I am happily married and in a fulfilling relationship with my husband. We have been together for 11 and half years so far, with minimal arguments or disruptions. As international students we first met each other in Australia where is very far from both of our homelands. (My husband coming from Czech Republic and I being from South Korea) It has been a very fascinating and worthwhile journey as our cultural back grounds are extremely different. There were immeasurable differences we had to overcome and we will need to deal with countless difficulties in the future, but I can proudly say we have built a very strong and stable relationship despite of all the differences and difficulties we had to go through. So I would like to share the 10 tips which helped us to keep an excellent relationship with you all. I acknowledge that these can be very personal and can be working differently with your relationship with your partner but my intention is to help you to keep a good relationship by sharing my personal experience and I hope that you will all benefit from these tips in some way.
1. Set a common goal; Everyone needs to have a goal to their life. I would like to encourage all of you to have a common goal with your partner. Having a common goal makes you to have/share common vision for your future. In other words, you are able to have more in common with each other. While you are planning and discussing about the goal together, supporting and encouraging each other to reach it, and getting closer to the goal, your relationship will become stronger and you and your partner will become closer together in the long run. It will bring you invaluable rewards when you understand each other and work together towards to the common goal. Those who do not share their goal with their partner are more likely feel lonely in the relationship. When couples work together on their common goal and they can grow closer together and guide their life to the same direction.
2. Be a competitor; Overtime, we can become too relaxed in our relationship (Can I say lazy?). You constantly need to learn from each other. When you challenge yourself to improve yourself, that in turn can encourage your partner to improve him or herself, too. My husband goes to the gym regularly and does various types of exercises such as soccer, tennis, surfing, etc... His efforts on making his life active and making himself fit make me become active and sporty as well. I exercise regularly and try to maintain a fit and healthy life style as I have learnt from my husband. His reading habits inform me that I should read more and (though it may be hard to believe) his carefulness corrects my recklessness and carelessness. I hope that I am as good an influence to him as he is to me. I believe that, in life, our partner is the closest person in our life and also the best person to learn from. Be a person who your partner wants to learn from and try to learn from him or her. Improving each other will attain you an enjoyable and respectable relationship.
3. Be a supporter; Keep away from discouraging and criticizing your partners dreams or hobbies. If he/she wants to learn new things or try to change current circumstances, listen to them carefully and try to understand the reason behind their need of changes instead of disagreeing /discouraging them immediately. You both need to be a supporter to each other. Respect each other’s needs and hobbies, and share them. Sometimes they would not meet your interest (as sometimes I cannot understand WHY he wants to do the things for WHAT) but the new things can create a new excitement to your partner which he might need desperately, then it is worth to pack away your disagreement. When you feel supported by your partner, your relationship will be far more satisfactory. Share and talk about your partner’s hobbies and interests even though they are not your cup of tea. Your partner will be very excited to talk about it in front of you and will feel so happy about having a partner who is interested in them/their life. It will also allow you to understand your partner more profoundly.
4. Avoid forcing your partner to adapt to you; We all are different but sometimes the difference can be a pain in our relationship. We intend to change the other party's behaviour to the one which you would like to see from them. But ironically your partner will want you to change that suits for him/her as well. This will cause endless conflicts and there will be no solution unless one of you is totally given up their rights. We need to accept and understand the differences between men and women, older and younger between individuals etc... Remember that no two people are the same and no one can share the exact same ideas or opinions so we all think and behave differently and independently but frequently we get the wrong idea about this and expect the other party will think and behave same way as us. Unfortunately, it is wrong. However, it does not mean you can do whatever you used to think or do other. You need to be responsible for your commitment and try to compromise both parties needs based on acceptance and understand. It will be the wise way to deal with the differences instead of trying to change the others. No one can be a winner when one of party is not happy in a relationship so do not force to change your partner. Try to compromise what you really want by compromising your needs based on your partner’s understanding.
5. Keep improving yourself; I believe that getting into a relationship and keeping it is a process not a product. The final outcome can be a successful and fulfilling relationship, and it can be achieved by endless efforts from both parties. It will not work well if only one party tries or both parties stop or ignore putting their efforts. Being together for years means you grow together so you need to grow yourself by improving yourself. Do not stop looking for things to improve yourself. Do not stop trying to learn new things and apply it into your life. Try to make yourself fitter and healthier. Try to educate yourself so you can be knowledgeable and wiser as you getting old. Your partner will respect and appreciate your changes and efforts and he/she will try the same as you do as you can be his or her mirror. When you are satisfied with yourself and love yourself, your love towards to others will be deepener.
6. Do small things for each other and appreciate each other; Do/share the odd jobs round house together. There are no jobs to be done by only one party. As you might experienced sometimes in your relationship, big arguments can start from a little job which one of you refused to do or help. Take small thing seriously because the small things you do for your partner means a lot more than you would expect. Quite often my husband does washing dishes and cleaning the house without being told as he thinks they are part of his duties. I really do appreciate his attitude towards this and feel thankful that he does not leave all the work to me. I have to admit that I do more inside house work than he does but I truly appreciate how he takes my time and energy for the house work and thankful of it and willing to help and share. I try to do the same and appreciate a lot what he does for us. It does not matter if he does it well or not. His intention can be highly recognised. How often do you express your appreciation to your partner when he does small things for you? Be generous to say thanks to each other. It can embarrass you to say it but expressing your appreciation to your partner will give priceless satisfaction to him or her.
7. Travel together; Travelling together is one of my favourite methods to keeping our relationship strong. Being together while you are experiencing different/interesting events in the new places can offer a very special time and unique experiences for both of you. You will have more time to talk about different topics beside of normal daily issues and this will refresh your relationship with your partner which you could have thought too ordinary or nothing special, or getting too boring. You need to remember no one will create for you special time/occasions. Only you can be owner of your life and relationship so you need to diligently try and make special opportunities to get out of the ordinary day routines and get new/fresh feeling from each other. You do not need to organise a big or luxurious trip. Go for a sleep out one night, even a day trip to a park can help you to revive yourself. Travel together can be definitely one of the best ways to bring fresh feelings into your relationship.
8. Be independent; Keep independency. Do not rely on your partner. Can you imagine that someone is relaying on you emotionally and physically, and financially all your life? Honestly, it would be too much for me to handle the feeling of pressure, to keep a good relationship with my partner. I have seen many cases around me, one party started relaying on the other party and pass on all the decisions and responsibilities for the family's future to the other party. This type of arrangement was working for our parent generations but current competitive and challenging society highly unlikely allows us to live this way any longer. Couples need to be independent and standing on their own feet, and need to support and help each other to build their healthy life. Competitive society pushes us to work harder to survive and scarify more of our life to manage our living standard. This means only one party to work for family to live is getting harder and harder nowadays. You need to share the responsibilities with your partner. To do that you need to be independent. I believe successful relationship can be achieved when two are living their own life and work together for their common life. Giving away responsibilities to the other can be the most hazardous way to put your relationship into a hardship.
9. Watch out what you say when you are upset; “NEVER”, “ALWAYS”, These words can hurt each other easily. To be honestly with you, if I said I told you I did this well, I would be hypocrite. Quite often ,I use those words without consideration about my husband's feeling and it gets worse when I get mad when I’m saying things in the heat of the moment. "you NEVER do this....", " you ALWAYS do this....!" Ironically, I forget to stop using them even though I get hurt the most by them. Those words dismiss what your partner has done for you and restrain and push down your partner's efforts. As many times as you use, those negative and aggressive words can hurt more and leave a deep mark in your partner's mind/heart. Therefore you need to control what you say to your partner. Be comfortable with someone does not mean, you can be rude to them or they will totally understand/accept your behaviour. You would not easily say those aggressive words to your co-workers or someone who you do not know well, but why to the most important person in your life. Words can be the most powerful weapon so we need to use them wisely.
10. Express your feeling; I didn't have many experiences to see my parents interact or used affectionate words to each other. Even they went out together (with 5 kids), father always walked far front away than mother and they did not sit next each other or touch each other in any way shape or form while they were with us. I never questioned about it as it was considered a quite normal behaviour between husband and wife at that time, especially in Korea. I accepted it as a standard/expected behaviour of the society, and I met my European husband who shows all his affections anytime he feels and wants. At the beginning of our relationship, it was quite uncomfortable to be shown in front of others and still try not to show in front of mother as she feels embarrassed, but I do believe his attitudes helps our relationship get satisfied far more. Expressing how you feel about your partner is not embarrassing thing or thing to avoid. Tell them how important person they are to you and how much you love and appreciate their being any time you feel. Hold and hug, and touch them as many times as you want. Do not put aside your feeling and bury them because of someone else's perspective. If you do not express your love now when can you do it and how your partner would know it? Be open and generous to your feeling and express them. Imagine that you can feel love and appreciation from your partner all the time. How wonderful relationship it will be? So, do say it and let your partner to feel it.
While writing down my thoughts and tips, I could have a valuable chance to think about my relationship with my husband. As you would guess, no one can do all those good things or have perfect behaviour all the time including myself. All I wanted to share was sometimes we need to rethink and assess our relationships genuinely and try to maintain or improve them without stop. I do believe that the relationship between you and your partner is a root of your life. When it is strong and healthy, your life can grow well and will promise you happiness.
Thailand 2012
New Zealand 2011
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