Maximizing Romantic Relationships

We really struggle to talk about relationships, don’t we? I’ll be talking more about building strong relationships next month (it made sense to me, what with Valentine’s Day and all), but since you can (and should!) set goals for your relationship we get to talk about it today as well.

We struggle because relationships are supposed to be easy. We’re fed this line that we find “the one” and live happily ever after. Our society completely ignores the fact that we are all flawed human beings and “soulmate” or not, we get under each other’s skin. Nobody talks about the struggle of sleep-deprivation and the impact on your marriage. We don’t talk about the negative impact it can have on your professional relationships if your boss is 1000% conflict averse. We don’t talk about struggles we had in our childhood can create a strained relationship with our children.

With all of that, the first thing any of us needs to do is have as open and honest a dialogue you can have with others in your life. From there, you can start setting some real goals. For the purposes of this particular post, I am going to focus on your romantic relationships.

I’ll start by saying I think it’s a little weird that we minimize a lifetime commitment to another human adult as solely romantic. Let me tell you, trying to tag-team a constipated toddler all day today was probably the furthest from romantic I’ve been in a while. So yes, romance should be part of the package deal. It’s not the whole package.

Having this open communication can help you set productive goals so that your lifetime commitment is successful. Do you see yourself becoming parents, homeowners, or highly educated? Those are all big investments of time, energy, and money. If you see those happening, when do you think they’ll happen? What are the steps you need to take to make that happen?

Maybe your goals are less tangible than becoming educated landowners with mini-me’s running around all over the place. Maybe you’ve been through a long slog together and your goal is going to be sitting down together each evening to talk about your day. Maybe you're in a stretch where your sex life is just about procreation and you need to mix that up.

Regardless of what the goal is, the strongest claim I can make is to talk to each other. If you’re not on the same page, try to get on the same page. What are some strategies you’ve implemented to make your relationships successful?