The Secret To Keeping A Great Relationship Going

By The Dude

What happens?

I mean, seriously, what happens? Something must. Something changes. Everything started out so well–the great sex, talks that lasted until sunrise, spooning ‘til class at noon, clothes were optional, and fun was constant. You clicked. You had the best start to a relationship you could have imagined. Fast forward and you’re alone again. Back to the original question: What happens?

There are plenty of reasons that a great relationship breaks apart. There are all kinds of circumstances: distance, time, stress, and so on that push two people, who collided with enough force to give a hiccup to the sonic barrier, into opposite directions. But the number one killer of a great relationship is simple: You Start Expecting.

There’s no greater killer of a beautiful bond between two people than expectations. When you start looking for something to go wrong, expecting something to change, or develop a time-line for how things are going to “progress,” you might as well just walk out the door and de-friend him on Facebook. Neuroses is a tricky animal. We all have our issues. We’re a psychologically oriented and, one can make an argument, obsessed at times. And our psyches can create havoc when we start to hope, because the flip-side of hoping is being afraid.

When there’s no commitment, there’s less pressure. When there’s pressure, there’s the fear of loss, because suddenly you have something. And when you have something, most people try to figure out what you do with it, where to go with it, avoid letting it slip through your cracks, and there’s nothing worse than when we begin poking holes into the fabric of our hopes.

The secret to overcoming our fears and not getting in the way of our own happiness is to simply accept what we can’t control. You can’t make a relationship last longer than it’s meant to. You can’t force it to be better. You can’t manipulate it or schedule it to progress and evolve in a certain way that you think it should. You have to let go of the phrase “supposed to” and just be content in “this is this.”

You give in to a relationship, you don’t get one.
You accept that it’s a partnership, you don’t need to worry about carrying the burden of its success or failure on your own shoulders.
You take it one day at a time and don’t give over to worries about tomorrow, next week, or next year.
You put some faith in yourself and the other person.
You put some faith into the relationship.
You let things happen instead of making them happen.

And those steps right there are how you can walk out of your own path to having a long lasting relationship. Don’t judge your neuroses, don’t ridicule your fears, accept them as they are parts of what make you you. But you don’t have to let them control you.

Communicate. React. Adapt. Move forward with the present circumstances, not what you prefer the present circumstances to be.

We all want things to work out. We all have to work at relationships to have them work out. Just don’t assume there’s only one way for it to work out. That’s all I’m saying. Let it happen.

Enjoying It While It Lasts,

The Dude

[lead image via Yuri Arcurs / Shutterstock]