It takes understanding each other’s communication style and the way you each express yourself. It takes understanding each other’s needs and desires. It takes really being able to listen to someone without judgment, ego and commentary. It takes being able to work on yourself on a daily basis.

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love is hard. It takes dedication and work by both partners.

I had an interesting lunch with a friend of mine the other day. He told me that his parents have been together for fifty years, and that there were times in their relationship — maybe years — in which they really didn’t like each other. He said that the one thing they always did that kept them together, though, was to stand up for each other.

No one is asking you to change. You are just being asked to grow.

Growing is what life is all about. The person who probably frustrates you and drives you crazy the most is the person with whom you have do the most growing.

So if you’re in love, drop the ego and think to yourself “How does my partner communicate? How can I understand them better? How can we find the peace again in the relationship?”

Relationships are always going to be a challenge, but if you’ve got a great one then you had better figure out how to keep it. Keeping the great ones are a battle, but think about the battle you went through to find it and this person with whom you fell in love.

They always say that everything is great as long as you are in control. It’s when you stop being in control, though, that all the work needs to be done.

So it’s kind of like the car is lying, sort of like how someone is lying when they say “Give me a second.” I think the same person invented the phrase “give me a second” and the “Refill Fuel Now” message.

You can tell it’s Saturday since these are about the only thoughts on my brain. Good thing I have a blog written, otherwise the “refill fuel now!” message would have been the topic of today’s blog.

So onto a less “gassy” topic. . .

Do you really respect your partner? Think about all the people in your life. Think about your best friends. You respect your friends, otherwise you wouldn’t be friends with them.

Do you really respect the person you’re dating though? Do you really respect their wishes and the things they like to do? Do you make sure there is enough balance between the things you like to do and the things they like to do?

Say one of you is a late night person and the other is an early morning person. Do you compromise about that? Do you respect each other’s wants and desires? It is really important that you do. A lot of people tend to tune out or ignore their partner’s wishes.

Say your partner wants to go out for dinner to a Chinese restaurant. You had Chinese food for lunch, but you know how much your partner is craving it. So what do you do? You just kind of don’t answer them. You go into silent mode and hope they don’t ask you again.

Here’s how you should handle it. Don’t ignore them. When you ignore someone, they will immediately start to think that the answer is no and that you’re not on the same page with them. You don’t want to do this.

It’s just human nature that if someone asks us to do something we’re not really in the mood to do, we will tend to go on mute mode (and will just ignore the request). Pretty soon what happens when you do this, though, is that your partner will start to think you’re not interested in doing that thing with them (when maybe you just aren’t interested in doing it that night).

So if your partner wants to go to a Jazz club one night and you aren’t in the mood that day to do that, answer them by saying something like “No, I’m really not in the mood to go listen to jazz tonight and get drunk. Let’s do it tomorrow night.”

So, don’t ignore somebody when they have a wish. Don’t ignore somebody when they want something. Just tell them you’re not in the mood for it that night, otherwise you are going to cause your partner to form all sorts of erroneous opinions about you. If that happens, you will all of a sudden start to see your relationship go in directions you never wanted it to go.