When I started with HowToLiveWow.com, I wrote a blog post that changed my life. It made me realize more than ever that happiness and success come and go in tune with relationships with people. That’s why this post is dedicated to one of the, if not the most important relationship of all: the one with your partner.

“I want to be able to summarize my entire life in just one magical word: ‘Wow!’ The love of my life: Wow! My children: Wow! The friendships I had: Wow! The career I worked on with dedication and joy: Wow! The things I learned and passed on in life: Wow! The most beautiful spots on earth I had the opportunity to visit: Wow! What I managed to do for others: Wow!” Read the original blog post..

First of all, it takes two. This so-called ‘perfect relationship’ only works out if both of you pay attention to the following aspects.

Attention. Attention is like oxygen to your relationship. If you don’t get enough, eventually it will cause irrepairable damage. If you give to much of it, you’ll start hyperventilating. Everyone needs a certain amount of confirmation. Some need more, some need less. I am not just talking about physical attention, but also about showing genuine interest in the other person’s day-to-day activities, emotions and overall well-being.

Acceptance. It is vital to accept your partner as he or she is, including his or her flaws and bad habits. However, this should not be mixed up with having no limits whatsoever in what the other person can do to you. It is important to show your limits, and to be clear when something hurts you. After acceptance, which usually stays within your confort zone, comes tolerance, which basically means you start accepting things about your partner that are a bit outside of your comfort zone.

Communication. The ability to express your thoughts, ideas, concerns, and most important… your love it’s crucial. Most relationships fail due to communication errors.

Trust. Trust creates an important foundation for your relationship, as it takes away a large part of the fear to lose someone. It’s not something you create by merely expressing trust. It shows from your behaviour instead. It means you don’t scroll through your partner’s email every second day. It means that if your partner is late from work, you don’t doubt the fact that he or she had a rough day at the office and needed to finish some work. Give eachother space to move freely.

Respect. Expressing respect towards eachother can be extremely uplifting. I’m not just talking about respect for the other person, but also for yourself. By respecting yourself and respecting the other, you create a positive, upwards spiral in which your mutual appreciation grows. Don’t forget; respect needs to be expressed! It is virtually impossible to agree about everything when you share your lives, but respecting your partner’s decisions and opinions when they are different from yours is an important way to showrespect.

Having it all… or maybe not? Many people are looking for a Miss or Mister Right who “has it all”. This expectation might be a little unrealistic. When you feel like you’re looking for someone who “has it all”, first of all think of what “all” means to you. Define what you believe is essential about a partner, and what is less important to you. After determining what you find important about your partner, ask yourself whether you really need all these things in one person. I, for example, love a good discussion about politics. I can have such discussion with my best friend and to be honest, I don’t think I could have a discussion about politics in this particular way with someone else. For that reason, I consider it less important to have similar political discussions with my partner. Surrounding you with a couple of people – a partner, a best friend, a mentor, etc. – who, if you combine them, provide all emotional, intellectual and physical needs you have, makes you less dependant on one particular person.

Love. Needless to say, the only irreplacable part of the foundation of a perfect relationship is love.

What does your perfect relationship look like? Do you already have such a relationship? Share your comment with fellow readers!

photo by p0psicle