"Nothing breaks the bridges of love, except a weak foundation." - self
Yes, that is a quote I came up with several years ago. If you have a relationship with a strong foundation, then you have a love that can never be broken.
However, nowadays, about 50% of all marriages end in divorce. How is this possible? What is going on? Is my quote inaccurate now???
I will contend that my quote is still just as accurate as it has always been, but there are now changes that make the foundations of relationships a little weaker. How do we build indestructible foundations to create this permanent love? Allow me to provide a little advice (with a little modern flair).
First of all, any foundation must be solid. To build a solid foundation, we can not build the outer layers first and then fail to build the core within the relationship. To build a solid core, you must first get to know the person you are with. This is important. A lot of relationships jump right into the sack too soon. This creates a relationship without a solid core. You have a relationship, but you don't really know the person you are with. In this case, you are playing a gambling game. So, if intimacy isn't the way to know someone, then what is?
The answer to everything in a relationship is: communication. Plain and simple. You must communicate with the person you are with. You can not build any foundation without communication. To build the core of the relationship, you must communicate with the person you are with.
Once you learn who the person you are with is, then what comes next? Trust. You must build trust with the person you are with. Trust is one of things that is easy to lose. It is difficult to gain, and easy to lose. How do we build trust?
Again... communication. You must continue to communicate with your significant other. Do not be afraid to let down your guard and let this person in. Revealing yourself to your partner allows your partner to trust you. But trust is something that needs to be maintained. If you've let your partner in, but fail to keep the lines of communication open, your partner will start to feel like you are hiding something. Once that trust is lost, it is HARD to get that trust back. The perfect analogy to this is like trying to push a rock up a hill. You need to keep pushing that rock upwards. If you slip up, you have to rebuild that momentum to get moving forward again. And if you let it go completely, it rolls back down and you lose that trust completely.
The more trust you build, the stronger your foundation becomes.
Now, communication still continues to be important. Even after you trust each other, you must be prepared to fix any issue that arises. Fights will happen. This is normal. What is important is, again... communication (WITH EACH OTHER!!!!). You must communicate your point of view to your partner, and your partner should communicate his/her point of view with you. Then find some type of solution to it. Now, this could be coming up with a compromising solution where you give a little, and your partner gives a little, but together, you reach a common agreement, or it could be a give and take, where you let your partner have his/her way this time.
Now, note the all caps in the previous paragraph. In today's day and age, people think it is acceptable to "have it out" on social media sites. This is a BAD, BAD decision. When you duke it out on social media, you are inviting friends into your fight. This means that you are NOT communicating with each other, but are instead communicating to your friends, and looking for validation behind your point of view. What you are doing is building an army and going to war against your partner. Does this sound like a couple who wants things to work???
No.
The days of social media have made it harder for relationships to work. Couples who fight now pit their friends against their partner, and their partner against their friends. It turns into a complicated mess. If I have a friend who is fighting it out on Facebook with their partner, I will therefore feel pressured to side with my friend over my friend's partner, even though my friend's partner may be right. And in the end: no communication ever happens with each other. No solutions are ever come up with. No one comes up with a resolution, therefore the fighting escalates.
You can not solve a problem by building an army and going to war against your partner. Hoping to destroy your partner KILLS your relationship. The bridge is broke. There is no repairing it. What you need to do is mend those paths together. You need to work together with your partner to patch up the road. And to do that, you must actually put down the weapons, get rid of the army, and practice diplomacy with each other, and actually fix the problem. No war was ever "peacefully" resolved with killing. In the end, peace treaties are signed when two people actually get together and talk.
Communication is the key to everything, in the end. And today, people do not communicate enough with each other. People are spending too much time apart, getting caught up in their own lives, and dealing with their own problems. Remember, in a successful relationship, your problems are also your partner's problems. Help each other work through them. People keep building up armies against each other. Try resolving your issues in a peaceful manner, before the need to build an army even arises. Even in marriage, foundations must be maintained. There is no such thing as "the indestructible foundation," but a foundation that is maintained, with proper communication, will last for as long as you make it last.
As always, thanks for reading. Feel free to leave comments if my advice helped you at all. Also, if you feel that this advice is "on-point," share the knowledge with someone you feel could benefit from this. With approximately 50% of all marriages ending in divorce, I feel that this is a message that needs to be to be read. :)
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