Traits of Successful Relationships
A successful relationship is the Holy Grail in life for most people. We are constantly searching and striving to attain that bond with someone without fully understanding the components involved in making it happen. In a time of serial monogamy, marriage drive thrus, and quickie divorces, we don’t have much incentive to invest that sort of time. Relationships are easy to get out of. But in order to have a successful relationship, both parties must first actively communicate their intentions of what they are hoping to gain from the relationship, concerns, and hopes for themselves as individuals and as a collective.
Failure to do this would surely be the demise of any relationship. During life, a significant factor is the relationship with another. There are many aspects to a relationship that will make it strong or long lasting. Looks may seem to be important but in the long run they prove not to be. Looks can be changed through surgery and can fade with age. There are four qualities that should be found in a good strong relationship. These four factors will never change no matter what kind of relationship one is in or what one looks like. The four factors that make a good relationship are commitment, trust, caring, and communication.
In any relationship, if any of these four factors are missing then the relationship will not last long. Commitment is an important factor in building a strong and successful relationship. Commitment keeps a relationship together through the good and the bad times. Whether a partner in a relationship is suffering through hard times, the couple if committed will pull through. A strong relationship that is committed will make it through the major and the minor crisis of life. A minor crisis that could put a strain on a relationship could be considered as something simple such as the breaking of a date or one person having no money.
A major crisis may be one partner going off to war or having to leave town for several months on business. If the relationship is committed then a couple will survive these crises. Commitment is a step in building a strong relationship. (Naidu, 1996) The second part of a successful relationship is trust. Trust is like the “I love you” of a relationship. Trust means that when one partner wants to go out for a night on the town with his or her friends that they will not cheat. When a couple is out together for a night, the partner will not be flirting with other people in the room.
A couple that trusts each other will give each other space to do their own thing. Trust allows a relationship to grow because there is not the constant worry of what the other party is doing. Trust is when there are selected responsibilities that each partner may have and makes sure are fulfilled. Responsibilities such as making sure the trash is taken out or the bills are paid on time. Building trust in a relationship could even consist of making sure that if there is a dinner date that both parties are on time. Even though destroying trust can happen in an instant, building trust takes lots of time. Gildea, 2005) Building trust in a relationship takes time and effort while destroying it could be as simple as cheating or not showing up when a date is scheduled. The third part of a successful relationship is caring. There is no way to truly describe what caring is but it is an intimate part of any relationship. Caring is a feeling or emotion that cannot be readily described in words but still a feeling. Caring is missing your partner when they are away or being sad when they are not feeling well. Caring in a relationship is an emotion that can only be described using other emotions.
When two people care for each other in a relationship they form a bond which is hard to break even when common sense tells them that they need to. This bond is so strong that even abusive couples will stay together. The couple thinks that they care for each other enough that the abuse does not matter. (Jaroneczyk, 2002) Caring is the fabric of building a strong relationship. The fourth and most important part of a relationship is communication. Communications is the problem solver of a relationship and could also be the destroyer of a relationship. Communication is the foundation of every relationship.
Whether it is a relationship between a man and a woman or a relationship between people of the same gender, communication is the best way and maybe the only way for people to express their feelings to their partner. When a good communication system does not exist, the relationship could no longer exist either because the two sides do not understand each other anymore. Communication keeps the both sides inform about everything. Even though communication is very vital, it is very hard to accomplish a lot of times. It is even harder for a man and a woman to establish a good communication due to the differences of the two genders.
As stated by Deborah Tannen in her article “Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other? ” men and women, when it comes to communication, they are very different from each other. Each gender looks at the subject from a whole different point of view. For the male, they don’t like to do much of talking but more of hanging out together. Going to a bar or watching a sport game is their way of good bonding and communication. As for women, they like to have long chats and that is their way of good communication.
Like Tannen said, “Intimacy is the fabric of relationships, and talk is the thread from which it is woven (Tannen, 1995, 33). ” Therefore, the two sides look for different things when it comes to communication in a relationship. This is one of the main reasons why it is easier for two people of the same gender to communicate than opposite sex. When a man is down, he comes to his best male friend and tells the problem, the friend probably will not be so sensitive about it but instead might try to argue it, showing the male hierarchy and they start to have a debate. For a woman, it is very different.
Women try to understand each other and put themselves into the position and try to feel it with one another (Tannen, 1995, 33-34). The natural development of men and women also plays a very important role in creating a hard communication between the two genders. Throughout history, men always had been the more dominant gender. A male is always expected to support and run his family externally. On the other hand, a female’s role in society is to take care of the kitchen and the children. A female in history was always expected to wait and stay by the side of a man and never would get the same opportunities or treatment.
Even though this concept had improved over the years with hard works of many courageous women, it is still a problem today. In her essay “Unfair Game,” Susan Jacoby displays how disrespectful men can be to women. According to Jacoby, men always think that women are out hunting for men. Jacoby shares several of her personal experiences to prove her point. One of the incidents is when she and a friend were having a conversation at a bar and a drunken man tried to hit on them. They outwardly refuse and the man was very amazed at their rejection.
These types of incidents are typical in today’s society but morally very wrong. Society always has pictured women as the lower and less important gender. So therefore, with this idea in mind, women get less respect and get treated as though they are useless and always have to go out in search for men to survive. In the society today, some men take this concept and go a step further. They expect to get what they want and if not, they call the women bad names like it happens to Jacoby (Jacoby, 207-208). Communication is the first and most important thing in a relationship but it is also the hardest thing to accomplish.
A bad communication in a relationship could cause many misunderstandings and troubles. If good communication is easily attain, than the United States would not have nearly 50 percent divorce rate (Tannen, 1995, 32). It is very hard to achieve, but fighting will not solve anything, only compromises will solve problems. But ultimately the reason communication is most important is because it’s the beginning of any relationship. Every relationship starts with communication because that is how you meet the person. A relationship will not get started if the communication is not there.
Communication separates a purely physical relationship with no meaning from a true strong relationship. Communication in a relationship should be honest. Communication makes two people one. (Jaroneczyk, 2002) When a couple knows each others likes and dislikes communication is strong. Communication lets a couple talk about their problems and can help resolve many of them. In a relationship with no communication a small problem can cause a rift which will lead to a break up. This is why communication is an important part of a relationship. In all relationships there are up and downs.
There are likes and dislikes in any relationship but there are four elements that keep them together. A couple that has strong communication is more likely to stay together then one that does not. A relationship with caring will be stronger than a relationship without. A couple that trusts one another is a likely pair to stay together. Finally a couple that has a strong commitment is more likely to have a good relationship. When these four things are accomplished in a relationship it is very likely that they will succeed! References Gildea, D. (2005). Developing A successful relationship.
Accounting Today, , 18-49. Tannen, Deborah. “Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other? ” Encountering Culters: Reading and Writing in a Changing World. 2nd edition. Richard Holeton, ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 1995. Naidu, J. (1996-06-29). For successful relationships. New Straits times, 01. EX. Jacoby, Susan. “Unfair Game. ” Outlooks and Insights: A Reader for College Writers. 4th edition. Paul Eschholz and Alfred Rosa, ed. New York: St. Martin Press. 1995 Jaroneczyk, J. (2002). Successful relationships. Internet World, 8(7), 11-31.
