing like a truly happy love relationship! This level of relationship isn’t reserved for the lucky or the favored. Happy relationships have certain things in common. If you know what they are, you can find or create happiness in your love relationship. Here are the 6 Essentials for a Happy Love Relationship.

Everyday Zen

Happy love relationships have peaceful exchanges all day long. It’s never anything major. It’s a way of talking and being with your partner that is balancing, calming and fulfilling. Rather than confrontation being the daily mode, partners in happy relationships flow in the same direction. When you see them, you can feel their unity, their balance, and their way of quietly supporting one another. There is no drama. There is only a zen-like connection and expression displayed on an everyday basis.

Happy Housemates

It takes more than love to make and keep a happy relationship. You must be able to run a household together as a unit. Conflicts over household duties can create animosity that can go on for weeks, months and even years.

When it comes to being house mates, you must honor your word and honor the contributions of your partner. Ensure clarity in your roles and your schedule for cleaning, cooking, taking out the garbage, and things that need to be done with your children. Being a good housemate eliminates turmoil and allows for more reasons to feel happy emotions about one another.

Real Romance

Movies and television have brainwashed us into believing that the jewelry, expensive electronics, and other gifts can inspire and maintain romance. However, we often confuse happiness for receiving the gift with experiencing the true feelings of romance. True romance has a lot less to do with gifts and has a lot more to do with creating the circumstances where real emotions of love can be expressed.

When you speak to you partner, look in their eyes. Make sure they know you are listening. When together on the street or at home on the couch, hold hands, be close, and give each other small kisses daily. Greet one another at the door when you first come home, and spend your first minutes of being home just being with them. Be fully present during your intimate moments, and never stop saying “I Love You” on a daily basis. Rather than giving the symbols of love, express love itself. When you and your partner share the emotions of true love, you are engaging in real romance.

Financial Predictability

Disputes over money top the list of reasons for divorce and relationships ending. However, money itself is not the issue. Problems normally occur with lack of responsibility and good communication.

Every month, you should know where the money you need to pay the rent or mortgage, and the other important bills is coming from. Know your financial priorities as a couple, and know what your wants are verses your needs. If you want to make a purchase that is out of the ordinary, discuss it with your partner. In that way, your partner can act as a check against your financial priorities, and you are including your partner in your plans. Decide together to live below your means so you have money to save and invest. Take on the attitude that taking responsibility for your finances is also taking responsibility for one another and your family.

Spiritual Consistency

All religions and spiritual traditions have very common messages. However, we tend to focus on the differences that define one system from another. Focusing on these differences can create reasons to fight, even when both individuals are making the same exact points. Even partners within the same religion or spiritual practice can experience differences in interpretation, belief, and intensity.

Happy relationships find ways to focus on the similarities and not the differences. They understand that the method by which they find spiritual connection is not as important as the fact that they connect spiritually. Discussions about the beliefs and holidays to raise the children with are open minded, and open hearted. Exchanges are peaceful and respectful, and life is lived with the common values found in most religious and spiritual practices. Relationship happiness is found through these values, while turmoil is found focusing the names, dates, and locations that define these practices.

Agreeable Disagreements

Every couple has disagreements. Those disagreements should be expressed and discussed. A resolution should be reached, and live should go on. What typically happens though, is that a discussion turns into an argument. Tempers flare, voices get louder, and the people in the argument stop listening to each other. If things further degrade, name calling, screaming, and bringing up of the past can begin.

Couples that are truly happy do not make disagreements personal. They start from the perspective of understanding their partner and then working together to find common ground. Name calling and anything else disrespectful doesn’t enter the picture. Discuss disagreements with respect, and without yelling. Express your point of view with sensitivity and without verbal bullying. Discuss the issue without bringing up the past or other non-related topics.

^{* By: James LeGrand}