Even though we’ve never met, I do know one thing about you: You also long to enjoy healthy, satisfying, and happy relationships.

And I’m quite sure, you’ve also squandered a fair amount of time looking for practical and effective ways to create quality, deep, and healthy relationships.

But in this day and time, many of us have over the years, from a lot of well-meaning advice from relationship experts, books, blogs, etc, learned that the key to great relationships lies in what we expect from the relationship.

Hence, a lot of us end up tying the outcomes of our relationships to our partners’ behaviors and actions.

The problem is that we mostly end up having way too unrealistic expectations that often dump us in relationships that just feel too wrong.

But what if there’s much more than what one is looking for at the beginning of a relationship for it to be great?

Because even if you have the most healthy and realistic expectations, with a wrong, negative mindset, it might even be impossible to enjoy a deep, intimate, and satisfying relationship.

So, along with other good efforts to create great relationships, you should also adopt great mindsets that’ll ensure you don’t end up in regrets. Because your mind creates your reality.

1. You’re the only one who can make yourself whole or happy

Most people so much dread the idea of discovering and walking down the path of making and keeping themselves happy in any relationship they find themselves in.

An increasingly prevalent issue stems from people becoming addicted to the erroneous belief that their partners are the sole providers of happiness and fulfillment in their lives due to their deep-seated neediness.

This problematic “relationship mindset” contributes significantly to the creation of miserable, dissatisfying, and ultimately unhappy relationships. By relying solely on their partners for happiness, these people hinder their own ability to achieve genuine and lasting happiness and fulfillment.

But instead of depending sorely on a partner for happiness or relying completely on a romantic partner to feel happy and fulfilled which is nothing but an act of codependency, one is supposed to be able to be happy on his own when he finds himself in a relationship.

Hence, before going into a relationship, you’re supposed to always aim for a relationship where you and your partner will maintain some levels of independence in almost all aspects of your lives including your sources of happiness outside the relationship.

Because it’ll be a disaster when you use your partner as an oasis ’cause you’re generally unhappy with your life.

You should desist from making things utterly terrifying and discouraging for your partner by casting your happiness on them. Don’t even make things seem like their only priority should be making you happy.

Because in truth, no one can truly make you happy or supply all of the things you require for happiness unless you first make yourself happy.

And if you’re so bent on casting your happiness on your partner, they’ll eventually sense that they cannot always make you happy which will, in turn, force them into fear of abandonment if they consistently fail to make you happy and that’ll only stifle the happiness of the both of you.

That’s why nothing beats being happy with your life and your partner adds to it. Because it means you’ll be enjoying a truly happy and satisfying relationship with yourself and your partner.

Also read: What Is Love? 10 Misconceptions About Love That Needs To Die

2. You either express yourself correctly or expect problems

The second common thing to think about before getting into a relationship is the need to be understood.

Many people think they’re intimate with their partners well enough that they expect them to understand what they say, but they rarely take the time to explain themselves.

However, they frequently forget that they have two distinct personalities, and failing to express themselves correctly would land them in a never-ending disappointment.

In reality, expressing yourself and your thoughts to your partner is one of the most important methods to demonstrate love because it fosters trust and closeness in a relationship.

Even though delving into your feelings might be challenging at times, hell, it might be even more challenging and stressful to communicate those feelings with another person, particularly if that other person is your romantic partner, what we often forget is that the more likely to be exposed we are, the more connected and close we will feel.

Therefore, if you want to be in a great relationship, you need to be ready to communicate with your partner and express yourself to them regularly. This is because honest communication and the ability to be one’s authentic self are among the most important factors that contribute most to the success of a relationship.

Also read: 5 Of The Easiest Ways To Be Unhappy In A Good Relationship

3. Setting clear boundaries and respecting that of the other is of great importance

Some little gestures can help us gain approval, and acceptance, and even make our relationships better or safer. There are a lot of things we can do that can in one way or another, make our relationships thrive.

That’s why most people choose to always put themselves at a disadvantage to please a romantic partner.

In a relationship, every time you relinquish your true self and yield to even the most unreasonable demands or tolerate mistreatment that you genuinely don’t want to, you’re essentially adopting a “relationship mindset.” This mindset arises from the desire to gain approval and love or to salvage the relationship from a potentially tumultuous conclusion.

Hence instead of avoiding extremely risky circumstances, you’ll endlessly end up in one when you believe you must compromise, give up a lot, and put up with poor treatments for a relationship to flourish.

The truth is, you’ll never be able to escape falling into disastrous relationships when all you do is put up behaviors that put your sense of self in the mud — which will most likely result in cruel treatment from a romantic partner.

And that’s why you must learn to stick to who you are, your passions, your standards, etc, and establish clear boundaries of what you can take and what you won’t take. If you want to go into a relationship that’ll turn out healthy and satisfying.

In addition, you need to also learn to respect the other party’s boundaries without judgment if you don’t want to end up in a dysfunctional relationship.

In as much as you don’t want to often feel uncomfortable, disrespected, or violated, you shouldn’t want to make someone you want to build a great relationship with to feel uncomfortable or disrespected.

So it’s good you both communicate and understand what you both look for and how to react to each other’s boundaries.

Don’t miss out: 5 Main Pillars Of Successful Relationships

4. Be willing to let your partner be the way they are

Most of us have gotten into the habit of forcing others to be what we want them to be in a relationship.

But what we don’t realize is that we are keeping them from having their own experiences, and no one is ever happy when they are forced to do something.

This is a big problem because trying to change or impose one’s will on one’s partner is often an act of projecting one’s made-up unrealistic ideals of a “perfect partner” on them.

Hence, instead of attempting to persuade them to change, allow them to be themselves, in short, accept them for who they are.

Because if you make it your mission to change your partner, you’ll be betraying and disrespecting them and your commitment to the relationship.

Worse, if your happiness and fulfillment in your relationship can only be complete when you’ve successfully molded your partner into your perfect idea of an ideal, your relationship is certainly doomed to fail.

Hence, if you don’t want to end up coming across as a toxic savior complex or white knight who’s a threat to your partner’s self-esteem, self-worth, and feelings, you should bear it in mind before going into a relationship that you need to learn to love and accept your partner and look forward to the two of you growing and maturing together, which is a more realistic and healthy goal than trying to change them.

Related: 5 Truths About Relationships That Will Change The Way You Think About Love

5. Be willing to walk away from it

Another terrible relationship mindset a lot of people have is being unwilling to leave a relationship even when it’s gone wrong — when it brings them more pain than joy because it feels painful to walk away from, or for other worthless reasons.

The sad thing is that many of us do so out of fear of being single again, fear of hurting our partners, or not being able to find someone else.

And at the end of the day, they end up allowing themselves to endlessly cross self-respecting boundaries they should never consider crossing.

In the worst-case scenario, they allow themselves to be treated disrespectfully while deceiving themselves with flimsy excuses that they just need to be more patient, tolerant, and forbearing, instead of coming to terms with the fact, that a relationship isn’t good enough for them.

Yet, the blunt truth is that justifying, accommodating, and compromising unduly in any relationship are just worthless efforts especially when all odds are high that the relationship isn’t working anymore or was never meant to be in the first place.

That’s why you should always be willing to walk away from a dysfunctional relationship instead of holding onto it because of all your investments, efforts, and time in the relationship or other reasons.

J. Emmanuel is a results-obsessed relationship blogger and founder of Top Love Hacks with more than half a decade of experience, dedicated to helping you level up your dating and relationship game by motivating you to be in control of your love life. His widely read work has been featured on Tiny Buddha, The Good Men Project, Publishious, Curious, to mention but a few.

Suggested reads: The Truth Behind The Strange: “I Feel Embarrassed or Ashamed Of My Partner”

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