Without goals in life, we are liable to underachieve. The same applies to relationships, in that it is healthy to have something for a couple to aim for. The crucial factor is whether or not each partner has their own personal goals as well as generic relationship goals.

People in relationships need to be dependent (to a healthy degree) on their partner - this promotes closeness and strengthens the relationship. The human desire to be needed and useful to other people is a very important aspect of our social interactions and extremely important for couples. However, we also need to not place too much strain on our partner by being too needy. Remember, strength is attractive and energy-giving; if you lack strength you can damage the relationship by tiring out your partner and depending on him/her too much, which they may come to resent (I am not referring to dependency caused by disability, which is entirely different). Hence, why it is healthy to have personal goals in life. Of course both partners need to work together for their relationship goals, i.e. to achieve increased trust, understanding, save for that elusive perfect home, etc. In addition, to keep the relationship healthy and vibrant, give yourself personal goals. Things such as increasing your standard of education, combating irrational fears, taking up a hobby, etc all contribute to your own strength and self-esteem. These factors can increase the total energy in a relationship and both partners will benefit. Additionally, once your partner sees you improving yourself, he/she may be motivated to improve themselves also, which will have a doubly positive impact.

Self-improvement, via the goal-orientated approach, should keep you enthusiastic and breath new life into your daily routine. This increase in energy and strength is very attractive and will keep a relationship on the right track. Many failed relationships derail due to personal problems and are not always directly attributable to the actual relationship per se. Improve yourself, achieve your goals, keep your mind young and energetic and then watch as your relationship reinvigorates itself. Like in many aspects of life, the key to succeeding in something is to first inwardly critically analyse yourself and then set goals for self-improvement.

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Though it may seem more like a personal objective, being a more positive person can have a dramatic impact on your relationship as well. By increasing your ability to appreciate what you have and trying to foster a more realistic, optimistic outlook on your everyday life, you are able to remove some of the obstacles to a happy healthy relationship.

For instance, if you were to look at the various actions you have performed which have negatively impacted your partner, how many of them were as a result of some bad feeling on your part? Maybe you were tired and depressed and you lashed out at your partner for some minor reason; or maybe you were stressed with the daily grind of working life and sometimes thought it necessary to remind your partner that his/her life was easier (which inevitably would lead to conflict). Now imagine those circumstances if you had been more optimistic about the underlying cause of your annoyance. Instead of complaining about your job, a more optimistic you would maybe find reason to be thankful and pass on this new found appreciation in the way you treat your other half. This in turn would hopefully cheer your partner and cause her/him to treat you better and hence avoid a conflict.

By learning to appreciate your life and surroundings a little more you will most likely improve how you feel about things and in turn be less likely to take out your frustrations on those around you. It is definitely a win-win situation with a positive feedback loop for all.

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As ClickinLove is predominantly a dating site dedicated to intercultural dating, I thought I would touch on the subject of language problems couples may face when they are in an intercultural relationship. Besides for the inevitable misunderstanding which can arise due to both people having a different set of reference customs, there are also issues which occur when one or other misconstrues the meaning and nuances of idiomatic expressions and language peculiarities.

For instance, sarcasm, which may be a common conversational element in one culture, could prove hard to understand for someone from another culture. Often an incomplete grasp of the language can make understanding sarcasm a little tricky and the meaning can go very awry. Yet the person being sarcastic may not realise that their comment was misunderstood and the person who misunderstood may probably not even know that they made a mistake in their understanding of what was said and meant. Consequently, communication between both people has suffered, yet neither may actually realise this.

That is why it is especially important in intercultural dating to avoid relying too heavily on cultural traits when talking, to try and avoid idiomatic expressions, colloquialisms and other such sentence constructs which can cause ambiguity. The danger is that, unlike normal communication problems where issues can be identified and eventually resolved, with cross-cultural language issues, both people may not actually realise that the other person has misunderstood them. Eventually, somewhere down the line, these issues will surface and the underlying reason for them will be hard to determine; by that stage it may be too late to backtrack and resolve the issues.

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Working at a relationship is often easier said than done.  We all have many reasons and grievances which make us stop short of fulfilling the obligations we make in a relationship.  Why do we sometimes fail to do what we set out to achieve in our relationship and end up hurting ourselves and our partner in the process.  A few human attributes spring to mind as the cause of this: anger, selfishness, greed, to name but a few.

Making a relationship work is all about facing up to the relationship challenges.  The number one challenge is about putting the other person first.  We naturally wish to defend and protect ourselves first, but in doing so we can cause problems.  By first putting yourself in your partner’s shoes (methaphorically speaking), you should be able to see the situation from their perspective.  Often that is all that is required to calm your own feelings of resentment or anger and hence approach the problem more unemotionally.

It is not easy to tackle relationship problems if your motivation for being in a relationship is materialistic, i.e. for money, security, physical satisfaction, etc.  First try to develop true feelings and understand your partner.  Place your partner’s happiness at least as equal to your own.  Only then are you in a position to maturely handle conflict as it arises.  Remember to make them happy, and put in as much effort as you do to make yourself happy.  If you find you are treating yourself so much more better than you are treating your partner, then you need to look a little at yourself and be honest about your reasons for being in that relationship.  Is it really about love, or about comfort?

To achieve relationship harmony, you need to make sure both you and your partner are happy.  Remember, to follow the path to happiness, it is often easiest to send your partner ahead first.

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Divorce rates in Western countries are extremely high.  One has to ask why are people even bothering getting married nowadays.  In Germany and Austria, over 50% of marriages in any one year end in divorce.  So why does marriage still exist when the after-effects are so devastating for everyone involved?

I have a theory.  I think everyone starts out with good intentions, but living in a greedy, self-absorbed culture makes the reality of good goals harder to attain - and a prolonged marriage is a good goal.  Marriage is a pact between two people whereby they declare a lifelong committment to each other.  How can the average Westerner make this level of committment to another human, when statistics show he/she cannot even control their own level of junk-food intake, do not have the self-discipline to exercise enough and live in a society which is obsessed with self-fulfillment at the expense of those around them.  In the West, we are not encouraged to show committment to anyone but ourselves.  The truth is that few Western people really have the self-drive, thoughtfulness and ambition to treat other humans well, and this applies equally to their partner.

Sure, they might think they will treat their spouse differently, but statistics are showng them they are wrong.  Over 50% of them are wrong at  least.  I think the trick to a successful relationship is dedication to the other person.  Going the extra mile to give them something more than what comes naturally to you.  Be thoughtful, give your partner a reason to love you and make their life easier.  Assuming your parter can match your efforts, then going the extra mile could be the technique that makes your marriage work.

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Can you trust your partner?  

The cornerstone of every good relationship is trust.  Without it, the relationship cannot survive.  Yet there appears to be a common theme emerging in recent years in Western society - female equality is impacting relationships in ways unforeseen and not always beneficial.  

Statistically women are more likely to cheat on their partners now that at any time in the recent past.  When men cheat they try to be clever and hide it, but men just aren’t as clever socially or in picking up subtle body language or signs as women are.  Quite often the woman knows her partner has cheated even before he does (joke).  The point is that women are better at reading men than men are at reading women.  In other words, a woman has a better chance of spotting her partner cheating than a man does.

Where does this leave men?  In a changing world where women have more equality (and rightly so), they do seem to be picking up some of the bad habits of a certain type of man.  Cheating is on the rise amongst women… and men have a big disadvantage in fighting this:

• In divorce, men tend to lose more (highly debatable statement, but let us assume it for now). 
•  If a man cheats and his partner does not find out about it, she will not raise the child which he may father.  If a woman cheats and her partner does not find out about it, he will spend a sizable portion of his life raising another man’s child, without even being aware of it.  
• Men will often find it hard to spot if a woman is cheating.

Put these few points together and the stakes are suddenly quite high for a man to get married; he stands to lose a lot if his partner proves not to be trustworthy.  Yet he may never know this about her.  Hence another reason why men are slowing moving away from marriage.  

I understand this is very controversial what I am saying, but sometimes it is healthy to play devil’s advocate and see what debate it provokes.

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Does anyone else think that the major churches are against gender equality?  We know that the Catholic church believes the woman’s role in a relationship is as a stay-at-home mother; but what about other churches collective attitudes?

This question is a pivotal one and more important than even feminists probably realise.  European scholars in the last few hundred years have been predicting the demise of the church as science and rationality take hold and push superstition out of the way.  Yet religion and the church have managed to hang on and still look strong.  If they really are against gender equality, then their existence effectively is working against women being equal members of society.

So the question is whether or not women will rebel against organised religion and the very subtle persecution they have suffered up to now.  Only time will tell, but for the moment it seem the atheists and feminists have something in common.

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When I talk about maintaining discipline in a relationship I am referring to raising children.  A friend told me a story about his other married friend.  It seems this married man has two troublesome teenagers.  Now the man was a good father, kind, sensitive, thoughtful and never ever hit the kids.  Now that the kids have gorwn up a bit and reached their teens, it seems that they are getting out of control.  His wife confided in someone that she was disappointed that her husband was so weak with the children and not disciplining them enough.

Which brings me to my point.  Women want a caring sensitive man to get married to.  They want him to be a gentle hands-on father.  Yet they also want him to deal out the discipline as well.  if he is nice to the children he is too soft, if he is tough with them, he is too hard.  Why is it that men in a relationship cannot be accepted for what they are and always seem to be blamed for everything that goes wrong.  Women want equality (and rightly so), but with that equality comes a responsibility that they too show equality.  It does not sound equal to me if the man must be both a mother and a father, whilst the mother need only be the mother.  Does anyone else think that relationships are not balanced anymore?  

Whilst I see that equality in the workplace is getting nearer and women are gaining on men, I wonder are these same women failing to ensure equality in their relationships where men are appearing to be putting in a lot more effort than they are.  Equality works both ways and until women realise this and try harder in relationships, then we will continue to see the average age of marriage rise and divorce rates soaring.

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The experts will give you many techniques to try and make your relationship feel special and last longer.  I believe the best way to achieve this is in doing things together.  Develop shared interests which make you closer as friends. For instance, if you are both able to share hard work, as well as have a laugh and experience the ups and downs of working on a project together, then you create an additional  bond which otherwise could have been missing.  

The problem to overcome first of all is the common attitude of not wanting to share a hobby with your partner. There are many reasons why people do this, especially men: I need time alone; we cannot be with each other for too long without arguing; we have no common interests, etc.  You need to get out of the defeatist attitude and actually aim to make this joint hobby work.  The relationship should be there to benefit you as well as your partner, so make it happen.  Demand more and give more.  Most importantly, treat your partner as a friend and make the effort to move closer to them.

By working together on some project or hobby, you form strong bonds, reignite lost passion and both gleam a sense of achievement which you both understand and see in the other.  It really is a win-win situation and should form part of any healthy relationship.

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