As anyone living in the age of depressing divorce rates knows, a happy long-term couple is almost like a unicorn: If by some miracle you encounter it, you can't stop staring, and you have a feeling no one will ever believe you when you tell them you saw it.

The Internet is filled with articles on how to decide when to end it, how to recognize when your relationship is toxic, codependent, one-sided, stagnant, asexual, manipulative. But we don't talk all that often about what defines a happy relationship. Picture it: You're dating someone new. You're waiting to feel the toxic stagnant codependency. Where is it? Months go by. Still nothing. At some point a corner of your brain dares register the thought: Could this be one of those? Could I actually be happy?

To help you answer that question, you lucky thing, here's a completely unscientific list of 31 ways to know you're in the right relationship:

You don't...

1. Fear it.

If you're afraid of commitment, best to work that out before you put yourself in a situation where it's hoped you'll eventually commit.

2. Hide anything more significant than a surprise party from each other.

That includes exes, cheating, debt, STDs, chronic illness, felonies, whether you want a marriage and/or children, genetic abnormalities (if you both want kids), a strong desire to live somewhere else, professional failures and successes, doubts about your sexual orientation, a strong preference for un-vanilla sex.

The truth will come out, and if you're with someone you feel the need to conceal any of this from, he or she probably isn't right.

3. Snoop.

If no one's hiding anything, why are you looking? Going through your significant other's email, phone, Facebook account, or journal strongly indicates that you don't trust the person you're with. You're also violating his or her trust in you.

4. Hide the relationship from other people in your life.

If you're unwilling to introduce the person you're dating at appropriate junctures to the most important people in your life, that's usually a bright, flapping red flag.

In general, if you have a good thing going, you can't wait for him or her to meet your friends, siblings, parents, the guy at the deli, and you wouldn't have any qualms about presenting this person to professional acquaintances, people you knew in college, family friends, even your ex.

5. Think you're superior.

If you feel that your significant other is your inferior in any way you know matters to you in a mate -- morally, intellectually, socially, financially or professionally -- you're never going to respect him or her as much as you hope to be respected.

The best relationships make you feel that you've convinced a person more exceptional than you to love you.

6. Resent the other person's success.

Professional jealousy can be as poisonous to a relationship as constantly thinking he or she is flirting with your best friend. It also suggests that you're spending a lot of time comparing yourself to a person you supposedly adore, rather than sitting back and marveling at how amazing he or she is. In a good relationship, you quit (or refuse to ever engage in) the one-upmanship.

7. Let any substance or behavior come before the relationship.

Any addict or over-user of a substance or behavior is cheating on you with his or her drug of choice. You deserve more.

8. Stew.

When something the other person does annoys you or turns you off, you don't push it to the back of your mind and hope it will go away, because it won't. You bring it up in the moment or sometime in the next 24 hours.

9. Damage property, animals, children or each other during an argument.

You think this goes without saying until you read something like this New York Times "Modern Love" and realize that human beings can rationalize staying with someone who leaves holes in their walls.

On the other hand, if you damage a vase or two in the heat of a different kind of passion, totally fine.

Thank God am in the right relationship

Only be say na under-skirt things I dey find up and down

Booked

N

excel111:

To help you answer that question, you lucky thing, here's a completely unscientific list of 31 ways to know you're in the right relationship:
You don't...
1.
2. Hide anything more significant than a surprise party from each other.
That includes exes, cheating, debt, STDs, chronic illness, felonies, whether you want a marriage and/or children, genetic abnormalities (if you both want kids), a strong desire to live somewhere else, professional failures and successes, doubts about your sexual orientation, a strong preference for un-vanilla sex.
The truth will come out, and if you're with someone you feel the need to conceal any of this from, he or she probably isn't right.

On the other hand, if you damage a vase or two in the heat of a different kind of passion, totally fine.

Nice write up.....but pls, what the heck is the meaning of un-vanilla sex

akinsadeez:



Nice write up.....but pls, what the heck is the meaning of un-vanilla sex

if Vanilla sex (or conventional sex) is what a culture regards as standard or conventional sexual behaviour. Different cultures, subcultures and individuals have different ideas about what constitutes this type of sex. Often, it is interpreted as sex which does not involve such elements as BDSM, kink, or fetish activities, then the reverse is un-vanilla sex.

excel111:



if Vanilla sex (or conventional sex) is what a culture regards as standard or conventional sexual behaviour. Different cultures, subcultures and individuals have different ideas about what constitutes this type of sex. Often, it is interpreted as sex which does not involve such elements as BDSM, kink, or fetish activities, then the reverse is un-vanilla sex.

Ehen! Cool.

excel111:



if Vanilla sex (or conventional sex) is what a culture regards as standard or conventional sexual behaviour. Different cultures, subcultures and individuals have different ideas about what constitutes this type of sex. Often, it is interpreted as sex which does not involve such elements as BDSM, kink, or fetish activities, then the reverse is un-vanilla sex.

Hehe..and here I was, thinking its about ice cream. Lyk, sex with icecream

defendedvictim:
Hehe..and here I was, thinking its about ice cream. Lyk, sex with icecream

Hahahahah...is not