10 Things I Learned From a 10 Year Relationship

There are good ships and wood ships, ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships and may they always be!” Irish Proverb. In friendship and marriage, relationships are the same. It’s all about respect, trust and forgiveness. Below are ten important lessons I learned from a 10-year relationship.

1. Friendship First

Every relationship begins based on friendship. Someone whose company you enjoy and they in return enjoy yours. To have a good friend, you need to be a good friend, and in order to have a friend, you need to make time for that friendship. A significant other, a husband or a wife, is someone who is of significance to you based on their morals and values aligning with your own. Treasure those friendships.

2. Your partner is not your property.

Thich Nhat Hanh — ‘You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.

You don’t own your partner, and your partner doesn’t own you. Appreciate your partner for who they are now, who they were and who they aspire to be.

Possessiveness or jealousy be viewed as insecure and lacking confidence and will only drive your partner away.

3. Vigilance

Successful relationships face their fair share of challenges. Put onlookers, meddlers and anyone who crosses the line of respect when it comes to your relationship in their place. Please don’t be jealous; let them be. Stay vigilant and keep on rolling.

What makes a great relationship? Knowing that you can face the world with a partner by your side. The stability and comfort in knowing that you have someone who will support you, turn you around, grab the weight you’ve been carrying right off your back like a load of bricks and say hey, ” let me hold that for you, now let’s let it go and move on.” Facing life challenges together and overcoming them as a unified team, baggage and all.

5. Respect

What does respect mean to you?

Respect means considering another person’s thoughts, feelings and emotions and exhibiting an empathetic viewpoint and possessing the innate ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Respect encompasses the golden rule at its very core. “Treat others how you would like to be treated.”

By simply asking yourself the question, how would I feel if someone treated me the way I am treating them? You’ll immediately know the answer, and it comes before all other justifications conjured thereafter.

5. “Me time, you time and we time.

It’s all about balance. Enough said.

4. Don’t give it all away

Keep yourself a mystery; keep it interesting, whether you’ve been married for a year or fifty—men like the chase, and women like attention.

3. Honesty is the best policy

“I am a fan of truth even if it is painfully hard to accept” – Unknown.

Don’t lose yourself in your relationships with others. Always be you, no matter what. Be honest with yourself, and be honest with your partner. Express your needs, how you feel, and what you want out of life. Wait for a reply.

If you aren’t in an honest relationship and this is something you highly value, make the change within and without.

2. Forgive

It has been said that what makes a good marriage is simply two people who are extremely good forgivers. This applies to every relationship so long as there is a level of honesty. Without honesty, there can be no reconciliation. However, forgiveness is still possible and should be exercised for one’s own mental health.

We are all only human, and we all make mistakes. Some are big, and some are small. Some you can live with, and some you can’t. Stay true.

“Forgiving someone who is not sorry is one of the hardest things to do.”

1. Trust in a Relationship

I’m sure you’ve heard it a thousand times, trust is the key to any healthy relationship and rightfully so. Unfortunately, trust remains the most crucial aspect of every relationship you will ever begin and some that will sadly end.

So what does trust mean to you?

I’ll be the first to admit it, have struggled with trust myself, because I formulated my perspective of trust from a victim mentality mindset. Therefore, finding the absolute that would cultivate self-trust and trust in others was difficult. That was until I read this:

A man named Charles Feltman wrote the absolute hands-down most in-depth understanding of what trust means. This is his definition. “Trust is making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions. I believe this is the most empowering quotation ever written. Trust is and has always been in your power to give, and trust is in your power to withhold.

10 Things I learned from a 10-Year Relationship (Trust in a Relationship) was initially published here.

Life is like a box of chocolates… You never know whatcha gonna get!!!!