People who have been through divorces almost always say communication is the most important thing. But the thing people with happy marriages consider the most important is a deep respect for their partner as well as respect for themselves.

• Respect means never talking bad about your partner or complain about them to your friends.
• Respect that they have different hobbies, interests, and perspectives.
• Respect that they have an equal say in the relationship, that you are a team.
• No secrets. Respect means you feel safe sharing your deepest, most intimate selves with each other.

If something bothers you in the relationship, you must be willing to say it out loud to your partner. Doing so builds trust, and trust creates intimacy. If you cannot trust, you cannot be trusted.

• Share those insecure things you hate sharing with people. You and your partner need to have a good understanding of each other's insecurities.
• Make promises and then stick to them.
• Learn to discern your partner's shady behaviour from your own insecurities and vice-versa.

It is not your partner's responsibility to make you happy. Each one should figure out what makes them happy as an individual, then you both bring that to the relationship.

Every relationship requires sacrifices at times, but problems arise when your happiness is contingent on the other person.

If you love your partner enough, you will let them be who they are.

Have your own interests, your own friends, your own support network, and your own hobbies, Overlap where you can, but different interests should give you a lot to talk about and help expand your horizons as a couple. The inability to let your partner be who they are is a subtle form of disrespect.

If there is a bedrock of respect for each individual's interests and values underpinning the relationship, each individual is encouraged to foster their own growth and development. Each individual will evolve in different and unexpected ways.

When you commit to someone, you know who they are today, but you have no idea who this person is going to be in ten years. You have to be prepared for the unexpected.

Relationships, like muscles, cannot get stronger without stress and challenge. You will have to fight at times and hash things out. However, it is essential to know how to fight.

• Never criticize your partner's character or belittle them. "You're so stupid" vs "that thing you did was stupid."
• Do not fetch old arguments to tack onto current ones.
• If things get too heated, take a breather. Come back once emotions have cooled off a bit.
• Being "right is not as important as both people feeling respected and heard.

Most successful couples don't resolve all their problems. It comes back to respecting your partner, who will have different values and perspectives on some things. The key here is to abide by the difference, love them despite it, and when things get a little rough, forgive them for it. To get good at forgiveness, remember:

• When an argument is over, it's over. It doesn't matter if someone was mean and someone was nice. It's over.
• There's no scoreboard. There's no, "You owe me this because you didn't do the laundry last week."
• When your partner messes up, separate the intentions from the behaviour. They messed up, not because they secretly hate you, but out of ignorance. Believe in their good intentions.

Don't ever stop doing the little things, such as saying "I love you"; holding hands during a movie; doing small favours here and there; helping with some household chores.

The little things add up. Don't forget them.

A relationship is not 50/50. We all have things we like to do and hate to do. We all have things we are good at and not so good at. One partner may work harder outside the home, and the other may have a more relaxed position.

Be practical in figuring out the division of labour in running the household. Lay out rules about how you will share finances, how much debt will be taken on, how much each person can spend without consulting the other. Have meetings about this stuff.

Relationships exist as waves - we need to learn how to ride them. Some waves last for hours, some for months or even years. The key to success is to understand that few of those waves have anything to do with the quality of the relationship.

People lose jobs, family members die, couples relocate. You may go through times where you may not feel "in love" and times where you love your partner more than ever. Your job as a committed partner is to simply ride the waves with the person you love. Because in the end, none of these waves will last.