While many couples feel long-term relationship in marriage is a dream that never comes true, there are many who enjoy loving relationship throughout their married life.

Some couples come closer and become more dependent on each other emotionally as the years pass by.

There are still a good number of couples who enjoy sexual intimacy throughout their married life with or without sexual intercourse.

Most couples think that for a successful marriage you got to get the right partner and you have to be lucky enough to have a cooperative, understanding and loving partner. In short, they have to be ‘made for each other’.

However, it is an undeniable fact that every such couple has to put in years of hard work with great deal of understanding, and adjustments to make the married life mutually satisfying.

There is no magic formula.

Instead of grumbling about what is going ‘wrong’ in their life, they keep expressing, at every opportunity, what is going on ‘right’ in their life. Gradually both start believing that only ‘right’ things are happening in their life.

Happy couples make every effort to keep in touch with each other’s feelings, adapt themselves in different situations and most importantly they respect each other.

They also make efforts to develop an increasingly fulfilling sex life.

Only with strong feeling from within that they both need each other, they ‘learn’ to ‘love’ each other and enjoy each other’s company.

Do you ever get angry with the person whom you love most and need most?

Personal problems become issue only when the excitement of living together wears off.

Every couple marries to make it successful. They also have clear picture in mind about benefits of a long-term relationship.

But couples in successful marriage are the ones who work for it.

Every human being loves to be appreciated and is willing to do anything to please a person who appreciates them.

Most of us don’t appreciate small doings of others because we feel it is unnatural or artificial.

Developing habit of appreciating others for every little thing they do or achieve, is the skill one needs to acquire to be successful in business.

This very skill also helps in making married life wonderful.

We do not lose anything in whispering sweet and kind words of love and appreciation, but gain life time of love in exchange.

Continuous flow of appreciation in married life gives a man a reason to remain attached to the family and gives a woman a purpose to be more loving and beautiful.

At the same time, unhappy couples keep complaining about the partner who “Never Appreciates”.

If you wish to be appreciated, keep appreciating your partner without any ill-meaning or sarcasm. You will get them back with ‘interest’.

An affectionate word or gesture everyday, is an investment. It gives the receiver a reason to love you more.

Developing the habit of listening to your partner completely without interrupting is the skill one must acquire before marriage by practicing it in your day to day life.

You will realize that only on complete attentive listening we realize the person’s true motive and disassociate it from their expression, tone or body language which is often part of their habit and not intention.

You also get time to understand other person’s point of view.

Person who keeps calm and listens attentively is well received and respected by everyone and your spouse cannot be an exception.

Person listening attentively usually doesn’t react. Hence the question of generating hot exchanges, anger, insults or causing physical harm does not arise. Listener almost always controls the situation.

This is because listening time accommodates thinking time too. We can say only 60 to 80 words per minute but can think 200 to 400 words in every possible direction in the same period.

One must talk to the partner openly and honestly as and when situation arises. Care should be taken to remain pleasant while presenting your point. A smile on the face would do well if it does not communicate sarcasm.

However, avoid this frank talk if you are too irritated and likely to talk in irritated or angry tone. It is this tone that hides your true love and communicates displeasure and rejection of a person rather than their behaviour in particular circumstances.

Such communication often leads to misunderstanding and culminates in to hot exchanges. Depending on the tolerance level of a person it may lead to insults causing long-term irreparable mental injury.

If your spouse has misunderstood you, then accept that your communication has failed. Apologize if you feel necessary, keep quiet and change the topic with a smile or give a loving hug.

After all you just hated the behaviour but still love the person.

Returning to expression of love in every situation is the only thing that keeps loving relationship alive.

Who does not enjoy company of ever cheerful and happy person?

Even one such person in our life, is good enough to make all stresses in our life bearable.

Then imagine, what benefit you can get by being a cheerful spouse.

Worries in our life do not reduce by worrying about them. But, being cheerful and pleasant person not only makes our worries bearable but also gives us peace of mind to think for the solution.

Laughing moments release hormone called endorphin which is a stress reliever as well as relationship enhancer.

As a rule, see that you don’t begin or end your day with anger or displeasure. A loving smile is the best medicine to sort out almost all differences.

Most of us spend a lot of time on all sorts of things like work, shopping, watching television, reading a book, attending social or sports events.

But we rarely make efforts to find time just to sit with the person we love most; especially in married life.

You may have hundreds of reasons why you cannot find time for each other, whereas you need only one reason to be together.

We do find time for every emergency at work or in family life, so we can as well create an emergency for just spending time together.

Spending every little time you get together to appreciate or pamper each other, or giving just a kiss or a hug, is enough to build loving relationship.

Make a day ‘Special’ by going out for dinner, making a special meal, enjoying music together or enjoy chatting together as you would do on a date before getting married.

Sexual relationship too, has a role in successful married life.

Long-term satisfying sexual relationship does not happen out of having sex as and when you find time. It happens with need of both partners to make every sexual interaction a pleasurable occasion.

Couples need to find time not only to help each other for daily chores but also to have pleasurable sexual moments to create an emotional bond.

Presence of such emotional bond is the secret of a successful married life.

Sexual relation is symbol of love, trust and intimacy. The exclusive pleasure that the couple enjoys in privacy, creates an intimate bond of true love; which makes their life wonderful even beyond the bedroom.

Sexual responses keep changing as couple matures in married life.

Sex might become more satisfying or less exciting; one may want sex more often than the other. The creativity that once existed may become routine exercise.

Changes in people’s sex lives are usually brought on by the other things happening to them.

Early married life when life is happy, easy and relaxed, the sex life is great. But, when the workload and family responsibilities creep in, couples experience stress at work, feel tired due to daily chores, and simply lose touch of each other.

Sex-life is then the first thing that gets compromised.

Habit of finding time for each other, sitting together for no obvious reason, holding hand or giving a hearty hug is all that is required to rejuvenate the sexual relationship.  Such couples have no difficulty in finding time for each other.

Couples who enjoy shared activities in day-to-day life also have reasons to find time for the spouse.

The key here is, one of the partner has to take unconditional initiative.

It is always one of the partner, and not necessarily the same, who has to understand the changing situation and its effect on their relationship.

Only then finding newer ways can be learned to revitalize loving relationship.

We feel spending money and going out on a holiday is real recreation. But, in reality recreation and happiness actually does not cost money.

For example,

If you cannot afford 3 nights and 4 days holiday package even once in a year, you can at least have an inexpensive day out and move around in a nearby place which you have never visited before.

Surprisingly most couples focus on holiday that is bit beyond their affording level, and get thrill in achieving their goal.

Our life becomes happier if we focus on enjoying each other’s company more than focusing on ‘spending money’

True recreation is in refreshing your mind and all it needs is person you love most.

Have you ever seen your son getting pleasure of driving a truck with just a match-box in his hand or your daughter preparing a five course meal for her doll with few plant leaves at her disposal?

Everyone likes to have time and freedom to do what they like or wish to do in life.

Marriage is not behaving as per wishes and moods of the partner. True marriage is living together happily without harming or destroying individuality of the spouse.

Understanding what your partner really wants in personal as well as family life is the key to successful married life.

Expecting total independence in married life may not get digested easily by the partner unless there is a clear understanding on these issues before getting married.

It is impossible to build a relationship strictly according to a set of rules and each partner must understand that rules keep changing in married life. What one has accepted at one time in life may or may not be accepted in another context.

These situation based adjustments make living together happy; and not the rules and demands.

Change is the game of life. Every couple has to face changes in their life as they grow older.

The change could be that of job, work place or the place they have to live.  But, the changes that affect us most are those of financial condition, health issues and education of children.

Both partners have to get adjusted, cope-up or overcome this change at the same speed.

Conflicts begin when one partner is slower or faster in adapting to these changes.

Even after years of living together they start feeling, they don’t understand each other or have suddenly become strangers.

Commonest expressions being, ‘He’s not the same man I married’, ‘I fail to understand her these days’, or ‘We don’t seem to have anything common’.  Such remarks indicate beginning of a strained relationship.

Solution is with one of the partner,

Instead of reacting to these remarks, just pause, think and smile. Give time to your partner to adjust.

Change in situations has nothing to do with your loving relationship. In fact, loving relationship helps as a stress remover and affective energizer. It is with this loving environment both get courage to face the change and move ahead in life.

After overcoming series of such difficult situations, the bond gets created. Both partners become dependent on each other emotionally.

Keeping the love intact, now helps in enjoying the happier moments of life.

This is possible only in couples who believe in purpose of marriage. And, this is the story of every happily married couple in long-term relationship.

In marriage, we have to deal with the same person every day and that too for lifetime.

Any behaviour of a person unacceptable to us in normal circumstances can become cause of conflict in married life.

This is because we are tempted to improve the person and their behaviour in broader interest of making marriage successful and relationship even better.

But in reality, we cannot change a person by repeatedly telling them to change.

However, it is possible to make the person’s behaviour adaptive to our expectations by our loving attitude. This has to be coupled with adjusting to as many expectations of partner as possible from our side.

Respecting the spouse as they are, is more fruitful in marriage than finding faults and trying to improve them.

In spite of having intimate relation and sex with each other, most couples have communication issues.

They are surprised when their partner feels neglected, unloved or unappreciated.

Being able to communicate, and show enthusiasm and a genuine concern for each other, is first step towards physical affection as well as maintaining a deeper, long lasting relationship.

Even if a couple has lived together for many years happily, it is not always easy to keep a relationship fresh and exciting, They have to keep changing their normal routine and spend more time together to increase their sexual feelings for each other.

Relaxing and laughing together, and talking freely and openly about feelings and desires, can help to boost sexual interest even further.

With all the dissatisfactions, a couple should always remember the enormous benefits to be gained from a happy relationship and fulfilling sex life.

Most couples feel work-life and home-life should not be mixed.

It is very true.

But, at the same time we all know disturbed family-life affects work-life and disturbed work-life spoils the family-life even if you try to keep them separate.

Why not then use the same principle in vice-a-versa way and make life more wonderful?

Be determined to make your family-life more wonderful which is more in our control and enjoy its effect on your work-life.

Instead of involving our spouse for only wrong things that are happening at work, involve them for good things too.

Discussing your goals together and planning for them jointly, make them better achievable than without involvement of spouse. Joint involvement also helps in sharing the pin of failures and thrills of success.

Most successful people take help of their cooperative and understanding spouse to achieve their life’s goal.

How each person behaves or responds to particular situation is designed by nature.

Understanding this behaviour of a person and making yourself comfortable with that behaviour is known as ‘Rapport Building’ skill.

This easily learnable skill is widely used by HR Managers at the work places and by Teachers to handle variety of behaviours found in same class at schools.

Most of us find difficulty in adjusting with another person because we are unaware of this skill and therefore unable to know who would teach us.

Developing habit of finding good things in any person before finding their faults is key requirement of rapport building whether it is with your spouse, child, parents, or in-laws.