Relationships don’t foster themselves on their own. They don’t also happen by accident. It takes two to lay the groundwork and then establish the fortress of trust, commitment, and loyalty. Like everything else in life, the path to a successful and healthy relationship isn’t free of obstacles and hurdles. However, the key to learning how to have a successful relationship does not lie in finding the perfect partner for you and expecting a perfect relation with them; it’s rather a summation of different elements that make a relationship work and last forever.

Countless movies have been made, books have been written, and courses have been offered to show and teach people how to make their relationship a living success. And yet, people are faced with problems and complexities in fostering their relationships and the difficulties ultimately drive them away from each other. Apart from love, trust, and sincerity, here are a few tips to have a successful relationship with the person you love.

1. Be in a relationship when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely

One of the most important keys to a successful and long lasting relationship is to get into a relationship for the right reasons. Don’t ever be with someone because you’re pressured to do it. Get into a commitment when you know you are ready. Be with someone when you love being around them.

2. Communicate often

Success relationships are often established on the foundation of openness and communication. It’s easier to communicate things in good times. But things start to heat up, and the tension builds up, that’s when communication comes to the rescue. Instead of letting thing grow into an intense of storm of repressed feelings and unsaid words, communicate about the problems you’re facing with each other the sooner they come up. Don’t wait until the negativity rise up to spill all over your relationship. Nip the problem in the bud as soon the conflict manifests itself.

3. Disagreements are healthy

It’s normal in two people living together and spending considerable amount of time in each other’s company to find uncommon grounds relating to ordinary matter of life. No matter how big the disagreement is, don’t let it define your relationship on one hand, and don’t also give it the power to undermine the strength of your commitment with the other person.

A relationship advisor and therapist Kurt Smith shared her views on the matter by saying,

If partners don’t disagree now and then they’re either not being honest or aren’t human. Disagreeing isn’t a marriage problem ― it’s normal. It’s how couples work through their disagreements (or rather don’t) that can become bad for their marriage. Disagreements are opportunities to practice conflict resolution and build communication skills. Take a look at your disagreements and see what bad habits each partner has when you disagree. Do you talk over each other? Get angry? Yell? Swear? Name call? Disengage? Each partner should make a list of their bad tendencies and use future disagreements to practice responding differently and building better communication skills.

– Kurt Smith

4. Pay attention to good details

There’s nothing else that increases the warmth in a relationship and strengthens your partners believe in you than the undivided attention you pay to everything they do or say. Love and affection without attention is useless. It’s what you remember about your partner’s likes and dislikes, wants and needs, preferences and disapproval’s that together lay the ground for the love and affection to grow into a strong, fulling nurtured tree of love and belonging.

5. Be okay with the uncommon interests

Often the most successful relationships are those that involve two completely opposite people fusing the stark dissimilarities between them into a highly functioning and workable companionship. But it doesn’t mean that one should go out and look for someone that’s opposite to them in every way. It only signifies that sharing common interests is a like a cherry at the top. Having uncommon interests should not come between the happiness of the couple. It’s okay if your partner loves something that you have no likeness for. The success of a relationship does not hinge upon the similarities between two people; it instead is determined at the amount of efforts being put into working out the common interests.

6. Ignore the wrong thing they do, and pay attention to the right things

While it’s true that it’s difficult to look past the wrongs that your partner does to you, but positive reinforcements is as important in a relationship, as it is in the other matters of life. Try not to look for the things they do wrong. Think of all the right things they do to help you overlook the problems and the wrongs in the relationship.