Last update: May 30, 2016
We are together, but each of us has his own space, we have dreams in common, we close our eyes to live them and we fight every day to make them come true. We learned to be honest and respect each other, to tell the truth, to know that when you are together there are two, not one.
We know that kisses, hugs, a mid-day message or a coffee made for breakfast unites us. We have learned to communicate when something worries us and to say with love and delicacy everything we think, enjoy each other in bed and we show each other the affection and desire we feel.
“Choose a love that gives you answers and not problems. Safety and not fear. Trust and no doubts. "
-Paulo Coelho-
Most importantly, life has taught us that being together does not mean belonging to the other or that the other belongs to us. Having a partner doesn't mean saying goodbye to everything we like and all the people who are important to us and focusing only on our partner. When we say we are together, it means that we have spaces in common, but also spaces of our own.
Why we are together: the secrets of happy couples
We admire couples who have been together for a long time and wish to discover the secret of their union. The truth is that most of us would just like to love and be loved, yet we move from one relationship to another with a broken heart and without having learned our lesson.
“What I like about your body is sex. What I like about your sex is your mouth. What I like about your mouth is your tongue. What I like about your language is the word. "
-Julio Cortazar-
To investigate the secrets of successful marriages and the mistakes of failing couples, a team of researchers from The Open University surveyed 4.494 Brits between the ages of 18 and 65, thoroughly analyzing 50 couples (half of them with children).
We tend to consider sex an indispensable aspect in the life of a couple, an element without which the relationship is doomed to fail. Yet when the researchers asked people involved in the research what element they liked most about their relationship, sex was not among the top ten responses.
The elements mentioned most frequently were: laughing together, sharing values ​​and interests, being great friends, caring for each other and having support, feeling safe, happy, trusting, having a close bond, talking and listening and being in love and / or loved.
The importance of having your own spaces
Many people believe that a real couple must do everything together and that happiness lies in never separating, in always sharing every space. However, reality shows us that each of us needs our own moments of solitude or individuality, of their own private space within the relationship.
In order for a couple relationship to be full and happy, it is advisable to have your own time and space. This does not mean living two completely distinct lives, but rather try to find moments away from each other, doing the activities you love most, like going shopping, playing sports, going out with friends, traveling.
The moment we stop doing what identifies us, what is part of our personal essence, we cease to be ourselves. If your partner does not allow you to hang out with your friends or to practice your hobbies, sooner or later you will feel frustrated. and your self-esteem will drop.
Sometimes it is difficult to place one's trust in the other. Nonetheless, allowing your partner to spend time with other people, to enjoy his moments of solitude or to encourage him to grow as a person, is a demonstration of deep love and of great trust, necessary in any relationship.
“To love is to suffer. If you don't want to suffer, you don't have to love. But then one suffers from not loving. Therefore to love is to suffer, not to love is to suffer, and to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love: then to be happy is to suffer. But suffering makes us unhappy. Therefore to be unhappy one must love or love and suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you take notes ... "
-Woody Allen-
