You Can Create Your Own Lasting Relationship!

How many of you out there are in long-term relationships - married for 20, 30, 40 years and just haven't had to time to inject quality time into your relationship - what with jobs, raising kids, welcoming grandkids, and just keeping up with life in general - you are struggling. Can we say millions?

We all try to do our best but fail miserably and then lose our way, we fail to get back on the relationship path to happiness even though we still love one another. Sometimes it feels as if you have spent several lifetimes together just getting to NOW.

Each partner is responsible for the state of their union - be it a good one or a bad one. We all fall down and forget how to dust ourselves off and start all over again. But, we have to do that if we want to hold onto what we cherish in each other.

Our husbands want and need to be the main man in our lives. They have to feel that they are the provider, the protector, and the way he professes his love is to be the best he can be in the arena of his life with you and his children. Even after the children are grown and gone, his responsibility to you remains his main focus in life, it's his barometer of success.

He will have to do what he has to do to save face, to provide, and that may mean that he just can't stop working and stay home to cuddle with you, even though he would like nothing better. As the wives of proud men, we find ourselves being put on the back burner so to speak and we build resentments. We have to learn how to stop doing that.

Make an effort to spend quality time together, focus on what you both need in your relationship and take steps necessary to get you from where you are today, to where you want to be tomorrow - happier and loving each other.

Bad habits become the norm in our relationships because of time constraints and the dozens of other things that keep zapping our energy. We lose our spark, we become too tired and boredom sets in because it can.

No matter where you are in your marriage or relationship make the time today to get back to the beginning, when your love was new, before the other things came along - the areas of our lives may never be too calm and quiet. You have to make time to strengthen your relationship today! Find a quiet place to talk and share your thoughts and dreams as if everything was in a perfect world - and easy. It seldom, if ever, is!

Just knowing what your partner's needs and wants are can lead the way to making your life easier for each other. You will both stop your day-to-day existence and begin living again - and enjoying each other and laughing more. We can never laugh too much!

Usually money is the root of most marital discord, never having enough, rips away our self-esteem and interferes with our happiness. You have to know that nothing lasts forever, not even money shortages - look at your total life map and make the changes needed to lighten your burdens and allow for some freedoms - construct new goals and restructure your methods of operating within your circle of circumstances.

If your relationship has a sound and strong foundation, you can share your love forever once you learn how to rid yourselves of the unnecessary bits of life that drag you down. Get rid of the trash and concentrate on the important aspects of your union - appreciate each other and the love you bring to your marriage. Be happy in one another. Life is too short not to!

"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish that I'd realized it sooner." Colette.