How To Reinforce Your Relationship Against Life, The Universe, and Everything

Every relationship has times when it feels like the world's against you.

Stress builds up, stuff happens, and life gets in the way.

Long-term relationships are just like that.

My husband and I have been through some rough times - job losses (once both of us in the same month), serious illness (emergency open-heart surgery), and death (my husband lost both parents in eight months.)

So things for us haven't always been smooth.

In addition, we've had toxic family relationships, the everyday pressures of parenthood, and countless irritations and setbacks.

These things probably wouldn't have been so bad, taken one at a time, but many of them overlapped.

So why did our marriage get stronger instead of falling apart?

I believe I have at least some answers to that question.

But first, a little background...

I came from a pretty dysfunctional family (like many of us.)

My parents didn't model a good marriage for my siblings and me, so I never really understood what it took to create a happy functional family life.

I think this is why I consider my marriage to be the greatest achievement of my life.

But it hasn't been an accident.

There are reasons my marriage is still going strong despite everything that's been thrown at it.

We're not perfect people, and we don't have an ideal marriage, but we do have certain elements that reinforce it and make it strong.

I'm going to share them with you.

See if there are some ideas you can take from this list to shore up the relationship you have or put in your arsenal for the next one:

Be ready to go all-in.

As I mentioned, I grew up in a toxic family, and I had a lot of issues.

So I spent years in therapy, getting myself healthy before I met my husband.

In fact, the boyfriend I had before him was so wrong that I took six years off from relationships to sort myself out.

I needed to take that time-out to work on myself.

Then two weeks before I met my husband, I had an epiphany. It was a game-changer.

After that, a random find on Lavalife brought me the man I've been with for 17-years and counting.

It was like the Universe was waiting for me to get there.

I entered my marriage from a place of strength and healing.

Sure, we've had work to do, but I was as healthy and stable as I could be when I decided to start dating again.

When I finally met my husband, I knew he was the one for me. So when I committed, I committed totally and completely.

I was all in - 100%.

Be with the right person.

Even good times are challenging when you're with the wrong person.

When you're with someone you know isn't right, it's hard to feel close. It's hard to force a bond with someone you know in your heart you don't want to bond with.

So it's tough to come together in a crisis or forgive after a fight.

If you choose the right person, you love to be around them. You like the look and smell of them.

They rub you the right way, so it's easier to do all the things that are hard in the first place, like forgiveness, graciousness, and overlooking flaws and faults.

It makes it easier to circle the wagons when something threatens what you have.

With the wrong person, your first instinct will be to throw them under the bus.

With the right person, your first instinct will be to protect them and your relationship.

Be loyal.

When you have loyalty, your relationship comes first, and your partner matters the most.

You value and cherish that person first and foremost, and you work to protect your relationship and them.

If it's reciprocal, your relationship will hold.

If the person you're with doesn't put you first, you're last - period.

When you're both pushed to your limit and stressed out in hard times, you need to feel like you're not alone.

To draw strength from your partner, you have to know they've got your back.

Know when to back off.

My husband had one other source of comfort all through the tough years - his football (soccer) team.

It's a tie to his homeland, his English friends, and his childhood.

It gives him a break from the world and shelters him in happy memories and something bigger than himself.

It's in his DNA.

Moments of escape into this bastion of selfhood have helped him through some tough times.

So when he needs to recharge with a bit of R&R, I step back.

I know I'm not his be-all and end-all, and I wouldn't want to be.

So I give him enough space to seek solace in a way that works for him.

He does the same for me.

Sometimes people need to seek solitude from their own sources - your partner may need to self-soothe in ways you don't understand.

As long as it's not self-harming, that should be something that you respect.

If you can let them do what they need to do, they'll bounce back faster.

Stay on the sidelines and let them know you'll be there when they're ready to come off the field.

Find a productive fighting style.

You have to accept the fact that you're going to fight.

It is a reality of any long-term commitment, and you need to learn not to shy away from conflict.

Conflict is the mother of communication if you use it to your advantage. Sometimes it's better to have a blowout and get everything on the table than keep it in.

But you have to know how to argue effectively.

I made a choice early on as to how I was going to fight.

Was I going to take it all personally and be a victim? Or was I going to stand my ground and be assertive?

We spent a few years getting our fighting groove, but we made some ground rules, and we've both mellowed and matured in the process.

My husband is fierce.

It took me a while to learn that his bark is worse than his bite. For him, there is an initial explosion and then a cooling-off period. I know that he does his processing in the cooling period, so I don't buy into the explosion.

For me, it's a slow burn that gathers steam over time. My husband knows that it's not necessarily over for me because the initial conflict is over for him. It takes time for me to get all of my thoughts together.

We've learned to accept each other's fighting styles and not take everything personally.

As you learn to fight better, you communicate better.

You learn to say what you need to say regardless of whether or not your partner wants to hear it.

We also don't hide our fights from our daughter.

We think she needs to see that married people fight sometimes.

She sees us fight, and she sees us work it out. To hide that from her would set her up for an unrealistic expectation in her own relationships.

I'm always a little suspicious of people who say they never fight anyway.

That seems pretty passive-aggressive to me.

Maybe some people can be together for years and never argue or get angry. But for the rest of us, learning to do it better is probably a more realistic goal.

I will always consider my marriage to be my single most significant life achievement - I never thought I'd get married. I never even wanted to try.

And I'd never wish the things we've been through on anyone else, but the fact is, if you're with someone long enough, there'll be times when it seems like everything's against you.

And it's those times that make or break a relationship.

By having these in your arsenal, your relationship will have what it takes. Not only will you weather the bad times, but they'll be the making of something even stronger and better.