9 Oct 2020 · 9 min
Lewis AI breaks down five essentials for long-term relationships drawn from therapist Lori Gottlieb's work. The episode covers what keeps couples together beyond the initial spark, grounded in emotional health and what each person brings to the partnership.
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This is Five Minute Friday. A real relationship is like a river. The deeper it gets, the less noise it makes. Tony Gaskins. Today I want to talk about the five keys to lasting love. The things that are proven, tested in relationships that last decades and decades, that don't just survive and stay together to kind of grunt it out and try to make it work and just feel like they have to stay together. But I'm talking about the relationships that you admire, that you respect, that you look at someone who's been together for 20, 30, 50 years, and you see the way they look at each other like it was their first week together. That's what I'm talking about. What are those five keys? Well, I've got these five things because I just interviewed Lori Gottlieb in episode 1013, and we talked about all these things on overcoming shame, processing pain, maximizing mental health. And I also had a section with her where I said, listen, I know you work with couples and you've been doing this for a long time. You've seen relationships really thrive and struggle. And I was like, what are the five things proven, tested over time that you've seen as a therapist that make a relationship last and thrive? So here are the five keys to lasting love and relationship success. This was number one that Lori mentioned, flexibility. When you are so set in your ways of expectations of what you want out of your partner and what you expect them to be, if you expect them to be perfect, you are going to be constantly let down. Because no one is perfect. No one has the energy to be perfect. No one has the patience to be perfect. No one has the time to be perfect. So she said, number one is flexibility. Being flexible. Yes, you don't want someone walking all over you all the time and breaking their promises and lying to you, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about being flexible, going with the flow. If something doesn't work out the way you want it to, you're not so bent out of shape all the time. Be flexible, number one. Number two is emotional stability. If you haven't worked out your past stuff, then you are gonna bring that baggage with you and you're gonna be emotionally unstable and it's gonna rock the relationship. It's gonna be so much energy trying to manage your emotional instability that it's gonna be hard to focus on thriving together. So make sure you're developing emotional stability and so is your partner. And if your partner's not emotionally stable, then you're gonna be doing a lot of heavy lifting for many, many years carrying that weight until they learn to be emotionally stable and work out their past stuff. Because if you haven't worked out the past, you'll be carrying it with you in the present. Number three, this is what she said, you need to have five positive deposits to every one negative deposit. So you can't go through a month and all you have is negative experiences and negative moments and negative energy and all these different things that are happening all the time. You can't have fights day after day after day. You're not gonna thrive. You gotta have five positive experiences for every one kind of negative experience. And that will support you in keeping the balance in a positive, joyful, loving way. But if it's always negative, that's going to be hard to thrive. You're just managing overwhelm all the time.
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Number four, she said, is take responsibility for your response. Now, what does that mean? When situations happen, when there's a challenge, when there's a letdown, when there's a breakdown, when there's something that goes wrong, and it will go wrong, things will not go the way you want them to go all the time. You must take responsibility for how you respond to it. Someone gets mad at you, how are you gonna respond? Someone lets you down, how are you gonna respond? Your response is almost more powerful than the action that actually happens because you taking responsibility for your response will continue to ensure that the relationship thrives. But if you respond in a negative way, it's gonna continue to be harder and harder to grow. Number five, this is a big one. Emotions are contagious, she said. So make sure to take care of your mood. Again, this goes back to responsibility. If you are not creating an environment of love for yourself, an environment of peace, an environment of joy, an environment of growth, an environment of calm, then your mood and your energy is going to be contagious in the relationship and it will affect your partner. Your emotions are contagious. Take care of your mood. These are five keys to lasting love, relationship success. And if you want to analyze Hey, how am I doing on each five of these? Make sure to rate yourself one through 10. Am I flexible? Do I have emotional stability? Do I take responsibility? Go through these five key steps and rate yourself one through 10 and ask yourself, am I showing up as a good partner? And also take it another level. I'm gonna challenge you, ask your partner to listen to this and say, will you rate me at a one through 10 and be completely honest? Where do I stand in each one of these five to you? and see if yours match up. I'll be shocked to see if that happens. Let me know. Post a message over on social media, Lewis Howes, with the episode. LewisHowes.com/1017. Share this with your friends, share this with your partner, post it on social media. Let me know your thoughts. And again, a real relationship is like a river. The deeper it gets, the less noise it makes, said Tony Gaskins. I'm so grateful for you. I love you. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.
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