Romance is tricky. First of all, you have to find someone who has similar hobbies and interests to you. Next, you have to give them time and space to fall in love with you. After that, you get together, and you go from being alone to being with someone all the time. Once you move in together, you have even less time to remember who you are.
Relationships need a certain degree of nourishment to come to fruition. If you don’t put the work in, you don’t get the rewards. So first, let’s discuss the problem with relationships, then move on to cover the seven tips that will help improve yours.
The Problem with Relationships
Relationships stagnate; that’s the nature of the beast. If you don’t take proper care of it, then it will turn foul on you. Once your relationship has turned nasty, it can be challenging to get things back to how they used to be. To stop your relationship from becoming outdated, you need to maintain it… rather like a garden or a new sapling.
We want our relationships to flourish and grow, not to stagnate. This inability to progress beyond certain relationship stages that some of us face need to be worked out of our system with systematic reflection. You have to value yourself highly enough to establish clear, healthy boundaries that your SO respects. Only by open communication and growing together over time can we indeed find love.
If you want your relationships to improve, try the following things.
1. Take care of yourself
Too often, when we get into a relationship, we forget our own needs. This is particularly true if you have any ADHD or neurodivergent tendencies. Setting solid boundaries will allow you to take care of yourself within your relationship from the outset. Even those who are neurotypical can lose themselves when it comes to a new partner. Hyperfocus under session is common within relationships. It is your job to manage your symptoms accordingly.
Taking care of yourself means eating right. It means sleeping for the appropriate amount of time. Taking care of yourself includes eating five fresh fruits and vegetables a day and drinking two liters of water. It means making sure that your personal needs are taken care of. It also includes self-love, which many of us are not good at. If you need tips, tricks, hints, and reviews about self-love, you should head to Bedbible.com for more information.
2. Manage your expectations
When we get into relationships, we tend to hold our partners to the same lofty standards as we have ourselves. When our expectations or partner get too high, we start to become hypercritical. If we continue down this path, we will eventually drive them away. This is why it’s so important to check what the expectations of your relationship are frequently—Check-in with yourself. Make sure you’re happy. Make sure your needs are being met without putting the burden of high expectations on your partner.
3. Be reliable
Many of us want our partners to be there for us in a way that we are simply not there for them. So we have to be the steady force in their life. We have to be reliable. We have to show up when they ask us to show up, your relationship’s expectations, and we have to give what they ask us to share. But, of course, compromise is entirely possible as long as everyone’s needs are being met.
4. Don’t make them the answer
If you have holes in your soul, your partner will not be able to fill them for you, and that is just a fact. So you have to find other ways of making sure that your life feels complete without putting that burden on them. In the words of the TV show “The end of the F*cking World”: you can’t make your partner the answer; they will only ever disappoint you.
5. Don’t Count Up
You shouldn’t count up all the things that annoy you about your partner. This means not trailing back through past incidents where they have upset you. If they do bother you, you should have that conversation at the time. Then you should let it go. Counting up past actions does nothing but ruin your mental health. It will drive a wedge between you and your partner faster than any other thing. Instead, deal with things as they arise and then move on.
6. Take a step back
You don’t have to be with your partner 24 hours a day. Not only is this bad for them and your relationship, but it is terrible for your mental health. Consider work-life balance. And apply this same terminology to your relationship. On any given day, you should have time for work, time for friends and family, and time for love as well as time for yourself. If you haven’t got all this, then it’s time to take a step back.
7. Communication is key
People are always telling you that you need to communicate within your relationships to keep them healthy. People are always telling you this because it’s true. So as soon as you feel hurt, you should speak up. As soon as you think that your partner has wronged you in any way, you should tell them about it. Relationships work best when everyone is open and honest.
Putting Relationship Tips into Action
If you put all of the above points into action, you should soon see improvements within your relationships. Remember, relationships aren’t always romantic ones. Remember too that your most important relationship is the one you will have with yourself. In the famous words of an exceedingly famous drag queen: If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love someone else?
