Living apart is not a guarantee the relationship will come to an end. Long-distance relationships have powerful emotional and intimacy dynamics.
Research found couples living in different places have more stable and committed relationships, but when they do start living together, they're more likely to break up than couples who lived together all along.
Long-distance couples were more likely to idealize each other.
They tend to fight less since there was less to fight about and less time to fight.
They were also more likely to avoid conflict and withhold their real opinions.
But the post also helped a lot of people. Since writing it, it's generated a staggering amount of thank you emails, and no less than 20 people notified me that it inspired them to end their relationships (or even in a few cases, their marriages).
The idea that couples must communicate and resolve all of their problems is a myth. The truth is, trying to resolve a conflict can sometimes create more problems than it fixes.
The last person you should ever have to censor yourself with is the person you love.
It’s important to make something more important in your relationship than merely making each other feel good all of the time. The feel-good stuff happens when you get the other stuff right.
Sometimes the only thing that can make a relationship successful is ending it at the appropriate time, before it becomes too damaging. And the willingness to do that allows us to establish the necessary boundaries to help ourselves and our partner grow together.
I've assembled a list of non gender-specific ways that couples sabotage their relationships. Hopefully, this list will help create some "a-ha" moments, great conversations and behavioral changes. Here are ten warning signs that couples should be aware of before it's too late: 1) You focus more on what's wrong rather than what's right.
... than in love. Even though it may seem justified when your partner falls short or makes a mistake, choosing a righteous response will only damage trust and create lingering resentment.
Give your partner the benefit of the doubt. It builds up appreciation, good will and a desire to do even better to please you next time.
Acknowledge that your partner has needs that also deserve to be met. Do your best to be the one who can help them meet their needs better than anyone else.
When you take things personally and get your feelings hurt too easily, it closes off communication, makes problem-solving nearly impossible and leaves you both at risk. Look for the common ground instead of the insult.
A few years ago, I met a woman at a wedding who told me that she pictured marriage like two astronauts floating around in space, tethered together. "You're both so busy and preoccupied that it's easy to drift apart without noticing," she said.