It can be hard to know if you’ve found the person you are meant to spend the rest of your life with, but if you know what to look for in your partner, the process can be made that much easier.
Alexandra Solomon is a psychologist who believes that successful relationships are possible and that we hold the power to predict whether or not our relationship is going to be successful for many years to come.
You might think relationships are built on love and trust and communication.
Of course, all of those things help to build beautiful relationships, but there’s one more thing that is necessary to help beat the odds and stay in a committed relationship: self-awareness.
What is “relationship self-awareness”?
Relationship self-awareness, according to Alexandra Solomon, is the ability to stay present and accounted for in a relationship.
It involves understanding what we bring to the table and how our actions, desires, beliefs, and everything about us impact or influences our relationships.
Most of us just get up and get ready for the day without thinking about how we show up for our partners, jobs, and lives.
But when you take time to stay present and consider the impact you are having at any given time, you might be surprised by what you find.
And you might not like what you find either.
A successful relationship isn’t just about “love”
Some people think that they just have to love someone in order to make a relationship work, but we’ve all heard stories about people who left their partners despite loving them.
Love isn’t enough.
People need to feel like they matter and that they are being listened to and respected in a relationship.
Someone can love you and not respect you, or it can feel that way sometimes.
Self-awareness is a skill we all need to get better at using.
When we are fighting with our partners we don’t often take the time to consider our part in the fight; we are only concerned with being right or proving our point.
When you stop and listen to yourself and think about how your words and actions might be impacting your partner, you start to take a different approach to things.
What relationship self-awareness involves
People who have developing or developed self-awareness are able to clearly articulate their feelings, and they don’t blame others for how they are feeling.
They take responsibility for their actions and words.
If you’ve ever had a fight with someone who is self-aware, you probably noticed a difference right away: they don’t point fingers, and they don’t put their emotions and feelings on you.
They can have cogent conversations about what is wrong, and they are capable of changing as a result of what they have learned instead of thinking that everyone around them needs to change.
You might not like what you find
It’s interesting to think about how being self-aware can impact your relationships in such a profound way.
We mentioned earlier that you might not like what you find as you start to develop your self-awareness.
One thing you might find is that your partner is not open to becoming self-aware and that will be difficult to manage as you are growing into yourself.
Another thing you might come across is that you didn’t like the person you were before in a relationship and now that you are different, your partner might not like it either.
In order for a relationship to really work, both people have to be aware of self-awareness, and they have to be committed to using self-awareness as a tool to strengthen their relationship.
Being self-aware is not always enough, especially if it is not well received by the other person.
It’s important that you maintain your self-awareness so that you can find the kind of relationship that is right for you, even if it means saying goodbye to a current relationship.
Self-awareness is the best way to predict the success of a relationship, according to Alexandra Solomon.
If the people in the relationships are self-aware, they stand the best chance of being together well into the future.
Their communication styles, respect, and love all play into their relationship in a way that is responsible and accountable.
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