48 Truths About Being Married That People Don’t Believe Until They Experience Them

Any positive relationship, romantic or otherwise, is grounded in honesty and good communication. In a nutshell, you want to feel safe enough to share what you think and feel with the people closest to you. You want to feel heard, understood, and truly connected.

Mutual respect, kindness, fairness, and equality are also vital in relationships. These require two-way effort. If only one person is behaving decently, something is off. You need to be able to compromise at times, instead of dominating the other person or them walking all over you.

Other things that help build a healthy relationship include shared interests, similar values, boundaries, respect for consent, generosity, respecting privacy, being able to deal with conflict, and being authentic, the BBC writes.

The key thing to remember in any relationship is that if something’s wrong, if there’s an issue, your best approach is… simply talking to the other person about it. There is no alternative to open and honest communication. Nobody is a mind-reader.

But you need to tackle these problems in a non-judgmental way as much as possible. Tell the other person how their behavior makes you feel and how you’d like the relationship to look like in the future. Don’t attack them, even if you’re objectively right and they’re clearly in the wrong. You don’t need to “win” the argument. You need to get on the same page, instead.

“If it’s on your mind, even if it’s something good, don’t be afraid to bring it up. We tend to not communicate as much as we need, and you can rarely over-communicate when it comes to how you’re feeling. Checking in with yourself and the other person to make sure you continue to have similar goals and similar values is as equally important as anything else,” registered psychotherapist Natacha Duke told the Cleveland Clinic.

A core part of authenticity is vulnerability. In order to enjoy a healthy relationship, you both need to be ready to be vulnerable.

“Sometimes, this might mean sharing parts of ourselves that we feel insecure about in order to see if this relationship could have the makings of something special,” Duke says.

“One thing you can continue to check in with yourself about over time is whether or not your trust towards this person is growing. Is there something you’re not getting that you need? Is there something you’re not doing that your partner needs?”

Which of these marriage secrets did you find the most helpful, and why? What aspects of your relationships, romantic or otherwise, do you typically struggle with? What are you doing to grow and improve as an individual?

What advice would you give new couples to help them see if they’re genuinely a great match?

We’d love to hear your thoughts about, well, everything. Drop by the comments at the bottom of this post to share your wisdom with all the other readers, as well as us.