People often tell my husband and I that they admire us and our relationship. Sometimes we get these compliments from people who haven’t even known us that long. My husband and I are blessed to have found each other when we did because we met very young, were high school sweethearts, together 17 years married for 7 and have 2 beautiful children. So what makes our relationship so successful?? 1. Communication, Communication: you probably hear this all the time, but it’s true. Being able to communicate with your spouse, significant other can make things so much easier. Now as a woman I often say “it’s fine” or “I’m fine” because I don’t want to talk about it or expect him to know why I’m bothered. Which can happen with time. But Ladies, your significant other is not a mind reader-you need to tell them what’s bothering you. Now maybe you take some time before expressing yourself to collect your thoughts, that’s fine and probably best so things don’t come out the wrong way. But don’t let so much time pass that you don’t revisit the topic. You must be able to communicate your needs, wants, expectations, dreams, etc. 2. Tolerance: some people might disagree with this. But my husband always says you have to tolerate the person you’re with and I agree. There is no perfect person out there and you can’t create one either. Everyone has a flaw or an imperfection. But if you truly love the person you’re with, you will look past the flaw or imperfection and accept or tolerate them. Now this doesn’t mean that if you’re spouse or significant other is abusive that you have to tolerate that. No one should have to tolerate that. But for example my husband will eat dinner, lunch or whatever and will 99% of the time leave his plate, utensils and cup on the table or counter. I will ask him nicely to put it in the sink but after 7 years of marriage I’ve learned to tolerate or accept this because he always thinks he’s not done and will come back for more. (Yeah right!) but rather than letting this minor flaw irritate me I leave his dishes out for awhile and when I think it’s been long enough I clean it up. Something my husband tolerates about me is that I’m always ready to re-enact/demonstrate something our kids did or I saw on tv! And it annoys him a lot but he tolerates it and he tolerates me 😀 3. Time together: it’s easy to get so busy with life and kids that you somewhat put your spouse or significant other on the back burner, sometimes not intentionally. You just get caught up with the routine and the flow of things. So we make it a point to do date nights. It’s not every week or every month and we don’t always leave the house but we make it a priority to put time aside for each other. We put the kids to bed between 730 and 8pm and will spend time talking or catching up on a tv show we watch together. Sometimes we are both working on projects but we’ll do it together in the same room so that our time is spent together.
4. Intimacy: I'm still very attracted to my husband and he is still very attracted to me! When you've been in a relationship as long as we have, you have to find ways to keep it fresh and interesting. Figure out what your spouse likes or doesn't like and be open to trying new things. Knowing the level of affection your spouse needs is key. For example, I love to cuddle watching tv or just in bed and sometimes that's enough for me. While my husband may need a little more than that and so we have to know each other's needs and find the right balance for us. 5. Laughter: my husband is a comedian! Not really, but he knows how to make me laugh and we have fun together! You can’t get too serious in life where you forget to have fun and laugh together. We have little inside jokes or things we say to each other that will cause us both to break out into laughter. Our kids sometimes look at us like we’re crazy! 🤪but we’re having fun together and that’s all that matters! 6. We have each others backs: my husband supports me in everything I do 1000% and I support him in everything he does 1000%. When I’m too tired to do some of the chores around the house, he has my back and vice versa. We have a true partnership. He picks up my slack and I pick up his slack. I’m not expected to do everything around the house and for the kids and neither is he. We work together to get things done ✅ and recognize when one of us is feeling too burnt out and to step it up which is so important for a healthy balanced relationship. 7. We share the same dreams and goals: from a very young age when my husband and I met we knew what we wanted out of life and from each other. We knew we wanted to get married, buy a house, have children, have our own businesses, travel and the list goes on! It’s been beyond amazing that we share the same aspirations because we get to achieve those Hong’s together. They always say two minds are better than 1! By wanting the same things in life we could walk together in life and make those things happen. And of course there are things we’ve wanted to accomplish or aspire to do on our own but he stands right there with me and I with him. I’m not saying this works for everyone but it works for us. Comment below what makes your relationship so successful! We all see success differently!
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