What Kind of Couples Can Stay Together for a Long Time
Couples who can stay together for a long time must meet one of the following four principles:
1. Common Life Goals
Many couples who break up after a few months are essentially just enjoying the benefits of the honeymoon period. Once the passion fades, they go their separate ways.
When two people are together, they are essentially forming a small team. Why form a team? It’s to achieve something that one person alone cannot achieve, creating a synergy effect.
Many short-term relationships end not because they lack common goals, but because these goals are often temporary, such as having children.
Couples who start to grow distant or even divorce after a few years of marriage do so because after achieving the goal of raising children, they have no other goals. Their pursuits diverge, and once the goals differ, the small team is no longer necessary.
Couples with common life goals often last a long time. These goals often take a long time, even a lifetime, to achieve. For example, both wanting to move up in the world, travel the world, contribute to the country’s development, or engage in charitable activities. By supporting each other in achieving these common goals, they complement each other, truly achieving a synergy effect.
2. Shared Core Interests
I have a good friend with whom I’ve maintained a strong relationship because we always shared common interests. We liked the same game in elementary school, enjoyed singing in junior high, and talked about girls in high school and college. After entering the workforce, we discussed investments.
These shared interests have given us endless topics to talk about, keeping our relationship strong.
Many couples who have been together for a long time often face the problem of having nothing to talk about. When there are no topics to discuss, but the relationship obliges you to talk every day, the relationship becomes a burden, and it’s easy for both to become bored and break up.
It’s clear how important shared core interests are. And note that it’s about core interests—interests that take up a significant amount of your time and energy and are not easily changed. Such interests create topics for the relationship.
For example, if you both enjoy playing games, you would play together in the new season of a popular game. When a new popular game appears, you discuss its gameplay and strategies, and complain about its bugs.
Similarly, if you both enjoy music, you can sing together or play musical instruments together, creating shared topics and a sense of understanding between you.
Of course, there are few lifelong interests. When one person’s interest begins to change, the relationship will start to deteriorate. So, when you still have common interests, you need to develop new shared interests to keep the relationship fresh.
3. Shared Livelihood
The concept of shared livelihood means that your money is related to mine, and my life affects yours. For example, starting a business together where our careers intersect; or one person earns money while the other manages finances. It could also mean being in the same social circle, knowing the same people, and having daily lives intertwined, such as attending the same school, eating together, and sharing daily life.
Such relationships often make two people inseparable, creating a deeper sense of connection between them.
Many people break up due to long-distance relationships because both parties have left the same livelihood line. For instance, a friend of mine had been in a cohabiting relationship with her ex-boyfriend for over three years and had a great relationship. However, after she changed jobs, their relationship lost its shared livelihood, and their lives became unrelated. Their conversations became superficial, leading to a gradual cooling off and eventual breakup.
This is why I strongly discourage long-distance relationships because most people lack the other three principles I mentioned. Once you leave the same living circle, you lose the shared livelihood, and distance becomes the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
4. Mutual Effort to Sustain the Relationship
Why did the divorce rate in the past not reach the current high levels? It’s because the older generation was influenced by traditional beliefs. Even when problems arose in a relationship, they sought to compromise and understand each other, maintaining the relationship through adjustments and compromises.
But nowadays, as soon as people feel dissatisfied or unhappy, their first thought is to break up or get a divorce.
For a lasting relationship, both parties must have the consciousness to sustain it. It can’t be one-sided accommodation, and it definitely shouldn’t end in a breakup due to anger. Both partners should learn how to get along with each other, understand each other’s personalities, and make changes and adjustments for each other.
But the most important thing is to have this consciousness. You can never wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep. Many people are not unwilling to learn how to get along with their partners; they simply don’t want to. They think it’s unnecessary. These people are doomed to be incompatible.
One-sided efforts to sustain the relationship are not only tiring but also not very effective. If you think your partner is the only one for you, while they think they can find someone better, then the joke’s on you in the end.
