| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 11/22/2006 7:49:33 PM | Like I say in my profile: Funny how we are all offering the same thing and all want the same things (basically) but still we float....hmmmm
We all have our own standards and levels - but there are some things that I agree on - love, communication, trust/honesty. And, well, of course bringing me coffee in bed every morning wouldn't hurt! 
If the communication is open and honest then there shouldn't be any nasty surprises - as we change and grow, as life affects us through job or debt or children, if we share our thoughts and ideas and dreams - then hopefully we stay on the same page for all time! And if you don't want to communicate, that's fine too, just leave the coffee and go!!  | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 11/23/2006 6:07:02 AM | Communication, respect and dedication.
With those three cores, everything else will fall in place.
To build up the trust you need to communicate.
If you have respect for eachother, you will give 100,000% to the relationship no matter the odds or how difficult things might seem.
Dedication, not looking for others on the side, and when times get tough in life for your partner, you stick it through and become the support they need, which goes back to the Communication and respect aspect.
Basically look at it as the circle of real relational life! | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 11/23/2006 6:57:14 AM | @thunderstorms59 Sorry, I haven't read this thread in a while. 
I have come to realize the most important thing to me to make a great relationship is communication. Without the communication, how can there be trust or anything else? Especially when you go weeks without talking to the person. How can you trust someone that you never talk to? How can you build someting when you never talk? Not being able to see the person on a regular basis because of distance, work, etc.............. is bad enough, but it can be endured with those phone conversations. I find that makes up for not being able to spend time together.
As someone else said here in the thread, yes finding time in a busy day to say I love you. A quick telephone call, or even email. Anything to let the person know that you are thinking about them.
Someone else said you should give 100,000% to the relationship. This is me definitely! I do everything I can for the person in my life. I am always there for them when they need me. I have not been able to find that in return in years!!!!!!!!!
Do I sound a little bitter here? LOL. Not at all!!!!!!!!!!! Just sucks when you think you have found something special and you are the only one doing all the work. Sometimes it just doesn't seem worth the effort.
It definitely takes 2 to make a relationship work!!!!
-Syllie | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 11/27/2006 8:08:27 PM | I like that 100% open communication.... I must be non-judgemental too. Unselfishness that is good too.
Similar personalities are very important. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 11/27/2006 8:12:26 PM |
Similar personalities are very important.
Opposites attract remember - my fiance is my total opposite - I think we are more different than similar!!!  | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 11/27/2006 8:52:11 PM | For me it comes down to one thing: is he/she your best friend?
Everything builds from there. Does he make you laugh so hard you pee your pants? Is she the first person you call when you have bad news? Do you feel "at home" whenever you're with him, no matter where you are?
All the lists and theories are fine and good (opposite/similar personalities) and sure, sex and intimacy are part of the equation, but I think you need to love the whole person before you can move on to anything substantial. Call me old fashioned...  | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/7/2006 1:45:43 PM | I have to agree with sarah_leigh (who is probably too young to remember the commercial "everybody doesn't like something/but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee" )
Let me ask you a question Thunderstorms59. Suppose you are in your ideal relationship and you develop some condition that requires your prostate to be removed. Now it is completely impossible for you to have sex. Should your lover abandon you?
My grandparents had seperate bedrooms for as long as I knew them. For all I know the night they conceived my mother was the ONLY time they had sex in over 50 years of marriage. But they were SO MUCH IN LOVE that when she died of cancer he died 6 months later of a broken heart (at 94).
The "urge to merge" is one of the four instincts left to us mortals, but I feel sorry for you if you think that's the most important thing required to maintain a long-term relationship. Sooner or later we all lose our hair and our teeth and our youthful shapes - it really sounds like you don't really understand the difference between love and lust.
sarah_leigh got it exactly right. It's really easy to believe you're in love when everything is hunky dory, but when life throws you a real curve ball - like losing your job or your home or one of you gets ill or your child dies - then being best friends is the ONLY thing that will keep you together. Sex is not some magical panacea to cure all of life's woes and the trials and tribulations of paying the bills and worrying about the kids and watching your parents get old and die can NOT be overcome by a good f**k.
IMHO, anyway.
Darlene  | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/7/2006 2:53:30 PM | Being able to trust the one your with better than your best friend, open comunication.
As the previous poster wrote, what are you going to do if sex is no longer possible?
Let me guess leave her for someone else? Your greatest love lost in a car crash, say she survived, as a parapallegic, would she still be the love of your life?
If you base the mainstay of your relationshio on sex, forget it for me, I don't need that kind of pressure, been there done that, you have no idea how hard it is to relax and have fun with the person who is suppusedly in love with you with that much stress put upon you!
Sex should be spontanious, sharing of love between two people, a bonding, but true love is so much more that that! | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/7/2006 4:59:01 PM | ALL great posts......
On POF I would say one of the main keys t o a great relationship is READING THE person's ENTIRE PROFILE a few times.......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MOre than once I have had a date tell me "Oh I did Not know that"
??????????????????????????????? didn't know that ????
It says it right there in my PROFILE !!!!!! | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/7/2006 5:01:07 PM | These may be some ways to make for a great relationship;
1.Self Care
Do whatever makes you feel vibrant and alive, even if you need to do it alone. When you feel vibrant and alive, you are attractive to your partner and to others.
2.Care of Your Partner
Hug your partner frequently-not just when you want to get sexy. Touch is an important way that people use to know that they are loved.
3.Togetherness
Expect major life changes to impact your relationship. Having a baby, losing a job, getting a new job, illness, death of a parent, retirement, etc., may create a need to renegotiate almost everything you thought was settled.
4.About Relationships
Expect the closeness and distance you experience with your partner to vary from hour to hour, day to day, and season to season. People experience enough closeness much as they experience enough food-any more leads to discomfort. We all have different capacities.
5.Communication
Say "Maybe" when you are not sure about something. Give a time when you will provide an answer and keep your commitment.
6.Difficult Communication
Speak in sentences or, at most, paragraphs instead of pages during a difficult conversation. Your partner will only remember the last sentence or two you say and forget the beginning of a long speech.
7.Play
Laugh together. Share the jokes or cartoons that make you grin, rent a funny video, or remember the stories about funny things (especially in retrospect) you've experienced together.
8.Tasks
Hire someone to do the chores you both hate-or do them together. Start by looking at the things that never seem to get done, probably because neither of you wants to do them.
9.Boundaries
Name the movie you would like to see, or the restaurant you like best, before you ask your partner's preference. That way you avoid being angry because your partner did not read your mind.
10.Money
Create shared financial goals. Be sure you discuss and agree on priorities. If one of you thinks your savings are for a great vacation and the other expects to use them to invest for financial independence, you are headed for trouble.
11.Special Occasions
Give gifts that your partner has indicated that s/he wants or needs instead of what you believe s/he wants or needs. You can give other gifts, too, but first paying attention to your partner avoids disappointment.
12.Separateness
Encourage your partner to grow and develop in his/her own way. This does not mean to chase your spouse around the house with a self-help book. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/10/2006 1:42:13 PM | | honesty is a key one for me,lots of communication(keeping the lines open at all times),creativity(got to keep it interesting),and lots of respect and caring for the other person. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/10/2006 1:46:49 PM | But what keeps it going?????
Communication, commitment, respect, tolerance, love, personal time/space and a whole lot of forgiveness.
So many people are ready to run at the first sign of trouble. None of us are perfect, we all make mistakes. Being able to talk and work things through and offer forgiveness is what will get you past an unnecessary break-up...BUT, it has to be a mutual commitment to work things out. If you can't be a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/10/2006 4:53:08 PM | | That's the million dollar question... with the divorce rate in this country over 50%. Why do so many relationships end? Some need to end and that is not failure but a reflection of individual change and growth. It is not democratic to be with someone unless you are wanting to be in the relationship and are fulfilled on important levels. Our relationships are only as healthy as we are as individuals...although we all have our own weaknessess which impact who we are with, if we are willing to confront those weaknesses and work for growth then there is hope for the relationship.For it to grow and grow...you must have insight into yourself first of all or you will project all kinds of things onto the person you are with and will never be able to see that person for the unique person they are.Secondly, you have to WANT to work at it...and that is sometimes very difficult. Thirdly, communication always...even communication about communication is a challenge! | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/10/2006 5:08:09 PM | | Many good and crucial qualities are listed here but what about basic values? While there are points in life where you can "agree to disagree" with your partner, if you do not share the same value system,no matter how much you think you love that person or how great the sex, when you constantly have to question and compromise your basic values for someone else, it just won't work. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/10/2006 5:34:37 PM | | That's why insight into oneself is so important. You of couse need to be honest with yourself about your values and the vaules of your partner...and decide what you can live with...happily.Vaules are huge for me...and they are reflected in how a person lives...regardless of what they say. If you find yourself compromising too much and losing your own sense of what is important to YOU...that's exhausting....spa time. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/11/2006 9:25:57 PM | Wow some great responses. Somes it is easier to talk about why relationships fail and work back at what would make them work.
I know there is a psychologist out there because..well she is a great person and she made a key point about insight into oneself... (How are you doing?).
I have been around the block a bit and have lots of opinions so say the least, so here is my take.
After talk to many folks about why their relationship ended. (we won't talk about drugs or addictions here) You hear the following:
1) He cheated.
2)We grew a part
3) She cheated ( hey it happens...lol have to have balance ya know)
4) We were too different
5) We wanted different things..
6)Money.
Now when you peel back the onion on this you'll find the major reason here is that we married our opposites. We married our oppsite becuase they completed us. If you were dominate you got your way and is you were the sweet submissive person then you got partner that would make the decision that you couldn't and got the confidence that you perhaps didn't. Now that would make a good business relationship, but NOT a marriage.
There are 4 personality types and we are a blend of these 4. This is a little complicated but basically we have a primary and a secondary personality and the bottemline is that to have a successful relationship your primary or secondary personality better match with your partners or your likley to be doomed. So if one was to know what their personality type was (know thy self!!!!) and they can recognise people by their personality type, then they are more likely to select people that they'll mostly like have great relationships with. Their are many dating sites that are based on this key concept!
Example: If your an outgoing person and we meet a person who you have a wow chemistry with but they're reserved, then you'll have problems. I want to go to the party, but i want to stay home. I like to talk to lots of people, the other may be jealous of this. the outgoing person see a person slip on a banana peel, they laugh first.. unless of course the is blood gushing out some place. The reserve person first thinks I god I hope they are okay.
The point here is the these are opposites and the hear ans see the world very differently. Pretty much everyone hear thinks communication is key,, right!!!. We'll if you see the world so differently from your partner, it makes it pretty difficult to have effective communication, doesn't it!!! It is not impossible it can work but it takes to very mature people and lot of patients. Get the POINT...
Outgoing people also tend to like variety. Reserve people tend not to like change and find comfort in routine. So just think about the sex part here... The reserve person tend to be conservative and not wanting to experiement and try new things or has a lot of limits. The outgoing person love to try new things and get bored with routine. Well if this happens someone is going to cheat or end the relationship. Boom it is over.
It is not just teh sex, it is the communication. The reserve person need to speak emotionly and need resolution to relationship issure right away and if presented with bad news my cry , get upset, agry etc... The outgoing person is the up cup over flowing person, they don;t like to talk about things that bring them down and may have to think about the issue over several days... Boom okay ladies you know how us guys like to avoid this...LOL But boom communication failure, and if we're not communicating then we start haveing trust issues and so on.
So may point is you need to be with someone who has a similar personality type for a truly great relationship. It starts by knowing what type you are then your partner. Again this is called personal insight or self awareness.
However there are still many good points listed above and all good.
You must both work to make it work. It doesn't matter how much knowledge one person had, knows, does.. it TAKES TWO TO TANGO BABY!!!!!!
You both have have simlilar goals.. ie.. Live it the country or life in the city. Be comfortable with an average incomes or be driven to keep up witht eh jones..etc.. or it will fail.
Here comes the sex part again.. If we are too different here we fail big time!!!! this is the fuel that keeps it together so we better figure out how to keep the flames going here. Most of us fail here. Again it takes two the tango. So people want to be wooowed witht the chemistry. Thes I call endorhpine junkies. This is calles LUST folks... oh and it is good to have.
NO It is a MUST to have!! However the endorphine junkies end their relationships when the lust bubble bursts. these folks confuse this with love. LUST IS NOT LOVE!!!!! The endorphine junkies are just immature people that don't know how to make a relationship work! OOPs I know I just made a lot of people angry with that one.. Hey but it is my opinion.
The good NEWS is that I truly believe you can keep the lust going forever! I've worked training athletes training them to be in the zone when they perform, so that can perform at their best. It doesn't alwasy happen but for the one that work at it there are there most of the time. For those who don't know what the zone is, it is simple an endorphine rush that give you super self-confidence. It is similar to the lust endorhine rush, however the lust rush is much mnore powerful. So folks this is call the fun work in the relationship. This is where you both have to work together to keep the lust, and passion going. This where to plan lustful weekend get aways. Try new things to keep it exciting... plan for lust.. Again it TAKES TWO to TANGO...OH BABY OH BABY....lol
Okay I said enough for know.. I am sure I got some of your shorts in a knott so lets hear from ya!!!
Hey psych gal... may be we should writ a book on this....LOL | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/11/2006 9:47:55 PM | | I wouldn't want to write a book with you for two reasons: You have a black and white view of human nature...personality 'types' etc. and 2) your opinons are based on your own disappointments in significant relationships. In my humble opinion...insight into oneself frees you to have fulfilling relationships with a diverse number of people. Also, in our 'selves' we have our opposites....so enough about slamming the opposites 'out there'. Become friends with the opposite in YOU. FYI I am not a psychologist...just a brilliant sometimes introvert extrovert...sometimes intellectual intuitive...blah blah blah... just a person who loves all kinds of people and a keen observer of human behaviour. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/11/2006 11:11:20 PM | Interesting view, I was dissappointed it your response. It is obvious you didn't read the form. You see my dear.. Yes I did fail in my marriage, after all that is why you and I are here. However failure is just a learning experience, it is what you learn from your mistakes that makes the difference. But I have also had two very successful realtionship that end one in a car crash and one in cancer. You would know this if you read. Since then I just haven't found the right match yet. But I will
As for the personality types will you are entitled to your opinions as this is an open form.
However coperations spend 100's of millions of dollars on personality profiles. Vurtually every HR team either trains, and hires on Myers briggs, true colours, or DISC to name the tops ones.
Damn the are 100's of self-improvement books on this,, How win friends and influence people, Positive personality profiles, Influencer, short cut to success, sales dogs just to name a few. I've read over 30 thirty of them myself and I am working on another 5.. Darn I must need help. But the best for me are still the first two on this list. Oh and I almost forgot the worlds greatests salesman part one and part two.. Great books.
Why do they do this. Because properly applied it works big time. Ask any senior sale peerfessional how effective it is in communication.
Just because your personalities are opposite doesn't mean it can't work, it just means it is the long road hard road and most can't do it. It also doesn't mean you can't like people of different mixes... I have friends all over the map, but I am not marrying them.
You are correct we do have oppsites within ourselves but it is extremely rare to have a primary and secondary personality traits that are opposites, but these folks are in constant conflict with themselves. We can also be opposites we out of our environment, but that is call survival mode and is in conflict with whom we really are.
I am curious how you came to the conclusion that the personality profiling was black and white? There are no rules here just some strong suggestions that make a hole lots of sense.
Men are from MARs and Women are form Venus, is about personality types, it just the author was confused.. hey but it sold. Dr Barbara DiAngolo wrote a great book on this. Doctor Phil's dating website is base on it. Dr Robert Rohm strongly suggests it too...
As a ex-professional coach, coaching by personality was an amazing tool. I am certainly in great debt to the caring person who fixed me and mentored me in this extremely effective communication tool. It fixed me for the most part, but even better it allowed me to enable my athletes to perform at their best. It allowed me to communicate with my kids much more effectively. However it also ended my marriage as both my ex and I realized we were too different. Also we both learned this, we also realized that some of the differences could not be over come. The reason: people change because they want too not because someone else wants them too. Simply put one of us was unable to change. Now there is nothing wrong with the one who didn't want to change. They simply liked who they were and didn't want to change and nor should they. So then you are at an an agree to disagree. This is why most of us are here on the dating site!! We failed to make it work. We remain here a little longer because we are trying to get it right the second time around. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/11/2006 11:16:07 PM | Chemistry would allow me to get into a relationship ~ thats so damn hard to find though!
1) Communication
2) Compromise
3) Passion
4) Acceptance
5) Understanding
If you build a core foundation on the above mentioned 5 ~ I feel a great relationship is in the works, solely because the entire trust level, honesty and respect aspects will fall into place...
I don't believe similar personalites are necessarily important...
My prior and I were together for over 3years and we were complete opposites...Extrovert and outspoken for me...Introvert and reserved for him...Never argued - endlessly in love with each other and best friends...I wanted to get married one day ~ he wanted to live common law ~ Compromise was out of the question and I won't sell myself short on my dreams and goals ~ I won't settle ~ so yes, I had no choice but to walk away...
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/11/2006 11:40:35 PM |
Many good and crucial qualities are listed here but what about basic values? While there are points in life where you can "agree to disagree" with your partner, if you do not share the same value system,no matter how much you think you love that person or how great the sex, when you constantly have to question and compromise your basic values for someone else, it just won't work
Boy hon you said a mouthful! And that is SO true. My first POF "conquest" was an amazing man who seemed to want all the same things I did from a relationship. We spent hours online together and talking on the phone before we met in person. And he said things like he could give me 20 years of happiness (I've got the log of the chat - he can't deny it now!). Because we had been using our webcams to see each other (a whole lot of each other if you take my meaning) we decided that his usual "no sex on the first date" rule was pretty much out the window. I packed for a weekend of unbridled passion.
When we met we were all over each other "like white on rice". It was amazing, neighbours-pounding-on-the-walls-illegal-in-48-states kind of sex. (hats off to the writers of Frasier for that expression, btw). The next day, after we got back from running errands, having made love three times before 10 AM (man I could get used to THAT) he made some comment that prompted me to remark "that sounded like you're racist". That opened the floodgates. He actually said to me (and I quote) "It's not like I'm the Grand Dragon or anything".
It's killing me that the best sex I ever had in my LIFE was with a man who has so much hatred in his heart. I realize that love & hate or closely related and his passionate nature was part of the appeal - but coming from a family that tried to entertain people from 100 different countries as our Centennial project I simply could NOT tolerate a man who believes that ALL Muslims are responsible for 9/11 and that Asian immigrants should not be ALLOWED to send money out of Canada to their relatives at home. Are you freaking KIDDING ME? 
As for the posts about how to maintain a great relationship - honey if I knew that I wouldn't be here would I?  | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/12/2006 2:13:54 AM | Thanks for the great comments,
All great. Yes a shared value system is important too. I guess I comment on the opposite personality thing. Because I was married for almost 20 years. It was great in the begining. The opposite thing worked for us for the short haul but is was very much the thing that broke us a part. We went to counciling and that is basically what the coucillor said too. He said that is the most common reason for marriages to break up. But an opposite value system would fail just as much. If your are similar personalities, it just means that your communication will before effective and that your likely have similar drives in life. But there are a lot of other things to that must be insync.
Sorry about the prejudice thing, that would've got to me too. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/19/2006 8:00:20 PM | For me....... communication is key. without it, you have two people who are floundering. Maybe the sex is great, maybe the interests are compatible, but if you can't communicate your thoughts and preferences, where is the real connection?
I believe that unless you can talk to your partner about anything under the sun, you are not really communicating.
I have never had that until now, and I never even knew I missed it. | |
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| What makes for a great relationship
Posted: 12/20/2006 12:27:22 AM | Ingredients for a Sucessful Relationship (my opinion anyways)
1. TRUST
2.HONESTLY
3,UNDERSTANDING
4.MAKE TIME FOR EACH OTHER
5.GIVE THEM TIME TO THEMSELVES ALSO
6.LISTEN TO THEM WHEN THEY ARE SPEAKING
7.LOYALITY
8.BE A FRIEND ALSO
9.ACCEPTANCE (accept them for who they are)
10. LOVE | |
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