Nurture the Most Important Relationship You'll Ever Have

Are you in a love relationship or marriage with your soulmate? Have you found “the one” for you?

Maybe you haven't yet found “Mr. Right” or “Ms Right” and are trying to attract the relationship of your dreams.

If you're in a relationship with someone you love and you want this relationship to stay close and you want it to last, you might be looking for ways that you can keep your connection healthy. If you're not in that perfect-for-you kind of relationship yet, you may still want to learn ways to keep that relationship strong when it does happen.

In all cases, it's essential for you to nurture the most important relationship you'll ever have...

That is the relationship between you and you.

You might be wondering what an article about improving your relationship with your own self has to do with the challenges that you might be facing with your partner. It actually has EVERYTHING to do with your love relationship or marriage!

Here's what sometimes happens over the course of a relationship...

Two people meet, they get to know one another, they fall in love and everything is wonderful-- for awhile. After a period of time, they begin to notice things about one another that are irritating and possibly troubling. Disagreements arise and are resolved or are suppressed. At some point, one or both people feel as if they've lost themselves to the relationship.

Each may look around and wonder how they ended up with this person and in this messy and unwanted situation.

Now, there are plenty of relationships that aren't like this scenario that we laid out above. There are people who don't suppress their disagreements and hurt feelings. There are couples who keep communicating with one another in ways that help to strengthen their connection instead of weaken it.

These couples who stay together, remain close and continue to be in love know to nurture both their relationship with one another AND also their individual relationships with themselves.

When you have a healthy relationship between you and you, what you want is clear. You are less likely to feel wishy-washy about your priorities and then to feel resentful when you aren't where you want to be in life.

You are also not as prone to get defensive or hostile when your partner has a different perspective-- this is because a healthy relationship between you and you is one based on confidence and assurance in yourself.

Developing a healthy relationship between you and you most definitely can positively impact your relationship with your partner. As you might already know, this doesn't necessarily happen all at once.

Cultivating a confident, certain and loving relationship with yourself requires your attention, patience and persistence.

Here are 3 ways to nurture the most important relationship you'll ever have...

#1: Listen first to yourself.
It's a bad habit that many of us fall into over the course of our lives. For various reasons, we look outside ourselves to other people for direction and information. We listen more of the time to what our partner, parents, friends, employer, etc. say before making a decision than to our own selves.

Some of us have even forgotten how to hear our own voices when it comes to making choices about what we'll do with our lives.

As experienced and potentially helpful as the other people in our lives can be, they aren't us. In just about every case, nobody knows what is truly in your best interests but you. It might take some time to remember how to hear your own inner, wise voice but take the time to do it.

Practice differentiating between your fears and beliefs about what you “should” do and what, deep down inside, you know is truly best for you at this time.

By all means, if there is someone in your life-- possibly your partner-- who is offering you valuable advice, listen to what he or she has to say. If this decision of yours affects your mate, stay open to hear his or her words.

You can hear advice or another's point of view and still listen first of all to you.

#2: Honor your journey at all times.
A second way to nurture your relationship with you is to give yourself the kind of respect you want to receive from your partner (and others). Even if you can see your “bad” habits or you are aware that you aren't where you want to be, find a way to honor where you are right now.

Again, this can take practice-- especially if you are in the habit of putting yourself down or mostly seeing how you are “failing” at your goals.

Challenge yourself to honor and appreciate one thing about you in this present moment each day. This can't be forced. Genuinely find something about you and where you are on your journey that you can find valuable. It can be something “small” and it could be that you are closer to your goal than you were before.

Give yourself credit and respect. This will set an example that others are bound to follow as well.

#3: Let others in.
It's all well and good to work on yourself, however, if you keep yourself-- including your challenges and your growth-- hidden away from your partner, nobody is going to benefit.

Some people feel the need to pretend that they are happy and okay all of the time. They might want to make things easier for their mate or they may be trying to avoid the very real (and uncomfortable) things they are feeling.

Don't do this. It's not going to help you keep strong either your relationship with yourself or your relationship with your partner.

Instead, let him or her in. Allow your mate to see that you have vulnerabilities and also that you have successes. Be authentic and real.

This openness and honesty will build trust between you and your partner and will help you be more fully the person you are. This will also allow you to more easily be the person you are in the process of becoming.