In my opinion, the most important things in any relationship are COMMUNICATION and RESPECT. In this blog, I’m going to focus on relationships between couples, but this is applicable to relationships between married couples, parents and children, friends, coworkers and anyone else you may come in contact with. Without communication, there is no chance of the other person understanding you. That includes what you want, what you feel, why you feel the way you feel, how they could help you or how to make things better between you. Communication is the key to any relationship. If there is no communication, there is no relationship. Communication is not just verbal either. When we talk on the phone or via text message, it is easy to misinterpret what someone is saying because you can’t hear their voice in a text, or you can’t see their facial expressions while on the phone. We have verbal and non-verbal communication, and both are important. Sometimes, just the touch of your loved one can mean the world, without saying a word.
That brings me to respect. To me, respect covers so many things in a relationship because when you respect someone, you don’t do things to hurt them. If you respect someone, you won’t cheat on them, lie to them, be mean to them or hurt them intentionally. Respecting someone in a relationship will allow you to put them first and to think of their feelings before you act. We all make mistakes, but there is no respect if a spouse is abusive or controlling. There is no respect if someone has an extramarital affair. Those are selfish acts that show disrespect to their significant other. A relationship built on communication and respect can go a long way.
Intimacy is a part of a spousal relationship and it should be a part of the relationship that is open for conversation. Intimacy is not just sex. Intimacy can just be laying together, watching a movie or holding hands while walking. Any action that shows love and a desire to be close to one another can be considered intimacy. Your partner needs to feel loved and wanted by you, so intimacy is important. Intimacy is a way to express love and there is no way to be closer to your partner than through intimacy. Having said that, I believe that all intimate relationships should be founded on a strong friendship. Sex, changes a relationship and can complicate things. I believe that a strong friendship should be in place and people should know each other very well before introducing sex into a relationship. Having sex too early in a relationship can kill it because sex becomes the driving factor in the relationship. Everything is a lead up to sex, instead of getting to know one another and building a friendship first. Many people jump in the sack with someone before determining that they are not what they are looking for in a relationship. Physical attraction can be strong, but we must be stronger if we want to establish meaningful building blocks for a relationship to stand on.
In my opinion, those are the most important elements to a relationship. Now for the hard part… trying to understand your partner. I believe that as a rule, humans are selfish. We rarely consider the consequences to others when we decide to do something. It is important to sometimes step outside of ourselves and try to be objective and look at things from someone else’s perspective. Many times we may believe that we have done nothing wrong, but our partner is upset with us about something we did. Instead of arguing about it, it is better to take a step back, not be emotional about it, and look at it from an outsider’s perspective, as well as our partner’s perspective. Sometimes, that’s what it takes to understand why our actions have hurt someone. Sometimes we need to take ourselves outside of the situation and view what has happened, before we can understand what we’ve done. Playing the blame game and never accepting responsibility for our actions, will never correct a situation. Many times, emotional abuse happens in this situation because people will attempt to make the other person feel like whatever happened was their fault. Passive aggressive behavior and running guilt trips on people won’t improve a relationship. They will only destroy it. Before long, everything wrong is one person’s fault, while the other accepts no responsibility for their actions. This can lead to depression and other mental health conditions for the person being abused, or led to believe that everything is always their fault.
Finances lead to many divorces because couples can’t agree on how to spend their money. I know some couples who maintain separate bank accounts, but I believe that a relationship is a partnership and you should be able to trust your partner enough to have joint bank accounts. This is not a knock on people who maintain separate accounts, that’s just the way that I like to do things. Fiscal responsibility is very important. These days, a bad credit score can prevent you from obtaining a job, so it is very important to be responsible with your money and live within your means. If you struggle with being responsible, I recommend reading books by someone like Dave Ramsey and sticking to their program.
Money should be budgeted and I’ve always been told to “pay yourself first”. This means that you should always be putting money aside for savings and retirement. Ensure that your bills are paid on time, every month. If you can’t afford something, don’t buy it. You’ve managed your whole life without it to that point, so you can continue to live without it. It is best to save your money and pay cash for something than to buy it on credit. This can even apply to cars. If you take the money that you would spend on a car payment, and put it into a savings account that is saving for the purchase of that car, you can pay cash and you will have the money faster than the length of the loan because you wouldn’t be paying any interest.
I will also share a method to paying off debt faster. I took a program that people pay for and I tweaked it and made it my own. I track all of my bills on an excel spread sheet, so I know exactly how much I owe on every debt that I have. I also input this method of paying off debt faster into my spreadsheet. Basically, when I first bought my house, I was approached by a company called Nationwide Biweekly. What they did was they took half of your mortgage payment, every 2 weeks. This caused you to make 1 extra payment a year and it was supposed to save you a ton of money in interest. The problem is that for 2 months out of the year, you pay 1 and ½ payments toward your mortgage. I don’t know about you, but that was a lot of money coming out in 1 month, so it wasn’t very affordable for me. With my plan, I still make 1 extra payment per year, but I spread it out over the course of 12 payments, so the extra amount doesn’t hurt the bank account so badly. For the formula that I use in excel, let’s say that “x” is the payment amount. I take “x” and multiply it by 13, so that is the amount that I will pay with 1 extra payment per year. I then divide that amount by 12 and get my monthly payment that will lead to 1 extra payment per year. For example, say that I have a $400 car payment. $400*13=$5200. $5200/12=$433.3333. So in order to pay 1 extra payment per year, I only have to pay an extra $33.33 per month. If I did this the way Nationwide Biweekly did it, I would have paid $400 for 10 months and $600 for the other 2 months. I would rather pay an extra $33 every month than to pay an extra $200 for 2 months out of the year. By dividing that extra payment up equally over the 12 months, it also makes it easier to budget those payments. I use this method on all my loan payments. Credit cards are a different story. I pay well over the minimum payment amount on credit cards because their interest compounds more quickly. It is best to limit the number of credit cards that you have and use, and to pay them off every month if you can.
That’s enough about finances. This was supposed to be about relationships and I got a little side tracked because financial problems cause so many breakups / divorces. Another thing that I believe is important in a relationship, is time alone. When parents have children, their lives change forever. Their priority usually shifts from making each other happy, to taking care of the children and making sure that they are well taken care of. Many times, intimacy is what suffers in the relationship because new parents allow babies to sleep in bed with them, or they are going in different directions while taking care of the children. It is important to put your children first. Their needs should come before your own. Having said that, it is still important to make time for each other. Set up date nights and focus on each other. Hold hands when walking in public. Do things to ensure that your spouse / partner knows that you still love them and care about them. Don’t lose the intimate portion of your relationship, just because you had a child. Put the child in a crib instead of allowing them to sleep in your bed. The child will cry until they realize that you aren’t coming for them. Doing this is less painful than having a 4 year old still sleeping in your bed because you never made them sleep alone. In my opinion, having a child sleep in your bed with you every night, can ruin the intimacy of a marriage.
In my opinion, these are some of the keys to a great relationship. If you do the following, you can have an excellent relationship:
- Communicate
- Show your spouse / partner respect
- Treat them as you would like to be treated
- Be honest with them, no matter what
- Base your relationship on friendship, not sex
- Make time for intimacy
- Do not attempt to control them
- Be financially responsible
- Make time for each other, especially after you have children
- Take responsibility for your actions
Hopefully this blog helps with some relationship troubles. Hopefully you agree with me on the points that I’ve made. I know that there are entire books written on these topics, so this is just meant to be a brief overview. Hopefully what I said made some sense and helps some people.
Until Next Time…
Chris
Chris Fronk's Blog 