Love takes work. Work takes commitment. Commitment takes sacrifice. Sacrifice takes selflessness. Selflessness takes courage. Courage takes faith. Faith takes direction. Direction takes hope. Hope takes belief. Belief takes learning. Learning takes curiosity. Curiosity takes humility. Humility takes acceptance. Acceptance takes perspective. Perspective takes reflection. Reflection takes experience. Experience takes time. Time takes self-care. Self-care takes love. Start with love. -A wise inspirational quote on long-lasting love.
What Does it Take to Create long-lasting love?
Long lasting love doesn’t come from the amazing bond you automatically have with someone you’re crazy about. This love quote is meant to inspire you to think about what you need to commit to in order to keep the bond strong.
We all know that keeping the love strong requires work, but what kind of work?
Strong roots of love are grown from a commitment to learning that you don’t really know what it takes to love forever. It’s a process that unfolds in unpredictable ways. Bel
The things you love about your partner now may not be what you love in the future. Love evolves over time. What is requires of you is the willingness to make sacrifices that feel like your partner gets what he or she wants and you gave something up. But if you believe that you win when they win — meaning the couple wins — then sacrifices are not so painful. The selflessness that this requires pays off manifold in the future as long as you don’t lose yourself entirely where one person’s needs are constantly being met at the expense of the other with no reciprocity.
Finding the courage to let go of your ego and serve the couple takes practice — major practice. In fact, it can be scary as hell. You can’t be keeping score in the relationship or the love will fade out. You have to let go of thoughts like, “I’m not going to do this for her because she doesn’t do this for me.”
Faith in the future, in what you can build together and in your partner’s love for you will allow you to maintain a positive direction toward growing together.
Your Win Is My Win
Being invested in your partner’s needs as a personal win REALLY keeps the love strong.
Strive to maintain hope that things will get better when you’re in a low period in your loving relationship. Hold on to a belief in the resilience of your love. Remind yourself of times that your sacrifice for the relationship paid off and how your partner has sacrificed for you!
Communication is the key to strengthening the glue that bonds you to one another. Learning takes place when you both openly share what is going right and wrong in the union. Talk things through each week. Don’t let things fester and avoid your anger or frustration. Get outside help if one of you is avoiding addressing something that feels destructive in the relationship. Discuss mistakes, own them and vow to do things differently with a system of accountability in the relationship manifested in this weekly state-of-the-union discussion.
It is very important to stay curious about your partner. Curiosity keeps things very fresh and makes life interesting. Be a student of your relationship, as opposed to assuming you know everything. There’s nothing more unpleasant than a partner who judges constantly what is right and wrong. That’s so toxic!
If you find that the two of you are frequently arguing over the facts, truth or how the past actually happened, go directly to therapy. Do not pass go. This habit in couples will eventually destroy the relationship if it is not dealt with by an outside party.
Don’t just assume you know. Ask. Be open to your partner making changes as opposed to labelling them as “always” or “never” being or doing something. In fact, vow to cut out “always” and “never” from your discussions. Just don’t say these words to each other because usually the statement is inaccurate and it builds resentment.
Ultimately, long-lasting love requires humility — a lot of it! I am referring to the kind of humility that you don’t know everything, so like I said, do not assume you know. Ask. Have the humility to accept that some things require the support of others to fix. No, you cannot fix everything on your own. Rely on each other to get through the tough times. Be a pillar or strength and understanding for each other, especially when life gets hard.
Disruption and Repair in the Relationship
Acceptance of your partner’s faults as well as your own limitations keeps the love super strong. Search for perspective. Take time for reflection to avoid a myopic view of people, problems and options. Fly a mental drone over your relationship and take inventory from a distance. Social support is a wonderful way to gain perspective. Reach out to a friend and start a sentence with, “Tell me if I’m crazy, but I think….”
Only when the two of you have experience repairing issues in the relationship does it feel like the love will truly last. It is absolutely true that you shouldn’t go to bed angry at one another. This habit predicts an end to the relationship.
The passage of time will strengthen the love if you both show a commitment to dealing with issues as they arise. If you don’t learn to deal with complaints and resentments within the relationship, then time will erode the bond between you. If BOTH of you commit yourself to your partner’s life journey, which includes unexpected changes that may feel initially threatening, then time will work on your side. Remember that people evolve at different rates. When you feel there is a major discrepancy in your spiritual growth, commit to helping your partner catch up, but also accept what truly cannot change. (That’s a tricky one– I know.)
Self-care is important. Let self-care include time without screens where you remember how to live in your own head with your own thoughts. Given how many hours people work these days, time or self-care can feel scarce. Just know that the loving bond erodes if self-care is neglected over a long period of time. So, for example, you may be making more money or showing your boss that you’re quick to respond to emails, but you’re probably degrading your love if you’re not establishing reasonable limits and boundaries.
Boundaries are necessary. A psychological wall must be built around the couple to protect it from negative outside influences. Two ways to build the wall are to never speak badly about your partner publicly and to always choose your partner over the wishes of your parents, especially when your parents’ wishes are not in the best interest of your relationship.
Personal boundaries and limits allow you need to reserve some of your energy and interest for your partner, family, friends and self. Without boundaries your mental health will decline.
Adequate self-care requires that you respect yourself and celebrate how good it feels after you tend to your physical and spiritual needs. In fact, remind yourself how much you love getting these needs met. Remind yourself about how the person you love, the person you’ve committed yourself to also benefits from your self-care. THIS is the gorilla glue of love. Remember, you win when they win.
It all starts with love.
