What Does A Happy Couple Look Like? Nine Tips To Help Achieve A Healthy Relationship

While many of us hope for a loving relationship in life, the divorce rate remains around 50 percent for first marriages and only goes up from there. Those numbers can be enough to make one feel leery about knowing what to do to make their relationship work. But don't worry, you can be a happy couple and have a happy romantic relationship. It just takes focus, patience, and love. The following steps can help!

1. Learn to separate fantasy from reality

TV and movies can shine an unrealistic light on relationships. 

Reality tends to be different from fantasy, and to be a happy couple, it can help to recognize that your relationship likely won’t always resemble the romcoms. 

Real relationships go through ups and downs. That's normal. You can still be a happy relationship without having the perfect relationship. In fact, you'll need to learn how to be happy without a perfect relationship because they don't exist, and it's not going to happen. Learning this early on can help you to be happier because it's helping you to shape expectations that are realistic for your relationship.

2. Say what you mean and mean what you say

According to a UCL study, communication issues may be one of the leading causes of divorce and breakups among live-in relationships. There are a lot of different communication issues that can arise in your relationship, but one of the main things that you should focus on is having honest communication. 

Another communication issue that can arise is not telling your partner what you want or need. People might want their partners to figure out what their needs are. They might even feel that if their partner loves them, then they should know what those things are. Then, they can become frustrated when their partner isn't doing the things that they want them to. No one is a mind reader, and everyone must learn to communicate openly with their significant others. 

3. Learn to forgive quickly and easily

A realistic part of relationships is often the need to forgive one another. You probably can't be in a long-term relationship without ever having arguments, saying things you don't mean in the heat of an argument, or causing another kind of hurt. Whether it's big things or little things, you should learn how to ask forgiveness and grant forgiveness.

If you think that a happy couple is one that never needs to forgive one another, you might be looking for something that doesn't exist within a relationship. Instead, you might want to consider learning to forgive and working past the issues that arise.

4. Be best friends

Best friends have things in common and enjoy spending time together. They often can't wait to tell each other things that have happened during their day or turn to each other for advice and comfort. This can be what you want to experience with your partner.

It can be important that you still have close friends outside of your relationship but try to make your partner your best friend. They should be the one person that you don't want to live without. Look for things that you enjoy doing together. Spend time with one another. When your partner is your favorite person to spend time with, it can truly help you to have a healthy and fulfilling relationship.

5. Have other friends

As mentioned above, you’ll likely still want to have other friends, even if your partner is your best friend. It might be unrealistic to expect that your partner can fulfill all of your needs. 

It can be incredibly healthy for women to have friendships with other women and men to have friendships with other men. A little space in your relationship can help keep you happy as a couple.

6. Don't think you're the only ones who are struggling

All relationships can come with challenges. However, people aren't usually posting about the latest heated argument that they had with their significant other on social media. This can make it easy to feel like every other couple is happy and living a good life when you and your partner are the only ones who are arguing. But this isn’t an accurate perception.

While there may be different degrees of struggles that couples can face, everyone goes through difficult times. When you know that you aren't the only one, it can make it easier to work through the hard times and still come out as a happy couple on the other side.

7. Ask for help before you reach the breaking point

There is nothing wrong with going to couples counseling and getting help for your relationship. Counseling is effective and perhaps even more effective when the couples go earlier instead of waiting until they are thinking of splitting up. In fact, over 95% of couples who engage in online therapy say that the process was “helpful.”

You don't have to be at the brink of breaking up before you get help. Counselors can help you learn how to improve your communication, deal with common obstacles that arise within relationships, and improve self-esteem, which also leads to improved relationships, according to research.

8. Don't drag friends and family into relationship issues

As people, we might want to bring friends and family into our relationship issues. If you are in an argument with your significant other, then you might be tempted to get others to be on your side. You might want to find people who will back up why you are right, and your partner is wrong. But this can be a dangerous thing to do for your relationship.

The only person who you should consider involving in your relationship issues is a licensed counselor who can provide educated help and direction that is unbiased. Friends and family can tend to take your side even if you aren't right. And, by constantly drawing them into your problems, you might cause them to have negative feelings towards your partner as well, even if you and your partner later work out the issues.

You don't need others to help you prove your point, and you don't need to turn your family and friends against your partner. If you want to be a happy couple, then you should consider keeping your arguments between the two of you or bring in an educated professional for help.

9. Remember the grass isn't greener

Another trick to being a happy couple can be to avoid playing the comparison game. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes of other relationships, so you don’t need to compare your relationship to anyone else’s. 

Takeaway

If you are having issues in your relationship, then talk to a counselor. If your partner isn't willing to do counseling with you, then you can do it on your own and still learn things about yourself and your relationship that can help you to improve it. But if your partner wants to go with you then the two of you can work together on improving certain areas so you can enjoy being a happy couple with a relationship that is fulfilling to both of you. Regain has counselors available online who can help you and your partner find the happiness you’re looking for.