How To Have A Happy Relationship: Are You Doing These 7 Things?

How To Keep A Relationship Happy & Healthy

When it comes to how to have a happy relationship, it’s not rocket science.

First, you fall in love.

Then you live happily ever after.

Wait! I think we missed something!

We’re missing the meat.

All the ups and downs.

All the amazing highs and gut-wrenching lows.

You know, the good stuff!

Falling in love is easy.

Being in love is where it all gets a bit tricky.

Spending your life with someone is hard.

So many other words come to mind. But hard is right there at the top.

There’s no way to crack the code to make a relationship easy.

But there are tools, skills, and habits that we can add to our relationship tool belts. These things will help you be able to better handle everything your relationship is going to throw your way.

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Here Are 7 Tips on How To Have A Happy Relationship

1) Share

Share your goals and dreams. Your fears and insecurities. Your cheese fries.

Especially the cheese fries!

One of the best parts of a relationship is sharing.

Being in a relationship is literally choosing to share your life with someone.

Sharing all the good stuff is fun. But we all know life and relationships are made up of much more than just the good stuff.

Make sure you are sharing the hard stuff. The feelings that aren’t easy to talk about.

The things that may feel awkward or uncomfortable to bring up.

Share the weight and stress that a bad day brought on.

Share it all.

Always make it a priority to keep those lines of communication open and share your little heart out with the person you love.

2) Manners

Think about how you speak to your partner.

I know my manners are not always on full display when I am talking to my husband.

This may seem like something small. But the small things are the things that hold so much power in your relationship.

There is definitely a place in every relationship for some basic manners!

Don’t underestimate the use of please and thank you. Don’t underestimate how much your partner will appreciate a kind word over a snappy response.

Think about how we teach kids to behave. How we encourage them to use their manners and be kind.

We should be doing that too!

3) Personal Growth

You need to be happy with yourself apart from the relationship.

What do you think bringing your best self to the relationship will do? Did you say to make it better? Congrats, you are correct!

I am a sucker for anything that has to do with self-improvement.

Working on yourself and getting to know yourself on a deeper level can be really amazing.

Being in a relationship does not mean you and your partner have morphed into one person. OK, I just got a mental image of my husband and I morphing together and I am now traumatized.

Anyway, the point is to make sure you keep yourself at the top of that priority list of yours. You will always deserve a top spot!

Not sure where to start when it comes to personal growth? This will help!

And I also highly recommend this book and this one! They are sure to help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and how you behave in your relationship.

4) Don’t Compare

Comparing is pretty much the epitome of easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

I mean, the ability to look at other people’s lives is literally at our fingertips.

But there are a couple of things you need to remind yourself of.

Are you paying attention? This first one is very important.

You are not a part of any of those other relationships. Worry about the relationship you are a part of.

And you also have no idea what goes on behind closed doors. Don’t compare your relationship to a pretty picture you see or some romantic words.

Comparing is going to result in one thing. It’s going to make you feel bad. Really bad. Oh, and pretty dang sad.

Now, let’s be realistic. Everyone gets bit by the comparison bug sometimes. No way around that.

But the next time you get bitten, these two important ideas can be a nice reminder. They can help you snap out of it before you get sucked in too deep.

5) Check on Your Expectations

One surefire way to set your relationship up for failure is to have unrealistic expectations.

When you start swearing up and down that your relationship should be a certain way you are doing so much damage. And you probably don’t even realize you are doing it.

I know before getting married I had a picture in my head of how things would be. I had ideas on how we would act or handle arguments.

Let me spill the beans and tell you that my bubble of perfection quickly burst.

You are not perfect. Your partner is not perfect.

Do you know what this means? Your relationship is not going to be anywhere near perfect.

Think about the things you are expecting from your partner and from your relationship. Do these things make sense?

Try writing things down. I love to journal or just scribble random thoughts down. It helps me to shift my perspective and clear my mind of some clutter.

Unrealistic expectations really do have the ability to slowly but surely drain all the life out of your relationship.

6) Date

Dating your partner is a necessity.

It is so important. Date nights matter!

Consistently dating your partner is a perfect way to keep your relationship healthy.

An hour or two out together with no distractions can work wonders. I’m speaking from personal experience.

I can always tell when date night has got put on the back burner for a while in my house. My husband and I start running low on patience with each other and high on attitude!

Date nights won’t solve every issue your relationship stumbles upon. But they will definitely help!

Plan a date night right now. And then make sure you schedule it! Put a value on that date night.

Bonus idea: These TableTopics are an awesome way to spark some new and fun conversations with your partner!

7) Put The Phone Down

Does it ever seem like your phone is calling your name?

I know I am guilty of checking my phone for no good reason at all.

I do it just because it is there. My husband does too. And I bet you do too.

We see it all the time. Go to any public place and you are going to see quite a few people looking down at their phones. Heck, I see people on their phones when I am driving.

Technology is like an addiction.

I’m not going to sit here and act like I don’t love my phone. I do.

But I don’t love it more than I love my husband. Not even close. So he should not have to compete with my phone for my attention. And vice versa.

There is a time and there is a place for your phone. That time is not when your partner is talking to you.

Be sure you are spending some “no phone” time with each other.

A happy and healthy relationship is not going to just fall into your lap.

Cruise control might be a nice driving feature but it doesn’t belong in relationships.

You and your partner have to step up and take control. You both have to put in the effort to make your relationship the best it can be.

Some days your relationship will feel like it is on the most amazing path. And some days it may feel like you took a sharp turn down a path of destruction.

I assure you that this is what we all go through.

Hit the brakes, do a u-turn and you can get back on track.

Oh, and never forget that a happy relationship does not mean you are happy all the time! Not by a long shot!

Have any tips on how to have a happy relationship? Drop a comment!

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