Online Date with Fish2Fish: love advice

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Friday, 25 September 2015

7 Signs You're In The Right Relationship

"Have times when you don't talk to each other and not just because you have argued or because you are angry with each other but because you can be quiet together. When you find yourself with silences you don't need to fill, when you can just walk along or laze about, work side by side and feel together without needing to verbally affirm that, you are lucky, you've got a good thing going." - Susan

7 Signs You're In The Right Relationship

1. Your partner is your best friend

It's not all about the physical stuff – though that's definitely an added bonus. You and your guy can't get enough of each other's company. Whenever something happens, your partner is the first person you want to share it with. Also, the teasing is merciless.

2. Your differences aren't a dealbreaker

Nobody would accuse you and your partner of being the same person. You have different beliefs, different personalities and different ways of viewing the world. Instead of weakening your foundation, the differences only make you more interesting to each other.

3. You're completely yourselves

The stage of game playing is long over. You're not trying to win each other, because you already have. You both feel secure enough in your relationship to be the people you really are – and, the real person is the person both of you are in love with.

4. You don't feel like you have to prove anything

You know how fantastic your relationship is – there's no question. You could be Instagramming couple selfies and posting loved-up messages on his wall all day, but you don't see the point in trying to prove to other people what you already know to be true.

5. You fight productively

Neither of you fight for the sake of fighting – you're not into the drama. When you do disagree, the aim of your game isn't to 'win'. It's to get your point across and try to find common ground. When you fight, both of you try to understand each other, and compromise is the key.

6. You have your own lives

While you and your partner do share a lot of friends, you also have separate groups. You'll never begrudge each other the opportunity to spend time with the other people in your lives, because you know how important you are to each other. You'll never feel threatened.

7. You make each other better

Neither of you are trying to change each other, but somehow you have. Both of you each other want to be the best version of yourself for each other. Some of your partner's passions have become yours, and vice versa. You are good for each other – it's that simple!

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Related article:

How to Choose the Right Partner

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Saturday, 5 September 2015

7 Reasons Monogamy Is (And Always Will Be) Better Than An Affair

"To many people 'The grass is always greener on the other side' and in relationships these people are always looking for something better. They never settle for one person, but go from relationship to relationship, often dating more than one person at the same time. They cannot commit to one person.

My advice to people would be that there is nothing better than monogamy, being dedicated to one person and knowing that your partner wants you and nobody else gives you a warm comfortable feeling inside. If you find yourself tempted to cheat on your partner.....fight it, work on what you have already." -Susan Watts

WeHeart

7 Reasons Monogamy Is (And Always Will Be) Better Than An Affair

It shouldn't even be a question

First, some background on my life in relationships over the past 40 years.

When I was younger, my ideal was to have a harem. One woman for every night of the month. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I was not born into a religion that accepted this state of affairs, I could not have afforded it even if I had been born into such a religion, and being young and naive, I could not have imagined all the problems that would have arisen in such a household.

Thirty women and one man — what was I thinking. I would have been ground into dust.

Yes, it was a fantasy and over the years I have lowered that number down. From thirty to twenty to ten... and now the harem is gone, replaced with fantasies of making love with a beautiful young woman — occasionally.

Is this the result of lowering testosterone levels or something else?

Well, as much as I might have fantasized in the past, I never took my fantasies seriously. Even when I was footloose and fancy free with multiple lovers, whenever I was in a relationship, I was a one-woman-man. Why?

I think there are a number of factors at play here. They include, how I was brought up. My mother and father are still married after 62 years. I don’t know if they ever had an affair, but the message that they lived out was to hang in there when life got tough.

Another was the culture in which I was embedded. Pretty standard stuff back then in North America, Christian, even though we were not avid church goers, with the belief that once married it was, “till death do you part.”

When I started dating I was pretty serious and assumed that if we loved each other we would stay together, become engaged and then get married. Oh, how little I knew of the world and relationships.

I was a serial monogamist except when not in a committed relationship. Looking back I wish I had spent more time being single, not so much to have had more fun, but to have lived on my own for longer and learned more about myself outside of being in a relationship.

When in a serious relationship, both my partner and I agreed to be monogamous. I have been cheated on — sucks. I could not believe how much pain I felt in my body when discovering what happened. Going through that kind of trauma is not just emotional pain, but physical as well.

The only time I “cheated” in a relationship was at the end of a three year disaster when my girlfriend was to start studying in another city across the country. Before she left, she looked me in the eye and said, “Have fun.”

I did. When I picked her up at the airport on her return, the first thing she asked was if I, “had fun.” I promised myself I would never tell her BUT, when she asked, I looked her in the eye and said, “Yes.”

I won’t go into that story, but will let you imagine how it went — badly. It did get me out of the relationship which is what I desperately wanted but was unable to do so without a cataclysmic event.

Another time, I was in a long-term relationship and left when my partner wanted an open relationship. Been there and done that in an earlier relationship and was not interested in repeating the experience.

That brings me up to my current marriage (common law) of almost seventeen years. I have not cheated and as far as I know she hasn’t either. It seems clear that we will live out our lives together. We work on the relationship and it has gotten better with each passing year. I feel lucky to have such an amazing partner and proud of what we have survived and how, as a couple, we have thrived.

Now that you have some background, here are the 7 reasons why I choose monogamy.

1. Keeps life simple.

If you want drama, have an affair. For the life of me, I don’t know why people don’t break up before the affair. Saves so much pain and sorrow.

Yes, breaking up is hard to do, but when an affair happens, life can get seriously crazy. I have seen kids kidnapped, visitation rights ignored, cars destroyed, and people assaulted. Most of this could have been avoided if there had been no affair.

(Actually, I do know a number of reasons people have an affair and don’t tell their partner. We will leave that for another article. Please send me your reasons.)

2. Safety.

Yup, having sex with only your partner pretty much eliminates the possibility of getting a sexually transmitted disease (STD). You would be surprised how many people don’t practice safe sex.

3. Health.

Stress is brutal on your physical and mental health. Keeping secrets is crazy-making for both you and your partner. The offending party takes a hit on their self-esteem and the offended often sense something is wrong, but is met with denials when they question their partner, which makes the offended party doubt reality (a.k.a.: crazy-making).

When you have enough stress your body takes a hit. Not so much fun.

4. Staying monogamous is an incentive to keep your sexual life alive.

It may not be a guarantee, as you could just let the sexual aspect of your relationship fade away, but if your libido is intact, there will be an urgency to find a solution.

My partner and I have had to deal with huge stressors because of illness, finances, career change, moving, and personal change. These experiences affected our sexual relationship and we had to evolve to stay involved.

The good news is that we are closer emotionally and sexually today than we have ever been. This is due in part because we have focused on our relationship without the distraction of an affair.

5. I don’t like hypocrisy.

I don’t like sharing either, my wife that is. Call me old-fashioned but I just don’t like the idea of my wife making-out with another person. It only seems fair that if I want my wife to be faithful, I should do the same.

6. Keeping something sacred.

In today’s world much of what we do is on public display. I am highly engaged with my clients, friends, and business associates. Social media is a medium that keeps me connected personally and promotes my businesses.

My sexual relationship with my wife is something special that only we share. It is not just the act of sex. We have had relationships and sex with other people before we met.

Yet, the people we are today, our shared history, and the unique combination of our personalities is unprecedented. Much like fingerprints, there is no other relationship like ours. Not now, not ever.

Kinda cool when you think about it.

7. Respect.

I respect myself enough to keep to my ideals and commitment. I respect her enough to value her commitment, her word, her dream, her vision and her faithfulness.

I do myself and my partner a disservice when I break my oath. An oath I made to myself, her, and when married, to the community.

Yes, we are human and make mistakes. Sometimes they are not mistakes but deliberate actions to get us out of situations that we believe we cannot leave without an incident, such as an affair.

These things happen all the time. I see it in my practice every day and it grieves me to hear and see all the pain that happens when people don’t communicate how they are feeling about life, the relationship, and about themselves.

And that is why I choose monogamy.

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Related articles:

The Power of Monogamy: 10 Surprising Claims Regarding Modern Love

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Sunday, 2 August 2015

5 Ways to Bring The Spark Back To Your Relationship

One of the hardest things that people face over the course of a long-term relationship is that the initial spark – what many in the polyamory community call “new relationship energy” – fades. It’s an entirely natural part of settling into a relationship; the initial honeymoon period fades and what was intense and exciting becomes calmer and placid. That initial rush of passion that had you banging out on every flat surface in the house and made every vaguely empty space a potential fuckstop starts to wane and you’re finding yourselves passing on fucking like greased weasels on meth in exchange for catching up on Almost Human and getting an early night’s sleep and the dawning realization that you have become everything you swore you never would. Suddenly you’re not having sex like you used to and despite what the advice column cartels will tell you, no amount of offering to do the dishes or help out with the laundry is going to bring back that mad intensity that you had at the very beginning.

For many couples this sudden realization that that you’ve crossed the sex/sleep threshold is a mark that your relationship is now in a permanent downward spiral and the only thing that’s left is shuffling through Costco together like a pair of consumerist zombies looking for a bulk discount on everything that you’re going to be using to fill the void that was your relationship.

The death of passion in a long-term relationship is one of the biggest killers of relationships because we associate it with being bored. It’s the age old joke that sleeping with the same person for the rest of your life is the equivalent of eating the same frozen hamburger for every meal for all eternity while all of your single friends are zipping out to gastropubs and eating multiple delicious entrees in combinations that stand in defiance of the laws of God and Man.

There’s nothing like being in a long-term relationship to convince you that your friends are making multiple trips to the all-you-can-eat fuck-buffet that is the singles scene.

It’s enough to fog over all those times you ranted about how much you hated the dating scene and you begin to reminisce the days when we were single and the world was our surprisingly open-minded oyster. Except… it doesn’t have to be that way.

While that initial honeymoon stage of the relationship does fade in order to form a bond that is deeper and more intimate as the two of you become closer and intertwine your lives together, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still live it up like a couple of horny teenagers at the start of a slasher movie. A long term relationship doesn’t mean that you’re doomed to watch the spark fade away. You just have to know how to rekindle it.

Keep The Thrills

One of the biggest mistakes that couples make is that they put the emphasis in their long-term maintenance on romance – date nights at romantic restaurants for candle-lit dinners and soft music, trying to remind themselves of what it was like when things were new.

“Somehow it loses something when I know you’re a sure thing.”

But while this may remind you of those lovey-dovey moments from early in your courtship, it’s actually not what you want to bring the spark back to your relationship. This isn’t to say that romance is bad, but when it comes to rekindling passion, you don’t want “sweet” or “romantic”. You want excitement, and you’re not going to get that by trying to recreate soft-focus montages from romantic comedies.

Bringing the thrill back to the relationship means bringing actual thrills back. You want to do things that get your heart racing, kick your adrenal glands into overdrive and get your central nervous system engaged. Humans are very bad at actually understanding the source of our emotions, a tendency known as misattribution of arousal. We feel the physical effects – increased heart rate, nervousness, cold sweat, shaky limbs – first and backfill the explanation for them afterwards. The physiological feeling of fear is identical to the feeling of having a crush on somebody – the exact feeling you’re hoping to recapture for your sweety. Moreover, there’s a direct correlation between stimulation of your central nervous system and sexual arousal – meaning that that things that excite you are going to excite you if you know what I mean and I think you do.

He means bangin’.

So skip the romantic dinners for dancing, rock climbing or chugging some coffee and hitting some roller-coasters instead.

See Other People

There’s an apocryphal story about President Coolidge and his wife visiting an experimental government farm that specialized in developing new approaches to efficiency. The president and Mrs. Coolidge were taken on separate tours, and when Mrs. Coolidge came to the chicken yard, she noticed that the rooster was vigorously mating with the hens. “How often does that happen?” she asked her guide. “Oh, dozens of times per day,” he replied. “Well be sure to tell that to the President when he comes by.” When President Coolidge was brought to the chicken yard and his wife’s message had been relayed, he asked “Does the rooster mate with the same hen every time?” “Oh no,” said the guide, “it’s a different hen every time.”

“Please tell that to Mrs. Coolidge,” replied the President.

It’s an old joke but one with a kernel of truth in it: mammals have an instinctual need for novelty when it comes to sex. Male rats, after having mated with the receptive females housed with it will show a decreased interest in sex, even when the females are still interested. However, adding a new female rat instantly revived the male, who would proceed to immediately mate with the new female. Subsequent experiments found that the Coolidge effect was present in females as well; introducing a new male into the mix would cause the female to have renewed interest in sex.

One of the things that makes long-term monogamy incredibly difficult is that our bodies literally work against our best intentions; the dopamine spike from sex with the same partner decreases over time but spikes with a new one. As a result: we don’t get the same rush. That’s why the sexual encounters in the early stages of a relationship are firestorms of excitement that culminate in orgasms that blow the top of your head off: your body is reacting to the novelty of a new partner, and settles down as you become more familiar with one another. As a result… we get a little bored, even when we have an intense emotional bond with our honey,

Obviously, the answer is “open relationships for everyone!” I’m only partially joking; couples who have opened up their relationships have reported increased levels of desire for their primary partner as well as greater sexual satisfaction. Not only are both partners benefiting from the increased dopamine incurred from having new sex partners, but they’re taking advantage of a quirk of our primate ancestry known as sperm competition. When a male ape believes that his mate has had sex with another male, he’ll have an even more intense orgasm with a greater volume of ejaculate in an attempt to flush out the competitor’s sperm and replace it with his own

“Boys, boys, it’s all in the name of science…”

Of course, open relationships and polyamory aren’t for everyone, nor are they inherently any better or worse than traditional monogamy. Beating the Coolidge effect doesn’t mean that the only solution is to sleep with other people. One of the ways of overcoming the drop in sexual interest is to build up sexual excitement elsewhere and redirect into the actual relationship – that is, getting all hot and bothered and bringing it home to your partner. This doesn’t mean going out and making out with a stranger and coming back to your snugglebunny to actually get the payoff, just that you build up your sexual tension and arousal elsewhere.

One method is to watch porn together; the variety offered by online porn can trigger the novelty switch, even when the actual pay-off is with your long-term partner. Other options might include taking a girls (or guy’s) night out to go party and flirt with strangers, a trip to a strip club or even social dancing where switching partners is expected (such as in swing dancing) can get you charged up… before you head home with your honey and tear each other’s clothes off.

Challenge Yourselves

Part of the thrill of new relationship energy is the novelty of getting to know one another; there are always new and intriguing layers to uncover when you’re just starting out as a couple. Part of a long-term relationship means that over time, you’ve gotten to know your partner on an incredibly deep level, almost as well as you know yourself. As a result, it can feel as though there’s nothing new; you know each other so well that you can practically read one another’s minds and predict their reactions with 100% certainty

“I sense that she’s going to brain me for not cleaning the litter box like I promised.”

So how do you overcome this level of familiarity and bring back that feeling of seeing her for the first time?

By facing down difficult tasks together. Psychologists at the University of North Carolina studying long-term relationships have found that couples who overcame difficult trials that challenged their skills felt closer and more attracted to one another than those who simply spent time together. It was the rush of overcoming a difficult trial that helped bring couples closer together by incorporating their partner’s skills and abilities into their own. Much like how arousing the central nervous system can be misattributed to sexual arousal, the glow of satisfaction from beating a challenge gets partially misattributed to the presence of one’s partner. By successfully challenging yourselves, you begin to condition yourselves to associate those feelings with your partner, not just the thrill of accomplishment.

Working together as a team to overcome trials forces you to communicate in new ways and opens you both up to new sides of one another that you don’t see often, if you’ve seen them at all… not to mention helping you both find new depths to yourselves. So whether you train together to beat a zombie race, enter a swing dance competition or join a bowling league, working together to overcome adversity (even if it’s not real) helps add novelty and satisfaction to your relationship, bringing the two of you even closer together.

“Just so you know sweetie, if you slow me down, I’m totally leaving you to the zombies.”

Take breaks

Sometimes the secret to bringing the spark back is to take a break from one another.

“Of course it didn’t count. You know damn good and well you were on a break.”

Now before you start wondering just what’s allowed when you’re on “a break”, this doesn’t mean that you’re putting your relationship on hold, nor does it necessarily mean that you’re spending enforced time away from one another. While having alone time – even separate vacations – can be important for maintaining a happy relationship, what I’m talking about is interruption.

Interruption can be a powerful technique, especially for reviving and maintaining the spark of passion in your life. By taking a break from one another, you’re disrupting the expected pattern of your routine. It causes a reset of expectations – making things feel more intense, while also setting your brain on edge as it waits for the expected conclusion.

So practice a little deliberate blue-balling in your love life. Have an intense make-out session in the kitchen in the morning right before leaving for work, leaving both of you hot and bothered with no chance to pop before you both get home. Give your partner a foot massage while you watch TV together, then stop in the middle, only to come back to it a little later. Find the activities that you share and enjoy together and disrupt it, so that you’re eager to get back to it later on. Let the tension build until it’s almost unbearable and you’re both absolutely gagging for the release of completion… then marvel at just how much more you enjoy the conclusion.

Have More Sex

“Hang on Doc,” I hear you cry. “I’m reading this because our sex life is deader than the chances of a Firefly reunion; how does having more sex fix this?”

Well I’m glad you asked, Mr. Straw Man.

Sex has a lot more benefits than just getting your rocks off. To start with, a partner-assisted orgasm increases oxytocin and dopamine levels in the brain which help solidify emotional bonds, lessen anger and increase feelings of contentment – all of which serve to help alleviate some of the causes of dissatisfaction with your partner and your relationship in general.

For another, not having sex can become a habit, and a hard one to break. Because we live in a sex-negative culture, we believe that the only “good” sex is sex that happens spontaneously. If you actually plan to have sex, then it’s not as “real” and doesn’t mean as much as when you and your honey are just so horny that you can’t keep your hands off one another.

This attitude is bullshit and relationship poison. When you’re in a long-term relationship, life has a way of leaving you with little time for spontaneous fucking; if you want to get the feeling of being a pair of randy teenagers with insufficient adult supervision, then you have to make a point of clearing out your schedules so you can have sex. If it’s so important that its lack is hurting your relationship together, then it’s important enough to make time for it.

“Don’t forget, we’ve got our 2:30 at the Neptune Motel. I’ll be bringing the handcuffs, you make sure you’re wearing that teddy I love so much.”

Now, part of getting the new relationship thrill can come from recreating other aspects of the early days of your relationship: when you couldn’t wait to get your hands on one another, but you couldn’t just throw down. You had to find a time and place; you couldn’t go to her place because her roommates were always around and your place was barely fit for human habitation, never mind happy-fun-naked-time. So give yourselves artificial restrictions that you have to overcome. Set arbitrary rules: you’re going to have sex, but you can’t do it at night, in your place or in a bed. Putting obstacles in your way and having to find creative ways around them not only injects some novelty, but it creates new challenges and interrupts usual pattern of “sex at night, in your bed, right before you go to sleep”. Breaking up the routine and having to devote some actual creative thought to it triggers higher levels of dopamine and heightens your anticipation.

Before too long, you’ll find that the tides of passion that had rolled out of your relationship have rolled back in, even stronger than they had before, bringing that new relationship energy back with it.

…just try to not annoy the neighbours as much this time around.

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Thursday, 25 June 2015

10 Super Honest Reasons Men Looove (And Appreciate) Your Boobs

Here's why your dynamic duo tops their list of favorite things.

As you're well-aware, the love affair between men and female boobs goes back centuries, perhaps even to the beginning of time; (before chomping on the apple, Adam may not have known the full significance of Eve's frontal accoutrements — but he knew what he liked.) Guys go out of their way to get a glimpse of breasts at every opportunity. Some spend obscene amounts of hard-earned cash just to watch nubile hotties bare their bounteous assets in seedy, sweaty, prurient palaces, ironically referred to as, "gentlemen’s clubs." Such is their complete infatuation with the blessed bosom.

But why this utter devotion? And what specifically draws them to your mellifluous mammaries? Read on as I offer 10 reasons into man's magnificent obsession.

1. We like how your breasts look. Contrary to what you may think, regardless of size, we find your boobs fascinating. Whether they're large and luxurious or small and sporty, we're hot for your hooters. And while men may have an individual preference for a particular sizeor shape, overwhelmingly, we're enticed by your charms — be they pendulous or pert, pouty or protuberant.

2. We like how they feel. It's hard to say specifically why they feel so nice, but nonetheless,they do. Really! Touch them and feel for yourself. There's nothing else quite like them. So, if ever presented the opportunity, we can't resist putting our hands (or other body parts) on them (with your consent, of course) whenever they're in the neighborhood.

3. We like to watch them dance. Almost as much as seeing and touching them, we like to watch them in motion. The way they shake when you move, bobble when you walk, or bounce when you jump, they command our attention almost as much as a half-court shot at the buzzer (and you know how we love our basketball). And women jumping on trampolines … well, that just reaffirms our belief in Heaven.

4. We like how they work as a team. Some things are just meant to come in pairs: socks, shoes, even fang marks from your favorite Twilight hunk. And your "girls" are a member of this wonderfully co-dependent group. While they're individually lovely, together they create one of nature's most awesome vistas — cleavage.

5. We like them as a pillow. Life is tough. And at the end of a day in the trenches of adulthood, nothing is as comforting a resting place for our weary heads as the, ready-made cushion of your bosom. Cradled in the calming warmth of your natural upholstery, we can relax and regroup. Bringing a true sense of rejuvenation, allowing us to face the world anew,with our spirit magically restored.

6. We like them as a handle. Face it; there are some sexual positions where your breasts are perfectly placed to help us hold on as things heat up. And though we often don't absolutely need to hold onto them to prevent us from falling off the bed, (or worse, losing our rhythm,) why leave them out of our love-play? After all, they're a treasured part of your anatomy, and we don't want them to feel neglected. Men are extraordinarily considerate that way.

7. We like them as an information system. Now, to your nipples. Oh, how we love them. Not only for their inherent beauty — perfectly accessorizing your fashionable frontage — but also for their incredible communication skills. When you're clothed and we see them, they tell us you're bra-less (or at least wearing a very sheer, sexy bra). When they stand erect, they tell us you're either experiencing a chill or very happy to see us (or someone else), or both. But thing one thing remains constant: when they talk, we listen!

8. We like their mystery. From the time we first become aware of them, breasts fascinate us; not only what we see, but what we don't see, as well. We spend an untold numbers of hours imagining what those beautifully, mysterious, mounds under your clothing actually look like. And when they're finally beheld "in the flesh," we're rarely disappointed.

Although, afterwards the particular mystery of what your breasts look like has finally been solved, there are billions more as-yet-unseen breasts for us to ponder and speculate about. Ah, sweet mystery of life.

9. We like their curviness. Ideally anyway, men are angular, hard and defined. Our shape (when we're "in shape," that is) is not given to graceful curves or comforting cushiness. Women, on the other hand, are naturally more curvaceous; something we greatly appreciate. And the soft swell of your breasts perfectly enhance the rest of the feminine figure. In other words, you're curvy where we're flat … and viva la difference!

10. We like how they make us feel better. I'm sure you're aware of studies that have definitively shown that people who have pets live longer, healthier lives. What you may not know is that recent findings indicate that looking at breasts for as little as fifteen minutes a day actually has a similar, healthy and longevity-enhancing impact on men. Now, I'm certainly not comparing women's breasts to our furry family friends. (Although we do like when either are nuzzled up against us or are available for petting.)

But, it's exciting to learn that it is now scientifically proven that beholding your up-top attributes on a daily basis can add years to our lives … in addition to adding a spring to our step. You just gotta love science!

Well, if you had any doubts about how strongly guys feel about your breasts, I hope I've eliminated them. We love 'em, cherish 'em, can't get enough of 'em. And luckily for us, they're attached to one of the few things in this world that we love, value and desire even more than them — you.

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Tuesday, 1 April 2014

8 Signs You're In The Right Relationship

When it comes to finding "The One" -- that one special person and relationship that will last a lifetime -- the conventional wisdom is simply, "When you know, you know." That's all fine and dandy, but many of us require something more concrete than just a gut feeling.

We reached out to marriage and relationship experts to help us pinpoint the most telling signs that you're in the right relationship. Find out what they had to say below.

1. You know what your partner needs to feel loved -- even if those needs are different than yours.

Some people feel loved when their partner brings them a cup of coffee in the morning. Some need their spouse to tell them how beautiful or handsome they look. Others require sex and physical forms of affection. The point is, each of us has different preferences when it comes to giving and receiving love.

"We have to teach our partner to love us and not expect them to read our minds," sex and relationship expert Dr. Tammy Nelson said. "You know you are with the right person when they tell you what makes them feel loved and you are happy to generously lather them with whatever they need. And they do the same for you."

2. You fight, but you do it productively.

Conflict is a natural part of any relationship, but how you handle those disagreements can predict whether or not you'll be together in the long-run. "How both of you behave now when you have a disagreement also says a lot about how you will (or won't) resolve problems in the future," Dr. Terri Orbuch -- relationship expert and author of Finding Love Again: 6 Simple Steps to a New and Happy Relationship -- told The Huffington Post. "A good relationship is one where the two of you fight fair. In other words, you don't curse, scream, talk down to each other or dismiss each other."

3. You get a confidence boost from your mutual physical attraction.

"Feeling sexual attraction and sexually attractive is a life force like nothing else," Iris Krasnow, author of Sex After...Women Share How Intimacy Changes As Life Changes said. "That person who ignites you from within, boosting your self-esteem and also offers external pleasures is definitely a keeper."

4. You two are different enough to keep things interesting, but you're on the same page where it matters most.

They say that opposites attract, and while that may be true at first, it's not necessarily a long-term predictor of relationship success. In fact, Orbuch's research has shown that the strongest relationships are those built on a foundation of similar underlying values and beliefs.

"It is okay to have different interests or movie likes, but similarity in key life values (e.g., views on money, the importance of religion or how you raise children) is what keeps people together over the long-term," she explained.

5. Your family and friends give the relationship their stamp of approval.

Despite what your once-rebellious heart might have told you, your family's approval of your significant other does matter. W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project, told HuffPost Weddings that high levels of social support from your nearest and dearest are crucial to a happy marriage. "Such friends and family often have a more objective view of your partner than you do," he said. "And their support can be invaluable after the wedding. We know that couples who have parents, in-laws, and friends who support them as a couple are much more likely to go the distance."

6. You feel comfortable getting a little adventurous between the sheets.

Couples in secure relationships report that they can combine spontaneous acts of intimacy with tender expressions of their love. "The best recipe for great ongoing sex does not seem to be finding more manuals to get bigger and bigger orgasms but tuning into each other and feeling safe enough to go with the thrill when it comes," Dr. Sue Johnson, a clinical psychologist and author of Love Sense, told The Huffington Post.

7. You are willing to put the "we" before the "me."

A commitment to doing what is best for the relationship, rather than what is best for the individual partner, is a strong predictor of future marital satisfaction. "People who are marriage-minded should look for a partner who talks and thinks in terms of 'we' not 'me'," Wilcox said. "Someone who articulates shared dreams, shared values, and a willingness to put the relationship above his or her desires. Couples who put their marriage above their own desires are more likely to flourish."

8. You find yourself missing your partner when he or she isn't around.

Benjamin Le -- co-founder of ScienceOfRelationships.com -- says it's important to miss your partner when he or she is away. "If they are 'out of sight, out of mind,' that doesn't bode well," he said. "But if you have an emotional response to him or her being away, it's a signal that you really want to be with him or her."

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