Successful Relationships

I know that the last few days' blogs have been a little heavy and depressing so here's something I thought about last night which is a little more neutral.

Last night I was talking to my good friend the MS [Matt Slade] and I asked him how things were going with his lady friend [if you don't know Matt, he's a rather brilliant game designer, who is very specific about most things in his life. I've been friends with Matt for about 7 years now. He recently aquired his first girlfriend. Hello Tessa.] and that got me thinking about what makes a successful relationship. I know that people say that opposites attract but I think that's mostly crap because people want to shag someone hot, so here's what I think need to match, and the rest can be very different but it probably won't make a difference. Please note that this is my own opinion and I've actually never had a girlfriend:

> Lifestyle
> Passions
> Goals in Life
> Communication Style
> Expression of Love


Lifestyle

Your lifestyle is how you live. If you are an outgoing person who loves to go out every night of the week until all hours of the morning it will come through in the way you live your life, and if you date someone who is extremely introverted and hates going out at all, chances are you are going to encounter some problems.

Your lifestyle choices also include things like religion / spiritual beliefs, economic status and the like. If you are fairly well off person and you date someone who has always been dirt poor, your approach to life will be very different and that will create problems.

All of these things will create places where your interests overlap as well as reduce problems because you'll probably have similar principles.


Passions

Everyone should have something that they are passionate about, and it's very seldom that two people who are dating have the same passion, but being tolerant of each others passions, and understanding each others passions is very important. Example, I love music and I listen to music for about 12 - 16 hours a day. If I date someone who hates listening to music all the time there are going to be major problems very quickly.

At the same time I need to realise that I may date someone who isn't passionate about what I am passionate about and so I need to show some sort of restrain and not talk about music and sound all the time we are together. And if I date someone who is passionate about photography for example, then I need to show some interest and listen, research and ask questions. Life is all give and take...


Goals in Life

This one is a no brainer. If I hate children [which I do] and I were to start dating a girl who loves kids and wants a small school of them we are going to have problems. So each party needs to be comfortable with what they want and then they need to be able to come to a compromise. As with anything, there are dealbreakers which can't be negotiated away, but at the same time there are also things that you want that can be 'given' away during the relationship.

If you don't have either the same or similar goals the relationship may work in the short term but not on a long term scale. If I decide that I never want children and I date someone who does, at the beginning it'll be fine but in a few months time, or if we get married someone is going to feel cheated, [and in this case it won't be me] and eventually resentment will build up and that's when things will go south very quickly.


Communication Style

This is something that I still struggle with. I always assume that everyone knows the importance of effective communication, and yet I still often come across people who are horrible at expressing themselves in any way at all. I consider myself an effective communicator because while my most comfortable communication medium is writing, I can almost always put my thoughts into words on the spot because it's something I've identified that I need to work on.

My brother on the other hand is an awful communicator. He always says that he needs to write his thoughts down, but if you ask him to think about something and write his thoughts down, when you actually ask him he almost always says "I forgot" and you can never get an answer out of him. So if I want answers from him I have to ask him closed ended questions that he can say either "Yes" or "No" to, and then we can make progress.

Now while I know how he communicates and can compensate for it, it isn't an ideal situation. As a result I do get answers but not anywhere near as much information as I would have liked to get. In a relationship it is a similar situation except you'd hope both parties would take more responsibility than my brother does.

Truth is that if you can't communicate you've got major problems. No one will ever know what the other person wants or how to negotiate anything, and I reckon that's half the reason people get divorced in life.


Expression of Love

This isn't so much something that needs to be matched but rather something that needs to be understood. A while ago a book was written called "The 5 Love Languages", and there were of course 5 different ways that love is expressed described in the book. Now while it is highly unlikely that two people will have the exact same love languages [each person is considered to have 2 primary love languages] love does need to be expressed to the other person in their love language.

Example, the five love languages are: receiving gifts, encouraging words, physical touch, quality time and acts of service. Now if my love languages are physical touch and encouraging words, but my girlfriend's are gifts and quality time then there's no point in me expressing my love by giving her a hug because she won't feel loved. At the same time she would need to send me an email with some nice words in it to make me feel loved rather than giving me a t shirt or whatever.

Point is that you need to talk to the other person in their language for them to understand you're trying to express love and not just feeling cold.


Anyway, these are just my thoughts, so if you think I'm completely wrong, feel free to comment and let me know what you think. And if you think I'm right, just know it was mostly a guess, so I'm lucky not experienced.