As we start to mature and start dating in our teenage years, we soon start to look at dating differently and what makes those long-lasting relationships last. But in a relationship we tend to lose ourselves sometimes. As a child I thought kissing and cuddling and doing all the things you do in a relationship was nasty, but as I saw my brother and his girlfriend being happy, I started to change my mind. As I was involved in a relationship, I can suggest that if you have the right person, you can be happy but we need to keep focus on ourselves making sure we are truly happy and improving ourselves even more for a stronger relationship.
I’ve only been in one serious relationship and it wasn’t even an official dating relationship. I was talking to this guy for about 3 months and he was about to ask me out to officially be together, but I had messed up. Being in this “talking relationship” I didn’t realize that the things I was doing was hurting my partner. After he had told me the things that made him upset, I started to improve myself to make this relationship work. This all lasted for a good year and 3 months. I didn’t seem to be changing for the relationship, even worse for myself. Throughout the progress, I lost all my friends. Somehow the word got out how I did the guy “dirty” and they all turned their backs on me without hearing my side of the story. But with the process of improving myself, one of the things that I have improved for myself and the future is not caring about what others think or say about me. If we think what others say about us, we let that get in the way of being us. I soon found people that made me laugh and didn't make me feel left out. I started to focus on myself more, started running more, getting closer with God, being better at organized, etc. I knew I had to improve myself to find myself and to have a better stronger relationship in the future.
It is so important to have a strong relationship. Looking back at my brother and his girlfriend, I realized that they have been together for so long, going on 5 years together, because they have a strong relationship with each other. With strong relationships comes many benefits in that relationship. You and your partner will overcome any argument if you two just communicate and sit, talk and understand each other. Similar to my brother and his girlfriend, if you and your partner have a strong bond together, you two will last a lifetime. For example, going over an argument, you will better understand each other hearing each side of the story and with this, you will be more involved with your partner.
There are many ways you can improve your relationship and how to strengthen it. But before we enter a relationship, we need to improve ourselves. 7 ways we can improve as a partner are:
Getting more sleep: “Sleep is the most important for ourselves to improve our relationship. Sleep affects our self-control and self-control plays a big part in a successful relationship.”
Taking action: “certain behaviors can make a difference in a relationship's happiness. These behaviors can come naturally. 7 behaviors are; Positively, understanding, giving assurance, self-disclosing, openness, sharing tasks, involve networks (spending time with partner friends/family)
Express your gratitude: “Sharing our feelings or gratitude are linked to positive partner perceptions and a willingness to voice relationship concerns which helps maintain healthy relationships.”
Avoid hunger: “Restrictive dieting can have a negative effect on relationship quality. When hunger, anger and aggression (hangry) comes into the relationship, it can affect it.
Spending quality time together: “Spending time together increases relationship satisfaction
Being kind to yourself: “Self-compassion is a wonderful foundation for a healthy relationship. Self-compassion healthier relationships, such as offering care and concern for a partner. Working on ourselves can benefit our relationships.”
Focusing on humility: “Humble people are evaluated more positively as potential relationship partners, but humility seems to be an important ingredient for relationship success. It may improve relationships through its association with forgiveness, a powerful tool.”
We all have difficulties trying to love ourselves. By trying to love ourselves, it will help better our relationship. Not putting our happiness first can be a big problem for relationships who are trying to be successful. It is unhealthy to allow the relationship to absorb your identity and lose yourself as a person. A great way to nurture our soul is spending time alone and apart from your partner doing our own thing but in a healthy way. We tend to have a lot of insecurities about ourselves and that sometimes gets us overthinking about how we look in our relationships. A way we can overcome this difficulty is by asking your partner what they see in you that they like and what it is that they love about you. And a great way to overcome your insecurities is to make a list about what you love about each other and read it aloud to each other. You might not like one thing about yourself but your partner might love that one thing about you. Once you realize you are worth it then you can see it as something valuable you bring in the relationship. Having flaws about yourself can bring us down as much as our insecurities. But we all have our flaws. In a relationship we have to learn to work with them. Exposing our flaws is a natural part of a strong relationship.
For me, I haven’t learned how to cooperate with these just yet but I am learning. One thing I struggle with is having alone time and “Me time” and I feel like that is bringing me down because I feel so focus on trying to be perfect in school, my anxiety and depression gets ahead of me but then i realize that I need just take a breathe and think I need my self-love because that is what is important for me and my future relationships.
Works Cited
Alexander, Brad . “How to Develop Self-Love & Strengthen Your Relationship.” Tiny Buddha, 22 Mar. 2016, tinybuddha.com/blog/strong-relationships-stem-self-love-develop/.
DiDonato, Theresa. “7 Simple Ways You Can Become a Better Partner | Psychology Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com, 6 Jan. 2015, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/meet-catch-and-keep/201501/7-simple-ways-you-can-become-better-partner.
Therapist, Laura Richer, Seattle. “8 Examples of How to Focus on Yourself in a Relationship.” Anchor Light Therapy Collective, 14 Aug. 2023, anchorlighttherapy.com/how-focusing-on-yourself-will-improve-your-relationship/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.
What inspired me to write about this talk was seeing my brother and his girlfriend together for the past five years and how they have such a strong relationship with each other, as well as my experience with a person who had a huge impact on me. I was in a meaningful relationship that I messed up because I wasn’t a good partner. I soon started to realize how important it is to improve myself not for the relationship but for myself. Making an impact on yourself comes along with taking small steps to better your mental health for your relationship and yourself. Having a strong connection with your own mind will make you have a stronger connection with your partner.