Do you have any of advice on finding and keeping a spouse and/or managing a successful long-term relationship?

Be honest. Be yourself. Listen.

The best way to find someone is to not try too hard. It happens organically when you’re doing the things you like to do.

As for maintaining a relationship, the best advice I can give is to be attentive to your partner’s needs and let the little stuff slide. You have to let the little stuff slide.

I can’t offer any advice on finding a long-term relationship.
But I can offer some on keeping one.

Don’t let the arguments add up until you blow up at each other. Allow yourself to have little arguments with each other. It is okay to disagree and even to argue. It helps even so that the ‘issues’ don’t become too big or overwhelming. And when you do have a big issue you’ll have practice with the smaller stuff.

I believe monogamy is necessary for a long-term relationship to answer your other question. This is for several reasons. Perhaps someone can love more than one person but I don’t see why anyone would want to. Once I found my true love I had no need to supplement that with anything else.

It is the most difficult thing you will ever do.

… keeping a spouse and/or managing a successful long-term relationship?

Talk, communicate, talk, communicate, talk, communicate….
Can’t say it enough…
Talk, communicate, talk, communicate, talk, communicate….

My dad has always said that me and him are the same when it comes to relationships

Like rivers, we take the course of least obstruction

Finding love- find yourself and love will come.
Keeping love- Be safe, calm and loving. Safe doesn’t yell, threaten or demean. Calm doesn’t rage and use anger as a weapon. Loving cares, respects and listens.

This is really an honest answer…okay? I am not joking.

Get a duplex…with a connecting door.Or live in separate apartments next to each other. This is especially important if you marry after 40.

That will keep your marriage sane. You need to have separate spaces.

Why? Because that black vinyl 60’s Stratolounger given to him by his beloved uncle Morris…the one he watched the Packers win the SuperBowl with on TV…may end up being the swan song of your marriage…when it doesn’t coordinate with your Laura Ashley divan.

He can have his lounger, his collection of German beer steins from every Oktoberfest since 1982 and his woofers and tweeters that take up all the wall…..

And you can have your French tea towels to dry your dishes….and not used to wipe the oil gauge in his 65 Mustang (that sits in the garage.)

Many marriages would be saved….with simply a duplex.

:)

Forget about trying to find the right person. Concentrate on becoming the right person. Everything will naturally fall into place from there.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Love that.

It’s all in the “finding” part. When you have met a person that you feel comfortable with, can have a conversation without feeling awkward, don’t mind if he /she sees you sick or without make-up/bad hair day and want to live every day of your life with, and both are ready and willing to make a committment for a lifetime partnership, the rest will fall into place.

And to add to what @YARNLADY has said, (s)he should feel the same way about you!

The person you are looking for might not be in the package that you expect. In other words, if you’re only looking for the prettiest or most handsome and ignoring the rest, you’re really narrowing your field and may never find someone you’d get along really well with, otherwise.

@DarlingRhadamanthus lol4rl! My parents have their own rooms in the house to escape to. My mom has her sewing/painting/computer room and my dad has his lounge/television room. They are going on 41 years of marriage and with all the bullshit that they have had to endure during those years I think that their separate spaces have saved their marriage.

Having your own time is very important, but you also need that one on one time together as a couple. A time that you both do something that will make you laugh and enjoy each others company. So many couples get wrapped up in the day to day bullshit and end up taking each other for granted. Don’t forget that you are with your best friend. The person that you can laugh with, cry with, yell at (then have great make up sex) and come to for support when everyone else is against you.

@jonsblond…...Thanks for the LOL! I now have some “scientific proof” in the Fluther of my “Duplex Hypothesis.” :)

In no way do I advocate that you lead separate lives….but “space” is good if you can wing it and if you are not married to your best friend….and you sound like the Costanzas from “Seinfeld” to your neighbors…it’s a neccesity.

:)

@jonsblond @DarlingRhadamanthus—That is what my husband and I do. We have his computer room at one end of the house and my sewing room at the other end. I also have a playroom set aside for our younger grandsons, and I can go in there alone or with them to get them separated from everyone else. It has a patio and fenced play area.

My Oldest grandson, who lives with us, has his own room all fixed up like a studio apartment, and even has a cat living with him.

I do not want to sound arrogant and say my relationship is perfect, but it does work and there was really now skill involved. I believe if two people are right for each other they will stick together. My relationship is based on honesty, giving one another space when needed, listening when the other is trying to tell you something, keeping things real.

@Trance24 I would say there is skill involved in the traits you mentioned: listening, keeping things real, giving each other space, being honest, etc..

@RedPowerLady I can see what your saying, but honestly from the beginning it just worked. I feel like there was no skill because it was just so easy to do with him, and still do with him.

@Trance24 I get your meaning :)

I think it’s important to be yourself especially when you first meet someone. Sure, first impressions are important but you want the other person to like you for who you are. Don’t ever try to be something that you’re not just so somebody will like you. Long term relationships are strongly based on honesty so it’s always good to start out on the right foot.

I thought first of all sorts of advice, but then I realized that in the end of the day, I have simply been incredibly lucky in my husband. All sorts of minor things I did not plan or do have contributed to us meeting, and making all the life choices since then that have lead to the life we have now.

There is no surefire way to find or manage love. There are, however, a couple of surefire ways to waste one, detailed nicely in the good old How to fuck up a relationship. The best “advice” I take away from that list is “Don’t talk. Talking has been known to lead to communication if practiced carelessly.” ;)

No trying. Just doing.

finding = Don’t look to hard, just be yourself. Make friends and maybe you can meet someone that way, seeing as a lot of times the best relationships come from friendships.

Keeping = Communication, make sure both of you listen to each other and care about the needs of each other. Good luck with it all :-)

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. My guide to success in relationships fall in a tiered level, the top being trust. You have to trust your partner (until they give you reason not to). If you can’t trust each other to have a private personal life that is totally theirs or know each and every place they are and what they are doing you will be doomed; you will never have peace of mind.

Respect, you have to respect them, if you respect them you will always talk civilly with them even when disagreeing. I always say speak to them as if you would a banker you need a loan from to safe the family farm.

Honesty, you can’t go around lying about stuff because when you get caught (and you eventually will) that will play into your trustworthiness and credibility. Lying kills off the 1st two layers easy.

Communication, if you can’t apply the top 3 you can’t master this level because if you don’t respect, you will lie and then there is no trust. You will have to learn tact when answering many things but you have to be honest about it.

Do not belittle, even when your spouse does something that makes them seem like a complete doofus or worse when you bring it up you state just the logical facts, don’t try to come across as you are better.

Temperament, before you go blow up about something take 20 deep breaths if you have to then get the facts as they see it then determine if there was something worth getting all tick off for.

Flexibility, as Sun Tzu said “He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious.” There are some things to stand hard on and other things that are no worth fighting over or not at the time the fight is likely to happen. You might serve yourself better bringing it up a different way when tempers are more calm

Those are my 7 core principals and they seem to do me very well.