Seven Essentials for Lasting Love
by Seven unique pointers for a long and happy marriage that can help you decide whether this is the mate for you.
After counseling many friends in crisis over the years, and having received advice myself many times, I have been forced to consider the key elements for love and a lasting marriage. While I am no expert, there are a few essentials for lasting love that my conversations and readings have taught me over the years. These insights are easy to write and hard to live by, but they appear to work. Rough spots are inevitable in any relationship. Many couples find their interests diverging, some experience infidelity, and some even fall out of love. Children and the stress of life events can tax even the strongest bonds. However, if the following essentials are in place, a couple has a good chance of working through their issues to develop a deep and lasting relationship.
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A Shared Sense of Reality
Communication is essential to all good relationships and a shared sense of reality is a prerequisite for good communication. It’s hard to talk when you exist on different planes of existence. If he thinks he works all hours God sends to keep the kids clothed and fed, and you think he’s a lazy bum who needs to get a real job, then you are seeing the world differently. If you can sit down and come to an agreement about how things really are, based on factual observations to get you both on the same page, then you can begin to work through the issues and come through the other side a stronger couple.
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Shared Values
Your values are what keep you grounded and determine how you make decisions. If one of you is an impulse buyer while the other saves for purchases, then you both value money and possessions differently. If one of you is a 24/7 workaholic and the other sees home time as strict family time, then you value time differently. If one of you is highly spiritual and the other lives in a materialist frenzy, then you value life differently. The more your values diverge, the more difficulty you will have making big decisions and getting through tough spots. You may not be able to communicate properly and it is likely the respect you showed each other at the start of your relationship is wearing thin or has been replaced with contempt. Values can be difficult to agree on as they are deeply ingrained in each of us. Ehen a mismatch occurs in fundamental values, the relationship can be difficult to repair.
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