What Makes a Relationship Successful?

Successful long-term relationships

In a long-term relationship, it’s easy to presume you know all about your partner, though people change. Try to be mindful of what is transpiring in your relationship and understand who your partner is and where they are at. Remain curious around but respectful of each other. It is really important to stay up to date with your partner. Friendship is at the basis of all successful long-term relationships. Successful couples tend to be realists who recognize that a relationship will go through ups and downs.

Seeking help for relationship problems

If something in your relationship is difficult or painful to talk to each other about, consider seeing a counselor. A counselor can be of great value to help you talk things through, particularly if you are going over old terrain and each of you is feeling isolated, disappointed, or hurt by the lack of progress.

What Makes a Relationship Successful?

Is it the consistent dedication between partners, the presence of unhindered communication, or the aspiration for continuous growth? With no definite answer comes the arrival of theories that may constitute that "success," creating professions such as marriage counseling and couple therapy. However, the existence of these services is made possible due to the conglomerate of humans' inability to untangle the intricate spiderweb that is love. To seek help from a counselor or a therapist is nothing to be ashamed of, as love can be a complex maze that may require guidance from time to time. This source of guidance is relayed by therapists who attempt to clarify the underlying problems of these troubled couples. One of the main basis for continuous elucidation would be the discussion of gendered discourse revolving around the concept of emotion, the aspect of positive and negative outcomes, and the relevance of therapist interruptions.

The outlook on therapy sessions revolve around many fields, whether psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. This has allowed a variety of ideologies to be formed, with some contorted to just one linear perspective while others share multiple schools of thought. Olga Sutherland, an associate professor from the University of Guelph, takes a feminist approach to the gendered construction of couples therapy. Within one of Sutherland's case studies, she examines the dynamic of domestic labor, where she exclaims, "In this excerpt, we notice the following sexist assumptions concerning gender: 1. Caring labor is inherently women's (and not men's) work; 2. Caring labor is minimal and insignificant" (p. 7). The excerpt Sutherland pulls from revolves around a couple's allocation of domestic tasks and caring for children, in which the partners were previously separated due to the husband's career. There is no denying that childcare is often disproportionately assigned to women to do the lion's share of the work but to delineate a male's viewpoint to disregard the importance of caring labor conveys an approach of gender bias. Sutherland's snippet already portrays the husband in a negative limelight, as the audience is heavily skewed to support the wife after being notified that the husband had an affair. Instead of introducing a passage that asserts both parties are on equal footing, the audience has already fixated that the husband, and the male community, are "contempt" and "lazy" regarding domestic duties. With such a linear interpretation, Sutherland presents herself as a figurehead to bombast men's wrongdoings to push her feminist agenda without understanding that a relationship is a collaborative effort.

To acknowledge that a relationship is a collaborative effort is to recognize that there are gender differences when it comes to differentiation, emotional reactivity, and marital dynamics. The ability to make a selfless decision regarding your spouse's level of criticism, emotional flooding, and conflict resolution can provide a guideline for improved functioning and individual maturity. Within a case study revolving around one hundred sixty-nine couples completing measures of Bowen's concept of differentiation/individuation and Gottman's concepts related to current marital dynamics, Gubbins argues that "...in the men's analyses, the women's level of individuation was not descriptive of the independent variate that was associated with the men's level of emotional flooding during arguments and satisfaction with the marriage. The opposite was true for the women's analyses. For women, the men's level of individuation was an important descriptor of the independent variate that was associated with the wives' level of emotional flooding during disagreements and satisfaction in the marriage" (p. 393). Gubbins reveals that women are more emotionally sensitive to their partners' moral state than men. This finding is directly aligned with the studies of gender differences which indicate that males have a stronger foresight for independence and separation while women institute a larger concern toward connection and togetherness. Marital success has to be adaptive as couples have to find a keen balance between separateness and connection.

There is serenity with balance, as couples should acknowledge a median and a sense of stability to constructive disagreements along with the presentation of blissful moments. Understanding the causality of these outcomes requires an assessment of both males and females to aggregate their dispositions for their relationship's successes and difficulties. Through the expansion of the marital attribution coding system, Stabb uncovers that "Women were thus seen as contributing to negative relationship outcomes over a longer period of time and across more types of situations than men; men were seen as contributing to positive relationship outcomes over a longer period of time and across more situations than women" (p. 342). The gendered attribution of women inducing more negative relationship outcomes follows traditional psychotherapy, which entails increased opportunities to pathologize women in a therapeutic space. The negative outlook that women have upon themselves may be due to their prevalence of obligation and self-sacrifice that society has circumvented them into. Conversely, men integrate a mindset of persistent confidence that ensures a cultural perception of preferred masculinity. This promotion of masculinity often equates dominance and aggression as vital to survival and prosperity. With so many culturally ingrained patterns of gendered attribution and communication, it may be difficult for anyone to challenge the status quo, but therapists can by building a solid rapport with their clients that promotes inclusivity, openness, and trustworthiness.

The integration of having a harmonious relationship with one's client is known as a therapeutic alliance. A therapeutic alliance is a relationship between therapists and their clients with how connective they are in accomplishing their goals, facilitating change, and instituting behaviors. A proponent that challenges a therapeutic alliance would be the frequency and target of those interruptions. Megan Oka, a licensed marriage and family therapist examined the association between interruptions and therapeutic alliance to conclude that "One of the most important findings for our purposes was that female therapists' interruption of men negatively impacted their alliance with both their male and female clients" (p. 12). The indication of the negative impact that female therapists had upon both male and female clients implies that males are apathetic to the routines of therapy, causing women to be less instigative in fear of making them more perturbed. Women tend to be the ones to initiate couple therapy, making them more invested and attuned than their male counterparts. Oka also reveals how interruptions upon female clients don't affect therapeutic alliance through two possible reasonings: "First, women are so used to being interrupted in society that it does not bother them when a therapist does it (James & Clarke, 1993). The second is that women in therapy are more concerned with their partner's reactions to the therapist than they are to their own reactions" (p. 12). The conclusion that Oka produces relays back to a woman's stature of being "feeble" within the confines of a society that has molded their muted presence. There is also an implication of a man's quintessence for self-reliance that rejects the supposed helpfulness of therapy to disparage any veil of vulnerability.

Within a relationship, the potential for growth is substantial, as the lessons of endearment, patience, and curiosity are magnified with a significant other. However, with such growth may come ignorance, as one can become so accustomed to their partner's thoughts and beliefs that they deafen their ears from simply listening. Therapy is an instituted practice that brings that sentiment back for those lost couples through the emphasis on emotion, the pathway of outcomes, and the implication of interruptions.

Tips for a successful relationship

The following tips may help you improve your relationship (and be better prepared to meet the challenges along the way):

• Talk to each other and communicate your needs

• If you have something to bring up, do it gently

• Listen to each other

• Remember the positives about your partner

• Make repair attempts

• Spend time together

• Work on feeling good about yourself

• Accept and value differences in others, including your partner

• Make plans

• Be supportive

• Learn from arguments

• Stay calm during disagreements

• Look at your part in the conflict rather than focusing only on your partner’s contribution

• Be sexually considerate

• Be attentive

• Enjoy yourself

• Be flexible

• Share power