How To Build The Perfect Relationship

Dear Laura. Thank you for providing me with the knowledge and growth to not only write this blog, but to also move forward in future relationships with greater awareness of how to navigate through the joys and pains.

How to build the perfect relationship? What a beautiful and engaging question. It makes me think so much!

We all know that trust, integrity and honesty are the cornerstones for any great romantic relationship. We have to feel like the person is there for us and cares for us. But unfortunately we have a tendency to neglect ourselves by depending too much on our significant other – setting ourselves up for heartbreak.

Love yourself before you love others

Every relationship we have in our life is ultimately a reflection of ourselves. Especially the romantic relationship. If the relationship is incredible: there’s trust, honesty, romance, then it comes from us. It means we have those qualities inside of us. Similarly if the relationship is based on dependency and the romance has died – then that’s also because of us. 

Our mental state is projected onto our relationships. If I don’t love myself, how can I possibly truly love my partner? Do I even know what love is? Likewise if I’m completely dependent on my partner, it’s because I can’t depend on myself. This is a door that leads to heartbreak. Why? Because people do things that upset us all the time. If you leave your happiness in the hands of somebody else you will never be happy. 

Love yourself before you give love to others. This is the solution. Think about what makes you feel alive, happy and excited. Whatever it is, it’s imperative to do more of this, as this will result in you spending quality time with yourself. It will result in you attending to your own needs and desires. Most importantly it will result you in learning to love yourself, thus providing you with greater joy and life satisfaction. 

From here is where you can now feed your relationship with true love and nourishment. By spending more time with yourself or those that remind you of who you really are, you can become the way you intended: beautiful, radiant, positive.

Grow together by growing apart

I firmly believe both parties in a relationship must also learn to grow together by growing apart. This is the make or break period in a relationship where we learn whether our love is real and whether our partner is right for us or not. 

We all have different dreams and goals and visions for the future. We can’t expect our partner to make compromises all the time just to benefit us. We too must make compromises. Otherwise the relationship is a one way road to nowhere. What we can do is encourage our partner to focus on themselves and pursue what’s important to them, and encourage ourselves to do the same too. This will limit the dependency in the relationship.

I remember when I thought I loved someone, it was such a difficult time because I craved this persons attention and every time I never got it, was like a dagger to the heart. Why? Because it wasn’t love. It was dependency. I didn’t have a good relationship with myself and expected this person to give me the happiness I was seeking. How wrong I was. Thankfully this happened very early in my life so I have been able to grow from it. 

The point is that if we neglect ourselves and become too dependent on our partner, we will have to endure tremendous suffering that offers no growth. Unfortunately a lot of people are in relationships because they are too afraid to be alone. There’s no real love, just dependency. This is not how a relationship should be. Learn to enjoy the silence and alone time, that’s where the real growth is.

Embrace the difficult times as you do the positive times

Relationships can be as we imagine: full of love, happiness and bliss. But for all the happy times there will also be sad times. These times are also times when we should reflect on the relationship to determine whether this person is actually worth it or not. 

If they are, then we must embrace these difficult times as we embrace the happy times. This is because the difficult times provide us with an opportunity to improve the relationship by healing the weaker parts. As difficult as these testing times can be, they provide us with an opportunity to move the relationship forward and to make the bond between us and our partner stronger. Thus building more trust in the relationship, helping it to grow.

I wish I knew this only a few years back. There is a lady in my life who will always hold a very dear place in my heart. In the past I struggled to embrace the difficult times with her, and saw it as an act of unnecessary conflict from her part. The issue is men and women find it very difficult to understand each other. The man is usually acting from a rational standpoint whereas the woman is usually acting from an emotional standpoint. Neither is right or wrong, but both must work together to consider each other’s needs and perspectives. I now see it clearly (I’ll save this for a future blog).

We can all have the relationship we desire. But just like a flower needs nourishment daily, so does a relationship. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking it will survive on its own. Work together and create the relationship of your dreams. It’s possible. It’s all possible.

Thank you so much for reading.

With love,

Tony.