How To Enjoy A Happy Love Life

What makes us think we can have a great marriage with no skill, knowledge, or preparation? Would you take part in a professional football match without expert coaching and years of practice? The sad fact is, most of us haven't a clue about how to conduct a long-term relationship that's happy, harmonious, mutually supportive, and fulfilling.

So why is a happy relationship important? Why is it worth pursuing? To find an answer, let's be selfish. What's in it for the man?

Men need a good relationship as much as women do. It's part of the male self-image to feel we'd be just as well off single and independent but, for most of us, a loving relationship is just what the doctor ordered. Studies show that happily married men live longer and are healthier than their single (or unhappily married) brethren.

When you're 80 years old, it's a real comfort to have known somebody deeply and to have had that person know you. Sex in a relationship is an extremely powerful pathway to sharing a part of yourself with another person, and that has a healthy effect on a man.

Problems and conflicts arise even in the best relationship. The day inevitably comes when the honeymoon is over. We realize things aren't as perfect as they appeared to be and that, if the relationship is to succeed, we'll have to work at it.

This is not the time to bail out. As one therapist said, looking for relief with a new person is the cheap way out. Besides, the novelty that it might offer doesn’t last very long anyway. The more rewarding approach involves the dreaded “C” word -commitment. In the long run, as they say, you get out of something only what you put into it. Whether it's a business, an exercise program, a garden, or a relationship, if you don't put much in, you aren't going to get much out.

Commitment means that when conflicts come up, the relationship means enough to you that you’ll work together to find a solution. It means being there for the other person, no matter what.

If you want your relationship to get better, start with a good look at yourself. Don't blame your partner for the problems, or expect her to change. No list can possibly be complete but here are some factors that relationship experts often cite as key ingredients in making any relationship work. Examine each of the points and see how you stack up, and where you can make improvements.

Communication

Experts say that a good, stable relationship requires face-to-face communication every day of the year in order to keep things going smoothly, to repair hurt feelings and to defuse tension.

Individuality

You are both distinct entities. Your partner is who she is and who she's going to be: you are who you are and how you’re always going to be.

Honesty

Being honest and learning how to tell the truth without hurting feelings are fundamentally important.

Sex

A warm and even sometimes hot sex life is usually vital for a happy relationship. Sexual compatibility is essential.

Friendship

Doing things together, talking freely to each other, relying on each other in difficult times having someone like that in your life is one of life's greatest gifts.

Compatibility

In a love relationship, compatibility means more than sharing similar interests, values, political views, and dietary habits. It also means the ability to accept life together lovingly despite your differences

Compromise

The need for compromise comes up each and every day. How fairly and graciously it's handled helps define a relationship.

Forgiveness

As John Gray points out in his book, Mars and Venus in Love, “forgiveness is the action of love, it exercises our love and makes it stronger".

Stress

It’s inevitable. How it is controlled however, does much to determine the tone of a relationship.

For a relationship to work, each partner's needs have to be met. The problem is that many of us tend to believe that our partners needs are just like our own. But that attitude doesn't take account of the very real differences between men and women. Your partner's needs are her own and nobody else's.

Care for your partner, cherish her, and give as much as you possibly can to her. Any successful relationship revolves around mutual giving.

If you're both in it only for what you can get, neither gives, so no one receives. If you care about each other, support each other, listen to each other with respect, and learn to give each other what you both really need and desire, you've got yourself a winning formula that can carry you forward through life, year after year in happiness and love.

"It is a woman's business to get married as soon as possible, and a man's to keep unmarried as long as he can," wrote George Bernard Shaw, and many of us feel that way. Yet research has consistently shown tremendous benefits for married men, in physical and mental health as well as longevity.

As sociologist Jessie Bernard wrote in The Future of Marriage, there is a" sometimes spectacular and always impressive superiority on almost every index... of married over never-married men." For example, death rates for divorced, single, and widowed men are significantly higher than for married men. Married men have also been found to have fewer illnesses than unmarried men. Why? No one knows for certain. But having a steady, loving companion-with better food, more regular sex, and more comfortable surroundings thrown into the bargain certainly don't seem to hurt.

Conflicts are inevitable, and sometimes, despite your very best efforts and intentions, you'll have a whopper of a fight. The following strategies should help you to resolve those conflicts and leave your relationship in one piece:

• Remember that your goal is not to win or to be right, but to restore harmony and love to the relationship.
  
  
• Treat your conflict as a common enemy, and work together to solve it. If you can do this, you're halfway home.
  
  
• Practice your listening skills. Be the kind of listener you would like your partner to be for you.
  
  
• One of you (probably you, as this is a typically male characteristic) will want to deal with conflict by avoiding confrontation and working it out on your own. You may run, take a long walk, become absorbed in a project eventually your feelings will settle down. But your partner would probably prefer to express her feelings and talk it out, although she can learn to give you some time and space first.
  
  
• Make love. Some people say it's inappropriate to use sex to smooth over problems, and it certainly shouldn't be used every time. One or both of you may still be harboring resentments and she, especially, may not be ready to open up to tender feelings. But if you generally have a good sexual rapport, lovemaking can be a very effective means of dissolving tensions and restoring harmony. It's especially effective to take you the rest of the way once you begin to resolve the problem.