Debate on the Most Important Aspects in Relationships

[lsunshine]

So I told my friends about joining this forum and we started talking about relationships and what made them work vs. break down. At the end we tried to simplify our conversation to say these are the 3 top things in a relationship, but since we all have our own experiences we couldn't agree. I'm really curious to open it up to you guys to see what you think are the most important aspects to a healthy, rewarding relationship.

Here are the aspects that I can remember us bringing up:

Love, Respect, Communication, Appreciation, Dependability, Honesty, Collaboration, Growth, Passion, Vision, Romance, Fun, Anticipation, Testing, Trust, Celebration, Discovery, Freedom, Acceptance, Getting out of our comfort zone, and Contribution.

Of course if you feel like something else is more important in a relationship, please add your own.

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In my opinion, the top 3 aspects that seem to make the biggest difference in a relationship are Respect, Collaboration, and Passion.

Respect - I feel like communication is the underlying of any relationship, but that it seems to break down the most when me and my husband are not respecting each other in the way that we need (which is frustrating to address sometimes but hey, working on our relationships is what makes it move in the direction we want, right?). So in that sense I feel like if you have respect then you'll have the communication (or at least you'll be able to apologize if the other person needed more out of your communication since you respect them).

Collaboration - It seems like the best solutions that have worked for my H and I (that we've continued using) have been the ones that we created together. Plus after an argument it feels good to know that we both put something into coming up with a solution.

Passion - From my personal experience, no matter how much my husband and I have connected emotionally or intellectually, if we're in a dry spell sex-wise (maybe from exhaustion or whatever) that we end up feeling like we're supportive, close friends. Then when we finally get around to having sex it's like "oh yeah, that's the man I love! I can't believe we haven't been doing this more!" It's like we wake up to why we're actually TOGETHER and the special aspects of what we share rather than being roommates that sometimes have arguments and other times have a lot of fun.


So those are my opinions. What do you guys think are the most important?

[TheCafeTerrace]

I'm baffled by the fact that you didn't include love in your top three. As the late, great John Lennon once said, all you need is love.

[pisces25]

A great connection and communication would be my most important aspects.