Relationships – when I thought about writing on this topic, an old song by the Judds popped into my mind. You may remember it – the chorus went like this:

Did lovers really fall in love to stay

And stand beside each other come what may?

Was a promise really something people kept

Not just something they would say?

Did families really bow their heads to pray?

Did daddies really never go away?

Oh, Grandpa, tell me ’bout the good old days….

I couldn’t help but think that “back in the good old days” most people then did something I don’t see a lot of people doing today: they worked on their relationships. Not just with their spouses, but with their kids, with their entire families, with their friends and with their acquaintances.

Times do change.

Looking around, I see that many relationships aren’t thriving, aren’t surviving. And I think the reason is that people seem to have forgotten relationships still have to be worked at for long-term stability. They still have to be carefully cultivated and maintained.

For those who may be having a little trouble with that, here are my top tips for succeeding in relationships:

1. Be honest.In every relationship you’ll have in life, honesty is important. Good relationships are never built on lies, and every great, long-lived relationship I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing had a solid foundation of honesty beneath it.

   But it’s not just about “them” in a relationship. There are two people in every kind of relationship, and one of those people is YOU. So start with yourself.

   Get to know YOU.

   Think things through. Be tough on yourself and know what your limits are. This way, when you enter into relationships with others, you already have a basis of honesty to start from: your honesty with yourself.

   Why? Because if you can’t even be honest with yourself, you aren’t going to be honest with others.

   Think about it. When you enter into a relationship with a “significant other,” and you say those all-important three magic words “I love you,” the person you’re saying them to is just as vulnerable as you are. Think they want to have to wonder whether or not you mean it?

   No. And if you’re firstly honest with yourself, you won’t say those words casually. When you say them, it’ll be because you mean them. And if you have a history of being honest with others as well, when you do say them, the person you’re saying them to won’t doubt your sincerity.

2. CommunicateOne of the biggest relationship derailers I see, besides dishonesty, usually happens with people who have a failure to communicate. Too many folks these days have a tendency to rely on “signals” and “body language” and plain old wrong thinking that “they should have known!”

   Uh-uh.

   Until us humans hone up our ESP skills, you’ve got to use those age-old, time-tested methods of getting your messages across.

   You have to talk to each other. Honestly and openly. It’s the only way someone else can know and understand your expectations for the relationship. Seriously.

   You can’t expect someone to know something you never told them just because they lived in the same house with you for a while, or talked to you on the phone for a month. Instead, go on the idea if you didn’t tell them, they probably don’t know.

   Pay attention here, because when I say communicate openly and honestly, I mean you need to be thorough and detailed. No hints, no allegations, no things left unsaid. That’s a solid recipe for a screw-up, and you don’t want to deal with those if you can avoid it, right?

   So talk to each other. Take down the barriers, be completely honest, and let folks know exactly what you expect, what you don’t expect, what you’d really like to experience, and what you won’t accept in a relationship…

   …and don’t forget to listen while they communicate back.

   It’s a two-way street. A give and take. A talk and listen mode of communication. Both sides count 100%. Which brings me to…

3. Compromise…and another song.

   Remember John Michael Montgomery’s song “Life’s A Dance?” In there, there’s a line where he says, “You do have to give if you wanna receive,” and it’s true. Sometimes, you have to be prepared to give a little in order to get what you want.

   In relationships, it’s called compromise.

   For example, in my relationship, my husband is the one who works. He gets up early every morning and hies himself off to a job so me and the kids can have a roof over our heads and enjoy the luxury of having three meals a day in our stomachs.

   Why? Because I’ve always believed it was my job as the mom to be at home with the kids (although I expect him to do his part with the children too, since he “is” the dad). I didn’t want to work outside the house at a job.

   Since hubby is a little bit terrified of handling things like “bra buying” for our nine year old and talking about sex with the kids, and dealing with first periods with the girls and puberty with the boys, and giving meaningful dating advice and… (I could really write a looooong list here, but I won’t)… he and I compromised, early on.

   He agreed to do the job thing all by himself, and in exchange, I would do the “terrifying stuff” alone.

   Well, I did in the beginning. But over time, he grew into an ability to help me out, just as I found ways to add to the family income. Which is the sort of thing that tends to happen when you’re working on a relationship by firstly being honest, secondly communicating, and thirdly, being willing to compromise.

   Over time, as each of you grow in your relationship with each other, you learn to better…

4. Share the load.Sharing the responsibilities should be one of the main goals of any relationship, right from the beginning. Relationships are “partnerships” of life, and responsibilities ideally shouldn’t be split 50-50, but shared 100%.

   For instance, my husband and I live in the same house, we both have to eat. Cooking is 100% BOTH our responsibilities, equally. If he’s in the middle of something at suppertime, I cook. If I am, he gets one of the kids to do it. Haha. I’m kidding.
   Ideally, both partners know what is necessary, know what needs to be done, and recognizes the doing of it isn’t one person’s job or another’s. The responsibility for everything in a relationship belongs to both partners equally.

   Done this way, no one partner feels like the weight of carrying the relationship rests solely on them, which pretty much eliminates the whole, “I’ve worked at this, but she/he hasn’t and I’m tired of being the only one working,” argument I’ve heard countless times over the years.

So there you have it, my top tips for having a successful relationship.

In case you’re wondering by what authority I can speak on the matter, 24 years of marriage to the same man (with no previous marriages) and six kids ought to qualify me well enough.

If you have any questions, I’d be happy to give my thoughts on them. Pop your questions or comments below and I’ll answer as many as I can.