Lasting Love

What is a lasting love? Love is not mainly blindly loving someone but it take one's effort and time to build up. No effort no love.

Tip 1: Love Yourself

"Unless you love yourself, it's hard for you to believe that anyone else will" said Paula Hall, a relationship psychotherapist.

When you are with your partner because you really enjoy his/her company or because you depend on it to feel confident about yourself? If it is the latter, then you are not yourself when you are with your partner, it is mainly a feeling or just a "want" feeling. If your partner would to leave your one day, think about the impact on your relationship. Unequal power relations spell trouble. You need to love yourself in order to love others first. Loving yourself is not a sin, in fact it help to build your confident and it bring out the beautiful side of you.

Tip 2: Disagree agreeably

No relationship is flawless. At some point, you and your partner are bound to disagree on one thing or another. When you disagree it does not mean you or your partner do not love you. There is no perfectionist in one person.

Have a common understanding with your partner to always maintaining a healthy relationship over "wining" an argument. Do not come to your own conclusions on your partner's words or actions. Allow your partner to explain his stand. Focus on the issue at hand and never drag up the past. Make room for disagreement and in fact it will bring your relationship closer.

Tip 3: Inject Humour

Inject humour in your relationship, don't be too serious all the times. Go back to the child-like state of non-judgement and freedom and you realise that at the end of the day, we have better relationships when we can laugh together and help to reduce relationship stress.

Tip 4: Don't take each other for granted

As the years went by, we tend to take our partner for granted and our relationship began to slide in a blase stage. You tend to forget the time and date you had with your partner. Don't! No matter how busy your schedules are, make time, make regular schedule with your partner and show them that you remember them.

Tip 5: Communicate

Effective communicate is the cornerstone of every good relationship. Couple that communicate more, stay longer. Talk and talk, don't assume your partner know what is on your mind. Many times, couple said that they have no time to talk, but they have time to shop and talk to their colleagues, bosses and friends but not their partner. Find time to communicate, it could be in the morning before you go to work, night time before you go to bed or a phone call during lunch time to say "I miss you", "I wish you a happy day"... all simple yet beautiful words.

Tip 6: "ME" time

When a couple is in courtship, the time is always you and I and we might tend to forget about our own time with our friends, family etc. It is healthier to set a aside some "me" time for your own personal interests. In fact, the "me time" could a good time to bring new, fresh perspectives to the relationship. Of course, you should ensure that you have more "couple time" then "me time".

Tip 7: Surprise your partner

Surprise! it needn;t cost a bomb. Prepare a homemade sandwiches for an office lunchtime surprise. Send her flowers for no reason or just simple call to sayt those three important words.

There are many tips for a lasting love. The most important is to remember God don't just bring two different person together, there is always a purpose and it is for us to discover and to treasure it. Love does not come easily without effort, in fact it takes times and a lot of effort to build it up. Love does not build within one day, one year but years and years to build. How long you want your relationship to last it depend how much you are willing to give to your partner.