Save Your Marriage - Start Loving Yourself!

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A committed relationship is probably the most difficult thing you will ever do; we spend most of our lives learning who we are and what we want, developing into our own unique individual. Along the way we collect baggage.

Reasons we may not like ourselves, the realization that certain flaws may turn people away. We complicate things, especially relationships. Then when we find that one certain someone we want to spend our life with we struggle to blend two distinct personalities into one harmonious unit. This is the difficult part. We all wish there was an instruction manual, a step-by-step guide on how to achieve marital bliss. The reality of the situation, however, is much simpler. The keys to loving relationships are actually very basic and start with being able to love oneself. It is only when you truly love yourself that you can love someone else.

Be Honest: Being honest with yourself is the best form of love you can give yourself. We make many mistakes in life, many of which occur while we are in a committed relationship. We wish we weren't scatterbrained, we wish we didn't believe that all men are jerks; ...
... we wish that the fight last night had never happened. We make mistakes along the way as we find ourselves and oftentimes we beat ourselves up over them. The biggest mistake we can make, however, is allowing denial to rule how we cope with the things we don't like. The keys to loving relationships, whatever they may be for you, are all founded on one thing, honesty. Not the Boy Scout kind of honesty, no deeper honesty, honesty with oneself. Things will happen, it will hit the fan, but you can make it through anything as long as you are honest. It may take a little longer than you are used to, to negotiate a truce with your partner.

That is why denial is so deceptively easy. It is truly the shortest distance between discord and harmony; but remember, harmony based on falsehood is not really harmony. A successful marriage relationship relies on real, true honesty to keep the keys to loving relationships working at optimal efficiency.

Be Patient: There is a very popular saying that goes something along the lines of; love is patient, love is kind, it is wildly popular for a reason. That reason being, that as humans we hope, no pray, that love is patient. We know we are flawed, we know we will screw up; we know we will make mistakes. We know that no matter how hard we try we will hurt the ones we love, so we pray the ones we love, the ones we choose to have a committed relationship with will be patient with us and deal with all our flaws. The keys to loving relationships are really understanding what we desire most out of others and then showing as much of that consideration to the ones we love as needed. It isn't easy, we are proud creatures who like to fight and when we think we are right, patience is not necessarily a virtue. Yet, having a productive marriage relationship means giving up these prideful ways and embracing our ability to be patient and kind to the one we love most.

The keys to loving relationships, for adults, are akin to embracing our inner child. As children we love ourselves because everyone around us loves us dearly. We haven't learned yet all the bad things we are capable of; we haven't yet been hurt in a way that may change us forever. We don't second guess the obvious and we don't over think our actions. We know that love is a very simple thing. We complicate things when we are older. So remember your partner is really no different deep down inside than the kids you knew in school. If you are nice and patient and kind things will work themselves out; and if not, well that is unfortunately a topic for another day.