Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category

How to Build Lasting Relationships

Monday, October 1st, 2007

relationship

One important part of dating is learning how to maintain relationships. It’s easier enough to meet new people but learning how to build on those relationships is something different completely. Even more difficult is building a long-term relationship with one person. Doing that means learning what the two of you have in common and how you can compromise on the issue with which you disagree. It certainly takes maturity and a sense of commitment to a relationship to do that, but it is not that difficult.

In any relationship there must exist the element of trust. It doesn’t matter if it is a friendship or romance, if there is no trust, there can be no committed relationship or friendship. Honesty is the backbone of trust, so both elements must exist within a relationship for it to work. That means you must be honest yourself and able to trust the other person in order to build and maintain a good relationship. No relationship can exist without both of those elements existing. That is the reason why relationships that contain a unhealthy amount of jealousy do not last because although the one part may be honest himself or herself, if they cannot transfer trust in the other person, the relationship is doomed from the start.

Besides trust and honesty, one must also have consideration for the feelings of the other person. You may be thinking that is easy to do, but you will find there are times when it is easier said than done. For example, maybe you can’t agree on where to go on a date, and there is some place you have your heart set on going, and your date is adamant that he or she will not go there. It’s very difficult to not say that you’re going with or without him or her. This is something that you have to learn if you expect to develop a lasting relationship with anyone, whether it’s a friend or lover.

From Casual Dating to Long-Term Relationship

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

find-love

When you enter into a casual dating relationship, you really don’t know what is going to happen. When you started, you didn’t want to be committed, and you were enjoying being free to date different people. Somewhere along the line things changed, and you began to see tings from a different angle. You want more than just one or two nights a week, and though you feel your partner feels the same way, he or she has not indicated that in a verbal sense. Is there a time that is right to express your feelings, or do you just let it ride and see what happens? What should you do to make ensure that both of you feel the same way? What do you do if you find out that what you want doesn’t match that of your dating partner?

It is very difficult sometimes to know what someone wants, and even worse to know what to do if their desires are different from yours. How can you find out? Without any kind of question or future expectations, you can just casually in a thinking-out-loud kind of way mention that you might be thinking of something more long-term at some point and see what his or her reaction is. Notice the “at same point” rather than the “now” so that you’re not saying that’s how you feel now but that maybe at some time in the future you may be interested. Right now all you’re doing is “digging.” You want to find out if this relationship is worth continuing and to find out if you both are looking for the same thing.

What if the answers you receive are not the ones you want to hear? That is a decision you will have to make if that happens. The thing to remember is the answers you hear today may not be the same ones you’ll hear next week or next month. If you only recently started dating, you have time to wait, but if you’ve been dating for over a year, and your partner is not interested in the same thing you are, it may be time to think about moving on.


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