How to Stay in Love

Everyone wants to fall in love. Falling is the fun part. Staying around after the crash landing can be tricky.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Love
• A Romantic Interest
• Guts
• Spoken Language of Your Choice

1. 
   Talking and Driving? She's a Keeper!

   Communication
   
   Every day each and every one of us changes slightly. In ten years you will be a completely different person than you are right now. And that happens one day at a time. One major pitfall people fall into is feeling like they don't "know" their spouse anymore. And the antidote to this is simple: make time to communicate.

2. 
   Good Eye Contact is Brighter Than Sunshine

   Eye Contact
   
   If you're having trouble coming up with things to talk about, simply take time and hang out in the same room as your spouse without leaving to do something else. Maintaining eye contact is another pitfall. Next time you find yourself on the verge of a communication breakdown, simply look into one another's eyes. This nips 90% of the minor hiccups right in the bud.

3. 
   Not Time for Wasting. Time for Acting!

   Action
   
   The third major no-no people frequently fall into making is waiting for the other person to change. If you want a better relationship, take it upon yourself to make a change. Just like the Beatles said, "the love you take is equal to the love you make."

4. 
   Love is Patient

   Change Yourself First
   
   You have to change yourself first. You cannot change anyone else. Next time something happens that you hate, stop and think about what's going on. Feel the feeling inside of you, and feel how your brain is telling you to react to it. Slow down and take in everything one at a time. It takes two to tango, and you definitely are involved in the issue at hand. So do all that you can to change yourself before you go changing everyone else.

5. 
   Love Prevails!

   Progress
   
   Hey, progress takes time. Appreciate the small steps. Don't expect everything to be absolutely fine overnight. It can take a while. Best thing you can do is decide that you're going to change some things, and then just forget about it. Something that helps me is to say that everything is perfect right now at this moment. We are right where we're supposed to be, and we're experiencing this moment, and we're moving on.

Tips & Warnings

• Relationship experts say the key to staying in love is to being willing to work at it. If this sounds like work, that's because it is. But everything good in life takes a bit of work. And if you aren't willing to put in the work it takes to build a successful relationship, then you don't deserve it in the first place.
• But the "work" isn't really as bad as it may sound. After all, if you love the person, you knew what you were getting into from the start: a lifelong promise of constantly getting to know the other person. The "work" is actually very rewarding and fun.
• Love is unpredictable, you may experience feelings I can't even begin to touch on in this 3-Step Program.
• Enter into relationships at your own risk
• People are crazy, yourself included

Resources

• The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say I Do by Susan Piver

[gahazeleyes]

on 5/31/2009 Well needed article. Thanks

[l0ruth]

on 5/30/2009 good advice. never been in love. 5stara

[helen11]

on 5/10/2009 Your article sounds very reasonable~ I think interpersonal relationship follows the same terms.

[MrsPerrin]

on 2/24/2009 Very interesting article.

[toevlugsoord]

on 2/20/2009 This is a really great article :) I'm guessing you added those eHow pictures as a surprise joke for the eHowers? Hilarious!