A love that lasts isn’t a happy accident. You don’t chance upon it, on a bright summer morning, like you do a sale at your favorite designer store. A love that lasts happens when two brave people drop all their preconceived notions to commit, and keep committing even when it’s the most difficult thing to do. Love is a choice and loving takes hard work. Unlike the magic of love, its survival isn’t contingent on a charm. It takes more than a flick of the wand to breathe life into love.
If you are one of those whose relationships die an easy death, maybe it is time to check if you’ve got what it takes to pull through on the other side, when sh*t gets real. Because the success of your relationship depends on two people: YOU and your partner. And you can only take charge of yourself. Here’s a list of important personality traits that will help you know if you can find and keep a love that lasts:
Suggested read: 16 strong signs you should breakup with your partner
1. You like yourself
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Research shows your romantic relationship will fall apart if you do not like yourself as an individual. If you do not like anything about yourself, it is likely that you aren’t going to like much of whoever mirrors you and ruin it with someone who complements you!
2. You can practice empathy
It simply implies that you can respect others’ feelings, even if you haven’t experienced them yourself. All it takes is an acknowledgement that any feeling in the world isn’t invalidated, merely because it does not feature in your own gamut of feelings and falls outside your emotional bandwidth.
3. You believe in experiential learning
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If you base your ideas about life on experiences, you have a higher shot at attaining success in relationships than you’d have if you were leading by assumption. This means that your romantic attachment shall be based on what you experience rather than on a rigid, pre-formulated notion of who or what your soul mate should be like or do.
4. You believe in growth
When you set yourself up to grow and evolve, you make yourself open to change. Change, being an only constant in life, is what helps you to naturally adapt with whatever it brings along. This means that you can develop yourself as well as the relationship, as time progresses, thereby keeping it sustainable and healthy.
5. You can work, even when you aren’t up for it
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While it is essential that you feel happy to work, sometimes, life isn’t that kind. In such situations, it is imperative that you know how to carry on even when you don’t feel ‘so good’ as that becomes a crucial element for finding a middle way in your relationship tussles. An impasse will only open up when you can work out a compromise.
6. You can be present
If you are one of those restless minds who is always fixating on some unsolved problem or solving some imaginary puzzle in his mind, you might not be cut out for love. Love requires you to be present in the present and focus on what’s right in front of you. From falling for a person and not the idea of him/her to making it work, everything about love requires the present of being present.
7. You express, honestly
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If you have the honesty to express what you feel and the confidence to know that your feelings matter, you shall slash much of the stress in relationships, effortlessly. Most relationships bear the brunt of partners who keep their feelings locked until they finally pour out in a lethal explosion, one day. If you can share what you need without qualm or question, you can eliminate the whole ordeal.
8. You are independent
You know who you are, have lived by yourself and are self-sufficient. You do not need another to shape your idea of self or make you feel secure. That changes the dynamic of a relationship into one between equals- and that’s as fair as it gets!
9. You are realistic
Very often, people take the battle between the heart and mind literally. While a romantic outlook is certainly needed for romance, being realistic about acceptance (of who your partner is) helps develop gratitude for the good things in a relationship. It also helps weed out undesirable elements or decide if it is time to break an unhealthy or toxic attachment.
10. You have standards, not expectations
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A standard determines what is acceptable and what isn’t. An expectation is based on the idea that something would turn out exactly as you imagine. The difference, itself, makes it clear that your non-negotiables must feature high on your list. The rest of the checklist can be done away with, as long as the love you bear toward each other is true.
11. You can confront the ‘unwanted’ bits
If you only want to feel happy in a relationship, you should probably clear out now. Love comes with a bunch of other things- like pain, anger, frustration, jealousy and very often, hurt. If you can’t allow yourself to feel these, then you cannot feel love, in its entirety either. To be avoidant of one thing is to be avoidant of another- so open yourself to the entire experience, and it will be worth it.
12. You can accept your mistakes
You can agree to disagree when your ideas clash but you are also accepting of all the times when you go wrong. There’s no shame in that. If you don’t know something, you admit it and are willing to learn and grow.
Suggested read: Make it work even when you are opposites: On navigating conflicts in a relationship
13. You don’t feel entitled to anything
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You don’t feel that you are ‘owed’ anything. You know that love is best, when it is freely given and received and you are more than willing to do your bit to earn it- and build it. You know people work for what they want to have and keep- so it is with love. And once you have it, you aren’t about to take it for granted.
How many of these do you have?
Featured image source: Pixabay, under Creative Commons License
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