Love is complex and can’t be easily defined or understood. However, there are some rules of love to help people navigate the ups and downs of relationships.
Love has no rules. But there are some fundamental guidelines that can help you to navigate through the complexities of a relationship and help you live a happier romantic life with your partner. Setting effective rules of love can help a couple nurture their relationship to make it a healthy and lasting.
In this increasingly confusing and insecure dating world, many of my patients are asking me for simple guidelines to help them better navigate the turbulent relationship sea. Relentlessly battered by media-overwhelm, online dating challenges, and a plethora of books and articles, they no longer know what or who to believe.
I was initially reluctant to reduce the many crucial aspects of each individual’s situation into a one-size-fits-all manual. I resisted minimizing the significant efforts, disappointing outcomes, and anguishing disillusionments that so many of my patients have experienced, each in his or her unique way. I didn’t want a set of rules to ignore the significant differences that differentiate one person’s journey from another’s.
I knew that what my people were asking for would not work if generic guidelines just echoed what already existed in abundance in most advice compilation data. In order to make a real difference, they needed to reach more deeply into the true psyche of long lasting love.
What had I learned from the literally thousands of hours I’d spent with sincere and committed daters over the years? I decided to try it. What follows is the result of my inquiry, the “10 Rules of Love.” Hopefully, they will tap into a different kind of quality relationship assessment that will actually help.
Some will be more meaningful than others to those of you reading, but they may help you to better define what your own love manifesto means to you and how you can use it to better choose your next partner or to revitalize your current partnership.
What Are The Rules Of Love? 10 Fundamental Relationship Rules
1. Rule #1: Never invalidate or erase the personal reality of someone you love.
Every one of us counts on our partner supporting and validating the way we see the world, even if he or she doesn’t see it the same way. Though we are hopefully open to expanding or transforming our views by comparing them with our partners, our emotional sanity depends on trusting the world as we see it. If our partner tries to undo that reality, we feel unseen and erased.
All of us have been on the other end of statements like, “You’re crazy to think that way,” “That’s bull s**t,” or “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” They are examples of what one partner may say who is invalidating the worldview of another.
2. Rule #2: True compromise can only happen when each partner begins an interaction by first supporting the other’s point of view.
When intimate partners have conflicting opinions, they too often flare into justification and defense. Very soon, instead of talking to each other, they rapidly begin talking at each other. From those disparate vantage points, there is no possibility of achieving a resolution that can cradle the views of both partners.
The barrier to that kind of regeneration lies in each partner’s fear that if he or she temporarily gives up that personal view, it will be impossible to get it back. If that ensues, one partner will win the battle, but both will lose the war.
Related: Relationships & Self-Love: 9 Self-Love Rules In A Healthy Relationship
3. Rule #3: Quality relationships are made up of two partners who treasure and uphold a set of mutual beliefs and ethics.
I cannot underscore enough how important it is for intimate partners to be authentic and open about what they hold sacred as well as what they expect of each other when they begin a relationship. Though thoughts, feelings, and attitudes can and do change over time.
The partners in successful relationships are always up-to-date in revising and recommitting to the beliefs they share. Trust can only hold when each partner willingly supports those agreements whether they are in each other’s presence or not.
4. Rule #4: Bids for connection are always honored.
When either partner needs the attention or support of the other, that request must be responded to in some way. That doesn’t mean that what is being asked for can always be granted but the interest and support are there. Sometimes bids for connection can be presented in a demanding or self-serving manner, or at an inopportune time.
But intimate partners who love each other are highly tuned to the other’s moods, needs, reflections, hopes, dreams, worries, hunger, frustrations, or sorrows. They are joined in their hearts and one cannot feel okay staying separate if the other needs to connect.
5. Rule #5: There is the underlying absolute assumption that each partner believes the other to be basically valuable and well-intentioned toward the other.
No matter what the downsides are in any relationship, no matter what unresolvable conflicts a couple may have, no matter what needs may go unmet, as long as two people continue to choose one another as their significant partner, they must believe that they see inherent value and quality in the other.
Whatever negatives exist, as they must in any relationship, partners who love each other truly believe in the unchallengeable quality of their partner’s core selves, and are secure in the knowledge that they both have the other’s best interests at heart.
6. Rule #6: The partners in a great relationship are a team.
Whether they play together, dream together, trust each other’s counsel, know how to resolve conflict, share responsibilities and resources, or are there to nurture distress, the partners in successful relationships make more than the sum of their parts. They watch for when either needs shoring up or authentic challenge.
They also revisit their game plans on a regular basis, continuously looking for ways to play it better. There is no need to have power struggles because they strive to agree on who flies left seat and when each has the best chance to lead the team better.
Related: 7 Daily Rituals Happy Couples Use To Cultivate Lasting Love
7. Rule #7: People who love each other want to be the best they can be for the other.
When people are out there dating, they know that they need to put their best foot forward. They get in shape physically, know who they are and what they want, keep themselves up on what is going on in the world, take care of their health, and try to stay away from thoughts and actions that make them less than the best they can be.
Sadly, as many relationships mature, intimate partners tend to lessen their commitments to those behaviors. It is too easy to let up when life’s stresses intervene.
But, in successful, long-term relationships, both partners count on the other to keep them in check. They stay committed to being the best people they can be for themselves and for one another, and hold each other to those promises.
8. Rule #8: Ownership or possessiveness is unacceptable.
No one should ever feel that he or she is simply a player in another person’s script. Insecurity, the need for power, fear of loss, the drive to control, or not trusting the other to comply, all undermine the free choice that is the underlying foundation of love that deepens.
Threats of abandonment, retaliation, or non-participation can get another person to temporarily fall in line to satisfy the other’s demands while sacrificing their own. But, if that happens, martyrdom and resentments will follow.
The sense of being in a relationship out of fear of loss does not create an atmosphere where love can continue to grow. If those feelings are ignored for too long, the relationship will fall apart.
Ultimate love can only sustain when both partners want the other to be the most alive, satisfied, intrigued, and committed to living, wherever that person can find that experience.
All relationships go through difficult situations, but too many without resolution can leave lovers trapped in a lonely and meaningless partnership. True love may end with the ultimate sacrifice: “I love you enough to want you to be where you are the most fulfilled, even if it turns out not to be with me.”
9. Rule #9: Never blame the other partner for what you cannot be, have, or achieve in your own life.
Perhaps it is a dark part of human nature to place accountability for unhappiness or failure away from oneself, but it is a disaster in a love relationship. People do look to their intimate partners as a source of stability, comfort, and safety, as well they should. But a person’s desires and hopes are not the responsibility of the other partner to fulfill.
Yes, one lover’s needs should be a high priority, but every desire expressed by one partner cannot always be automatically the goal of the other, no matter what the circumstances. No partner deserves to be automatically held accountable to meet them.
Related: 10 Unspoken Rules of Modern Day Dating that everyone should follow
10. Rule #10: Continue to Grow Beyond Your Own Limitations.
All human beings need both security and challenge, whether alone or in a relationship. Too much predictability seduces boredom and eventual decay. Too many risks can undermine the comfort of familiarity.
The partners in long-term, successful relationships know that they must preserve discovery, both within and between themselves. Every person knows where he or she is “locked-in” and where they are flexible.
Openness to new ideas and adventures challenges the status quo but introduces the differentness that makes for depth and possibility.
Just think what it would be like to read the same book every year. Some of the passages would still be exciting and interesting, but all would lose their luster if they were simply repeated exactly as they were once written.
When the partners in a long-standing relationship tell me they can finish each other’s sentences, I am not happy. Why bother talking if you will always know what the other partner is going to say?
We hope that you incorporate these golden rules of love in your relationship to make it a successful one. Till then have a happy Valentine’s day!
Written By Randi Gunther Ph.D. Originally Appeared In Randi Gunther, Ph.D.
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