You can love someone and still find sharing a life difficult. Feelings don't automatically settle an argument, divide the chores or make a thoughtless remark hurt less.
Friendship and the way you treat each other give those feelings something to rest on. These five habits offer practical places to pay attention.
1. Keep enjoying each other's company
The first rush of romance may make everything about your partner seem charming. Later, you discover the habits that irritate you too.
Friendship leaves room for both. You can laugh, be silly, share an interest and turn to each other after a difficult day. Make time for the activities and conversations you enjoy, rather than meeting only to handle the next responsibility.
Being married doesn't make companionship take care of itself.
2. Think about the experience on the other side
Before acting on frustration, pause to consider how your choice may land with your partner.
- How might it feel to be spoken to in this tone?
- Would I find this fair if our positions were reversed?
- Am I offering the care and respect I'm asking for?
Answer honestly enough to let the answer change what you do. If raised voices hurt you, that matters when you choose your own volume. If betrayal would damage your trust, it matters when you consider your boundaries with someone else.
3. Know whom you're choosing
Your partner has their own temperament, tastes and ways of doing things. A relationship built around eventually turning them into another person places a lot of hope in a change they may never want.
Separate a harmless difference from a real problem. A task done another reasonable way may need acceptance; repeated disrespect needs a conversation and a response.
You can ask for a change in behavior without treating someone's whole personality as a mistake.
4. Make reasonable allowances, with limits
Some habits will be annoying even in a loving relationship. Consider which ones you can live with and which affect something important to you.
Your partner needs room to make the same assessment. If only one person ever accommodates the other, the arrangement deserves attention.
Tolerance doesn't require enduring cruelty, control or harm. Talk about firm boundaries before assuming that affection will make every difference manageable.
5. Be willing to adjust yourself
Acceptance can become unfair when it's used to avoid responsibility: “This is how I am, so you have to live with it.”
Listen when your partner explains how a habit affects them. Consider a change you can realistically make, then follow through. You can remain yourself while becoming more considerate.
Both people need a part in that effort. When the same problem returns, a useful question is what each of you is prepared to do differently this week.