Mike at Night
© 2002 Mike Hendricks

There are certain things that have to be present in people and couples if a relationship is going to survive and flourish. Great relationships don't "just happen." They require effort, luck, and a proper attitude if they're going to have any chance at all of succeeding. If your relationship has all of the "nine T's," you don't need me to tell you that you are getting practically everything out of your relationship that anyone could possible hope for. On the other hand, the fewer the "T's" you have, the more likely it is that your relationship is struggling and you may not even know why.

TRUST: Trust is essential to any relationship. Even though people who are in love with each other want to spend as much time with the other person as possible, there are occasions where that is not possible. We all know people who sit around and worry about what their loved one is doing when they're not around. Trust negates worry. If you truly trust the other person, you know they are acting and behaving just like they would if you were by their side. The more mistrustful we are of the other person, the more miserable our life and our relationship is. We must instill trust in the other person for us and, in return, have trust in them for long-term happy relationships to be possible.

TRUTH: Once we lie about anything to that special person in our life, we find ourselves very quickly on a slippery slope because one lie almost always leads to another. Being truthful with our loved one, no matter how painful it might be, is truly the foundation that the relationship is built upon. And, obviously, without truth, there can be no trust. If your partner has lied to you before about important things, it's always easier to lie the next time. And vice versa. Telling each other the truth is of paramount importance to long-term relationships.

TOGETHERNESS: People who are truly in love with each other want to be with each other. They have more fun with each other than they do with anyone else. Life is more exciting with each other than with anyone else. People who are in love with each other should literally be each other's best friend and most people would rather spend time with their best friend than anyone else. We all know couples who don't embrace this concept at all. They may go somewhere together and go home together but the time in between is spent apart from each other. If you didn't know they were a couple, you sure wouldn't be able to figure it out by watching the way they interact with each other. In fact, they usually don't interact with each other at all. The same principle applies here to couples taking separate vacations. It is beyond me why any couple would choose to do that. It seems obvious that if you don't enjoy spending time with your partner, it's time to get a new one. Or at least get rid of the old one.

TEAMWORK: The couples who express the most happiness with each other are those that work together toward common goals. There's an old Helen Reddy song titled "You and Me Against the World" and I believe that's the attitude couples should have if they expect their love for each other to survive and thrive. I could face anything or anyone, any hardship or consequence, as long as I knew the love of my life was by my side. Working together to face the slings and arrows of the world is one of the most satisfying components of a happy, romantic relationship.

TENACITY: You can't quit at the first sign of trouble or be ready to hang it up and move on down the road when things get a little tough if you're going to have any chance at all of having a long-term happy relationship. Problems occur in relationships. You have to be prepared to roll up your sleeves and fix whatever the problem is instead of throwing up your hands and quitting at the first sign of trouble. Relationships require work and effort and if you're really in love and you are committed to the long haul, you have to work as hard as you can sometimes to keep the boat afloat until you once again find calm waters.

THOUGHTFULLNESS: The best way to constantly remind the other person of how much you love them is to remember them. A thoughtful person would never forget a birthday, anniversary, or any other special day of the person they're in love with. That's the strongest signal one can send that shows the other person that they are constantly in your thoughts and that you will always put them first. Doing something for someone you love, whether it's a special day or not, is the best way in the world to show them how much you care and how important they are to your life and your happiness.

TORRID: There MUST be passion in a relationship for it to survive. Not only sexual passion but emotional passion as well. That special person in your life should "turn you on" 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I promise you this is possible. Many people believe that the passion quickly goes out of a relationship and if you don't have something else to build on, the relationship shrivels and dies. The research indicates this is absolutely not true. If you really, and I mean REALLY, love someone, the emotional and sexual passion you have for that person never even wanes, much less disappears. Just the thought of them should always make your heart flutter.

TRANSCENDENTAL: Truly being in love with someone and having that love returned is literally a supernatural experience. The emotions conjured up by romantic love surpasses everything we're accustomed to in the real, objective natural world. It takes your spirit and your emotions to a place you have not been before and, most importantly, if the love is true, it keeps you there. Once you've truly been in love and had someone love you back, you can never go back to where you once were. That's the transcending, otherworldly, metaphysical experience that love brings to us that nothing else on the planet can compare to.

TRANSFORMATION: Finally, loving and being loved back literally changes our life. We experience a metamorphosis, a transmutation of spirit and experience that is like nothing else we've ever encountered. It takes us to a place in our soul heretofore undiscovered and the feeling is so overwhelming and overpowering, we never want to leave. Romantic love changes us forever.

I hope you can use this weeks' column as a checklist with your life partner. Maybe there are areas the two of you can work on that you simply weren't aware of or perhaps you've developed bad habits without even knowing about them. On the other side of the coin, if you and your partner don't share many or any of the "nine T's," perhaps it's time to realize the error of your ways and seek someone else who can provide you with most or all of them.

My thanks to the McCook Kiwanis Club for having me as their guest speaker this past Thursday.

Mike can be e-mailed at mikeatnight@hotmail.com

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