Couples who have a strong relationship and never lose the spark have many things in common, and because of these things, their love lasts for a lifetime.
We all want our love lives to last forever. Ten, maybe twenty years into the relationship, we want to turn to our lovers and feel the same things we felt on the day we first met them. We want to smile and blush and feel butterflies. This is why we smile at pictures of old couples still in love on Instagram and talk to our friends about them.
While it may seem like a far-fetched idea to want our love lives to last for a very long time, it is quite possible. It all depends on our partners and on us as well.
Are you seeking a partner? Or do you already have one and seek to know what chance you both stand in preserving your love? Here are fifteen things couples who never lose the spark have in common:
1. Core Values
Basically, we are the values we uphold. Our values are the ideas and beliefs that mean so much to us. Many of them are influenced by our environment and by our culture. So, we would most times find it difficult to let them go, even when we get into relationships. This can be a good thing.
Couples who never lose the spark, more often than not, share common personal values. They may not necessarily be believers in the same religion or supporters of the same government, but they will share core values.
For example, they will feel the same way about honesty. They will feel the same way about life and respect for people and animals. In fact, it is the similarity in values that first makes people attracted to each other. If you walk into someone who shows people love and respects everyone, you will feel drawn to him or her.
If your partner is just as clean as you, just as religious as you, etc., you both might just keep the spark for a long, long time.
2. An Ability to Communicate
Couples who never lose the spark overcome barriers to good communication. Imagine walking up to a stranger and speaking to him or her in an unknown language, jerking your arm this way and that way as if seeking direction.
At first, this stranger might be peeked at the display and maybe even laugh as they struggle to understand what you mean by observing your features and body language. But eventually, they will be tired out and walk away from you because you are creepy and not fun to have around.
Now imagine seeing yet another stranger. Only this one is not very much like the first. This one speaks your language. In fact, he is the only one around here who speaks the language. He has been trying to find a particular place but cannot seem to talk to the locals.
Suddenly, you walk up to him and speak his language. Just a hello, and he would turn to you, suddenly excited, suddenly peeked. Finally! Someone he can communicate with.
This is exactly when we meet someone who understands and communicates with us in the language we understand. We feel loved by them, and our spark keeps ebbing.
Couples who last a long time are ones who have learned to speak to each other in a common language. This has been described to be a love language. We all have different love languages. For some, the love language is time. For others, it is touch. For yet another group, it is words of service and then hugs.
Good communication makes couples feel loved and appreciated. It helps build trust and keeps the relationship healthy. Unhealthy relationships have an issue with communication. But relationships that are healthy do not.
Read: 5 Genuine Ways to Surprise Your Partner
3. Conflict Resolution
Hoping to spend years and years with your partner and have no conflicts is like hoping that a dragon shows up in your front yard one morning and tells you it is your Uber driver. It is closer to impossible than the thought that we will all someday grow wings and fly.
You and your partner are two different people. Someday, no matter how bad you try to run away from it, both your values will collide, and a conflict will erupt. It may be a small conflict. It may be a big one. Whatever the case, it is both your methods of handling it that points toward the health of the relationship.
People who are most likely to lose the spark let conflicts bloom. They turn little things into serious attacks. For this reason, a thing so small comes along and destroys what they must have spent many years building.
On the other hand, people who do not lose the spark share a common ability to resolve conflicts. They know when to withdraw and when to keep going. When to listen and when to speak. They do not play blame games or attempt to gaslight each other.
They have one goal; to solve the problem, no matter what.
4. Interest and Value in the relationship
It is one thing to be interested in each other. And it is another to be greatly interested in the relationship you both share.
Couples who do not lose the spark are very interested in their relationship because it means a whole lot to them. They do not seek an escape over the littlest inconveniences. They realize how much the relationship means to them and stick to fighting for it even when things get out of hand.
When we value our relationships, we will not do things that threaten to destroy them. And even when we unknowingly do these things, we will apologize and go back to being amazing.
5. Respect For Each Other’s Values
Even though we are most likely to share core values with our partners, there will still be values that do not exactly match.
For example, a husband may see nothing wrong with playing video games late at night; it may be his way of clearing his head. But his wife might have an issue with it.
In couples who are most likely not to lose the spark, they will learn to respect each other’s values. They will shrug it off and will not harbor resentment. They are happy as long as their partner is happy.
6. Compromise
Partners who will not lose the spark do not only respect each other’s values. Many times, they learn to compromise. Not because they are weak and do not have a say. But rather because they respect their partners.
It takes great respect for a person to make compromises for them. Compromise has a two-way effect: it makes you feel great and makes your partner love you more.
Accept your partner the way they are; do not look down on their beliefs and values just as your own beliefs mean a lot to you; theirs mean a lot to them too.
7. Forgiveness
Couples who do not lose the spark must have learned to forgive each other. People make mistakes, and we are people, so we make mistakes too. A simple apology does the trick.
Unforgiveness is fertile land upon which resentment grows, and resentment is very potent in taking the spark away from relationships. It progressively kills the spark. Slowly, a relationship that must have started quite well becomes a shadow of what it once was. It becomes nothing like it once used to be.
If you are seeking to preserve the spark in your relationship, apologize when you are wrong, and learn to accept your partner’s apologies when they do you wrong.
Forgive, and let go. Do not fall into the trap of using your partner’s past wrongs against them.
8. Vulnerability
Many of us are quite afraid of being vulnerable. So, we had our feelings and tried to project strength that is most times above our reach.
This is seldom so with couples who do not lose the spark. They do not fear to bare themselves and let each other basking in the vulnerability that comes with love.
What is love if not a chance to be vulnerable? Can you even really say that you are in love if vulnerability scares you? If your deepest feelings are hidden, and you feel not good enough when you express them?
Read: What To Do in a Loveless Marriage – When the Love Goes Sour
9. Trust
Healthy relationships are built on trust and are preserved by the trust. Couples who do not lose the spark are couples who have learned to trust each other.
You will seldom find them going through each other’s phones or trying to track each other. They will not accuse each other of cheating. And even when they suspect it, they will talk to each other.
Lack of trust makes people put up attitudes that could jeopardize the relationship. And they may even make their partners feel caged. Trust your partner. Know that they love you and will not want to hurt you.
10. Intimacy
Most times, couples who do not lose the spark share a common need for physical intimacy, especially if sex means much to them.
Photo by Katherine Hanlon on Unsplash
