What are the strengths of your relationship?

[Echobelly]

I was thinking about this after watching a tiktok where a woman was talking about her issues of anxiety in relationships, where she couldn't help worrying that things like her partner spending time with other people was a sign he didn't love her and generally looking at a lot of things in terms of 'maybe that means he doesn't love me'.

Which made me realise one strength of our relationships is that neither of us overanalysis stuff like that (and I know people with anxiety may not be able to help it, so not having a go at them!) and very much trust one another with our own separate lives. We have many flaws and challenges as well, and are definitely not #blessed #loveofmylife 24-7, but we succeed in that. Also that when times are tough, we generally pull together really well rather than our relationship making things harder.

Been together about 21 years, married nearly 17.

So amidst and a lot of understandable cynicism in the world right now, I wanted to ask what people feel works well in their relationship? I'm just really interested in the different sorts of dynamics that hold people together.

Together almost 14 years, will be married 5 in August. My reasons would be:

We have such a good laugh with each other. Genuine belly laughs and face aching, can’t breathe, fits of giggles.

We can be ourselves, weird thoughts, insecurities and all, and still feel confident that the other person isn’t judging/is our safe space.

We’ve supported the other through some really hard times and have had some tough moments in our relationship but we’ve come out the other side stronger and feeling more together.

We’re constantly working on being better at communicating. DH likes to talk everything through, whereas I tend towards internalising a bit more. We’ve spent a lot of time and effort figuring out ways to be clear, transparent and open in our conversations in a way we are both comfortable with, especially when we are having / have had an argument.

On paper, we are very different and most people would not put us together. But we somehow fit and our core values are aligned.

We are attracted to each other and prioritise keeping the sexual spark.

We both take being married really seriously. We know there will be ups and downs and times when we might be tempted to call it quits, but we’re in it for the long run and we’ve promised the other that we’ll do everything we possibly can to make it work before we ever even consider walking away.

All that said, when he still hasn’t mowed the front garden despite weeks of being asked and it’s now starting to resemble a jungle, has woken me up 3 nights in a row with snoring and/or a cough he’s developed and has forgotten (again) to pay a bridge toll in time when driving my car, so I’ve just received two £40 fines in the post, I will happily admit to fantasising about smothering him with his own pillow 🤣🤣