Is there a secret to perfect love? How to make relationships last for years? Is it possible to build a healthy and stable couple in the modern era? Does love still exist in the times of Tinder? These are just some of the questions that those of us who love ask ourselves every day, a category as broad as the human race.
When we look around us we have no shortage of examples. Couples who break up, others who start. Some that last months, others that last a lifetime. Each one with its particular challenges and virtues. One of those that seems bulletproof, that has overcome even the torments of fame, is the one formed by Victor Manuel and Ana Belén.
The secret of a long relationship
Love has its phases. During falling in love everything seems simple. A single look is enough to make butterflies burn in your stomach, everything is passion. The honeymoon ends, psychologists say, after the third month. Then the really difficult part begins. Truly know the other, accept them with their pluses and minuses, embrace the differences. And sooner or later, coexistence.
For Víctor Manuel, this is perhaps one of the most delicate points. “Living together is a very complicated thing,” confessed to the magazine Vanity Fair. For it to work, he says, “all parties have to give in.”
Is it luck?
“It’s politics,” Víctor Manuel responds when asked in the aforementioned media what the success of a good relationship consists of. And beyond the butterflies, It is important that the couple become a team as soon as possible.
Despite this very practical approach, the musician remains a romantic. “It is lucky to find a person with whom you want to live and have a life project,” explains Victor Manuel. For him, “love is something that transforms and becomes a lot of things related to love.” And although he recognizes that “there is no formula for this to work” and understands it as “something that just happens,” the truth is that Psychology does rely on some predictors for a relationship to work.
make it work
As Víctor Manuel explains in his interview, One of the great challenges of romantic relationships is coexistence. No one who has lived with another adult can deny that it is full of disagreements, good and bad moments. But accepting it is essential to be able to prepare for these differences, to even turn them into advantages.
This is revealed by the Higher School of Psychology and Psychiatry. “Although differences give rise to discussions and disagreements, It is also the best way to meet your partner.«, writes the specialized media, «to understand their points of view and their way of thinking.» As the experts explain, «the key is to stop and discover what these differences are, because in this way the other person will feel loved and accepted for who they are, with their virtues and also their defects.»
Learn to argue
Learning to argue well, therefore, is a predictor of success in relationships, because it helps us overcome the complicated challenge of coexistence. To do this, psychology teaches us some practical keys that we can apply to coexistence with any adult, but it can be especially important in a romantic relationship.
- Regulate your emotions before speaking. If you communicate with your partner from a very intense emotion, such as sadness, anger or frustration, your rational brain will not be fully operational, which can cause you to end up saying things that you will later regret.
- Don’t generalize. Instead of saying “you always do the same thing,” focus on what you feel, on what is concrete. Generalizations can cause the discussion to escalate quickly, because they make us feel violated. It is better to use expressions in the first person. Instead of saying, “You’re selfish,” try, “I feel alone when you don’t have me to make decisions.”
- Actively listen. Arguments are not won, they are moved on. And to do it in the best possible way, you must not forget that the objective is to understand your partner better, and for them to understand you better. Active listening is your best ally to achieve this. Don’t interrupt, don’t think about what you are going to answer. Just listen.
- Identify the real problem. Sometimes we argue over “nonsense” that hides deeper emotions. The feeling of not being valued, the fear of abandonment, the need for control… Ask yourself, what need is behind this that I can’t satisfy in my relationship?
- Avoid the four horsemen of the relational apocalypse. Psychologist John Gottman identified four patterns that seriously deteriorate a relationship. They are destructive criticism, contempt (mocking, sarcasm), defensiveness and evasion (or cold silence). Instead, always seek to communicate assertively and respectfully, trying to make the dialogue as open and sincere as possible.
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