miltons post 300076

Relationships are hard. They take a lot of dedication, focus, and work. Finding the right person to settle down with can often feel like a very frustrating game of chance. And even when you do find the right one, you’ll still have your work cut out for you as you make an effort to maintain your relationship. If you’re looking for a little guidance when it comes to love, you’ve come to the right place. The Cheat Sheet spoke with eight top relationship experts to get some of their best advice. So pull up a chair and read on for more. 1. Take it easy The best relationship advice I’ve ever gotten, and that I give, is “easy does it.” Too often we get caught up in fear-based needs to control our partner. This pull becomes a destructive compulsion that corrodes the integrity of the relationship. It replaces respect and compassion with anger and resentment. It destroys the quality of our lives and over time, the relationship. This advice impacted the way I approach romantic relationships in that I allowed for a lot more space, which in turn allowed for less reactivity, more peace, happiness, and respect. The classic struggle of all relationships is finding the right calculus in the togetherness-and-autonomy equation. Typically, when a relationship is under stress, one of the partners asks for physical space to break the tension. This is suboptimal. The best way to incorporate space is by being proactive and providing emotional rather than physical space. To do this, partners need to allow each other the space to be themselves and to have their experiences without trying to control the outcome or think that you are responsible for their lives and reaction. It’s hard work and takes practice, but the rewards are well worth the effort.