1,500 People Give All the Relationship Advice You’ll Ever Need
This article is a part of my Best Reads of the Month section on my website www.mikegorlon.com. Each month I pick one or two articles or blog posts that I find on the internet which I thought were really insightful, interesting or moving. Then I share them with you. You can view the previous month’s articles by going to: https://www.mikegorlon.com/best-reads-of-the-month
January 2021: 1,500 People Give All the Relationship Advice You’ll Ever Need
I’ve included Mark Manson in my Best Reads of the Month list before and I’m going to do it again because he does another fabulous job in writing this article.
Mark Manson crowdsourced a relationship guide by asking his readers who have been married for 10+ years and are still happy in their relationship to share what lessons they learned and what is working for them.
He also asked people who were divorced what didn’t work for them.
The results he got were incredible and he did notice a pattern in the lessons that repeated themselves so he compiled those lessons that many successful couples (and those lessons on what didn’t work from people who were divorced) and he created this article.
The lessons that Mark found on what make a great relationship are:
1. Be together for the right reasons
2. Have realistic expectations about relationships and romance
3. The most important factor in a relationship is not communication, but respect
4. Talk openly about everything, especially the stuff that hurts
5. A healthy relationship means two healthy individuals
6. Give each other space
7. You and your partner will grow and change in unexpected ways — embrace it
8. Get good at fighting
9. Get good at forgiveness
10. The little things add up to big things
11. Be practical, and create relationship rules
12. Learn to ride the waves
If you’re interested on the details of each lesson then I highly suggest you read it.
Here is the link and a list of some of my favorite quotes:
Link: Relationship Advice from Over 1,500 Happily Married Couples
“Trust is like a china plate — if you drop it and it breaks, you can only put it back together with a lot of work and care. If you drop it and break it a second time, it will split into more pieces and it will require more time and care to put back together again. But drop and break it enough times, and it will shatter into so many pieces that you will never be able to put it back together again, no matter what you do.”
“[John] Gottman has been able to narrow down four characteristics of a couple that tend to lead to divorces (or breakups). He has gone on and called these ‘the four horseman’ of the relationship apocalypse in his books.
- Criticizing your partner’s character (“you’re so stupid” vs “that thing you did was stupid.”)
- Defensiveness (or basically, blame shifting, “I wouldn’t have done that if you weren’t late all the time.”)
- Contempt (putting down your partner and making them feel inferior.)
- Stonewalling (withdrawing from an argument and ignoring your partner.)”
“Don’t ever be with someone because someone else pressure you to. I got married the first time because I was raised catholic and that’s what you were supposed to do. Wrong. I got married the second time because I was miserable and lonely and thought having a loving wife would fix everything for me. Also wrong. Took me three tries to figure out what should have been obvious from the beginning, the only reason you should ever be with the person you’re with is because you simply love being around them. It really is that simple.
- Greg”
