5 Tips to Improve Your Relationship

Often, healthy relationship tips can seem like a dime a dozen—they seem to be everywhere you look: on the Huffington Post, in Cosmo, and even on CNN. It may only be a matter of time before healthy relationship tips start popping up on places like ESPN and Target.com.

It’s easy to understand why this type of advice is given with such frequency: Relationships are the great commonality. No matter which walk of existence we trod through, we all have relationships and place them as one of the most important things in our lives. We can also all use a handful of healthy relationship tips from time to time.

So, whether you are newly dating or have been married since the typewriter was actually a thing, consider the following tips:

1. Make Time To Be A Couple
The most difficult, and ironic, thing about life is that it often gets in the way of living. Kids, jobs, chores, endless but necessary shopping on Amazon.com — there are all kinds of things that take away from two people just appreciating each other. This means that you must put forth the effort. The good news is minimal effort is needed: Simply making a point to go out on a date once a week or taking quarterly mini-vacations, such as these luxurious and affordable Cotswold Midweek Breaks, may be all that is needed to keep your relationship fresh.

2. Talk To Each Other
In the era of technology, many people have forgotten the most important form of communication, actually talking to one another. Email, text messages, social media posts: they may be convenient but they are also innately impersonal. Talking face to face, on the other hand, allows you to capitalize on all types of communication, including non-verbal. And, as anyone who has ever read any blog offering healthy relationship tips knows, communication is the key to success.

3. Spend Time Apart
Your girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife, should be the most important thing in your life, but they shouldn’t be the only thing. Relationships where each party maintains their own interests tend to be happier and better-rounded than relationships where two people spend all of their free moments together. So, spend time with your friends, hone your hobby, or focus on your work and encourage your partner to do the same. Spending time apart gives you a chance to miss each other, automatically causing you to appreciate one another more.

4. Forgive Each Other
The massive imperfections that people possess should be enough to convince each of us that God has a sense of humor— and a big one. From birth we are flawed, some of us more than others. But, the whole point of a relationship is not to expect perfection from your partner; rather, the point is to love them in spite of the fact they snore, forget to buy skim milk, or insist on telling their best friend all the intimate details about your sex life.

5. Schedule Sex
Scheduling sex comes across as a tad ridiculous, as if your Day-Timer reads: 7am Workout at Gym, 8-4 Go to Work, 5pm Dentist Appointment, 6pm Get It On. But as much as we all enjoy the spontaneity involved with romance, sometimes that spontaneity simply isn’t there. This is usually truer for couples who have a very full-plate, and one where children are the main entrée. Thus, if you can have sex whenever you are in the mood or at the drop of a hat, then, by all means, go for it. But, if you find that your sex life has dwindled down to nearly non-existent, don’t be afraid to schedule sex. Scheduled sex is better than no sex at all.