Every Relationship Starts with Hello! 5 ways to make it better!

1. Don’t forget the small things.

Small things can create massive emotions.

Think butterfly effect. They also have the ability to add up. Not putting dishes

away, throwing clothes wherever you want, these can become the straw that

breaks the camel’s back. If you have a partner, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s the little things that tend to aggravate them. Whenever my father would leave

socks on the floor and my mother complained to him, he would say, “To change a

man, you must first change his grandmother.” What he meant was I’m not going

to change, so stop asking me to. It was witty, and it made everyone smile, but as

a husband and a father, I now know that that was a slap in her face. She had an

equal amount of stress on her shoulders, and he was declaring that her problems

were not worth his time. It was a sly way to say, “Shut up, and leave me alone.”

So at the core of this one is an issue of respect. Show your partner you respect

him or her enough to help out where you can. No matter how small and irrelevant

you think it is. I am not telling you to lie and pretend it is important if you don’t

believe it is. What I am telling you is that if your partner bothered to say

something to you about it, then you need to respect him or her enough to do it.

Remember: People are collages. Very few people have one or two things that

make them who they are. Everyone is made up of thousands of values,

expectations, and experiences. Respect that. Don’t discard the small things!

1. Communicate to your partner what you love about him or her daily.

Either write down or tell your partner why you love him or her on a regular basis. Truly

think about what it is about your person that makes you love them. Don’t be afraid

to sound like a broken record. My wife lights up every time I tell her why I love

her. She never gets tired of hearing it. Communicating why does a couple of

things. The first thing it does is that it builds trust. Your wife won’t fear you have

‘wandering eyes’ if she feels that you sincerely love her. She’ll know she is not

just some person for whom you settled, who makes life easier for you, or is

convenient to have around when you’re horny. She’s the real thing. The second

thing it does is open up more channels of communication. If both of you know

that the foundation to your relationship is strong, you’ll be less likely to hold

something back when the two of you are in a tiff. This is important, and leads me

to number three.

1. Be Honest. See a pattern already?

I can’t emphasize the need for communication enough. I like to have a weekly relationship discussion with

my wife. During this time we speak candidly about what went wrong and what went

right. For us it’s like a performance review. This may not work for you, but what

you must do at the very least is communicate with your partner and be honest. If

you’re not being honest, and if you’re not communicating, then you’re not in a true

partnership. Show your partner you respect him or her enough to say what you

think. If you love one another, your relationship will not only hold strong (not

matter what you express), but it will get stronger because (going back to number

two) you’ll be establishing trust.

1. Don’t yell. This applies to both of you.

Simply put, it’s the worst way for a human being to communicate. Yelling implies that you don’t respect the

person in front of you, and that you’re not in control. It is imperative that you set the pattern

of not yelling at the very beginning if you can. Men, if you yell at your woman the

first thing that’s going to come to her mind is that she’s in an abusive relationship.

She’ll lie awake that night fearing that you will one day hit her. And ladies, yelling

at your man kills his ability to be loving. It also creates a mother/ son dynamic,

which, for obvious reasons, you don’t want to get into. You want your partner to

be on the same level as you. Either way, if you are a man or a woman and you

want a partner you can boss around and yell at, then, all joking aside, you may

need counseling. You’re going through power plays that suggest childhood

trauma, and your spouse represents someone who hurt you in the past, be it

physically and/ or emotionally.

1. Talk about things that bug you. Don't hold them in.

The biggest thing that can hurt a relationship is not communicating. Think about it. You’re drawing

within yourself and becoming distant from your partner. This is never a good

thing. Doing this also suggests that you want your partner to start petting you and

pampering you, which delves again into a parent-child dynamic. Avoid this

dynamic at all costs! Now everyone isn’t able to express his or her emotions right

when they have been hurt. Some people need time to process; however, you

know when you’re done processing. Communicate as soon as you can to your

partner. Harking back to step one (don’t forget the small things), know that the

human body can only hold so much negative energy within it before it explodes.

Like a volcano, you’ll erupt if you don’t let off a little steam here and there. Small

disputes are forgettable, but blowouts are not. They stay with you and can cause

lasting emotional scars. You’ll be old and grey, and you’ll still be able to recall

vividly that day one of you lost it...whether you are still with that person or not.