Two Rarely Mentioned Traits Most Happy Long-Term Couples Share

According to Stephen J. Johnsonn, Ph.D., a marriage and family therapist in practice for 40 years and married for nearly 35, "Even stellar relationships lose their spark over time." In this article, he gives "the ingredients of a lasting, fruitful partnership, and techniques for weathering the stormy periods."

Some of the ingredients of a lasting, fruitful partnership that the author lists include both partners willing to make the relationship a priority, feeling appreciated, telling the truth and communicating effectively, and maintaining a sense of humor.

He includes mention of a UCLA Family Studies Center study that examined "1,500 couples who had been together for five or more years and who acknowledged having a strong, close, deeply committed bond. The couples revealed six common characteristics:
1. There was a physical attraction between them.
2. They were in the relationship out of clear choice rather than out of obligation or fear of being alone.
3. They shared fundamental values, beliefs, interests, and goals.
4. They were able to express anger clearly and directly and they resolved differences through communication and compromise.
5. They experienced laughter, fun, pleasure, and play with each other.
6. They were able to express support for each other and support each other’s activities, interests, and careers."

Our findings show that the fewer of the following personality traits one has, the easier relationships tend to be. Our Graphology Resource Key- Love Compatibility-- Important Areas of Conce
helps you identify these traits:

Abuse–signs of trauma, Abuser-type personality (abusive nature), Acquisitiveness–strong interest in money and material possessions, Argumentativeness, Arrogance, Closed-mindedness, judgmental/intolerant/critical nature, narrow-mindedness, Commitment-fear of, Emotional rigidity, Evasiveness, Excessive Flirtatiousness, Immaturity, Impatience, Fear of Intimacy, Jealousy, Low Self-esteem, Self consciousness, Selfishness, Excessive Sensuality, Sex addiction, Shyness, Temper, Vanity–huge need for approval, Need for Variety (if attempting monogamy) and many more.

There are two additional, rarely mentioned ingredients of a lasting partnership:

Rewarding Love Karma

When a couple shares good relationship karma, they naturally experience less conflict in their relationship. They will have disagreements like every couple, but the underlying and strong love and karmic bond make them easier to manage and work through.

Our long-term findings show that the majority of couples share challenging love karma, which is ideal for learning life lessons and soul growth. Fortunately, you have free will to make the most of all relationships, and avoid toxic situations and people.

Favorable Long-term Timing for Love and Relationships

When both partners have collective, long-term love life timing that is conducive to a lasting love relationship, their rewarding union will unfold naturally and they will encounter fewer obstacles to long-term success.

When both partners lack such timing, they will drift apart, meet more compatible love interests (whether or not they look for or pursue them) and, or the relationship will end (whether or not they remain together) for other reasons.

Your collective long-term timing for love and relationships can't be changed, but you have free will in how you react to it. Our findings show us that everyone's personal timing is part of their predetermination, or fate.

But fate and karma must be considered from the vantage point of many lifetimes, not just one. You've lived before, and you'll live again, though your personality usually won't remember. One sure way to generate future life good karma is to be on your best behavior now.

Advantages of embracing the concepts of personal fate and timing include realizing terrible love life episodes don't last forever and circumstances will eventually improve, and it's easier to accept what you can't change, let go, and have faith.

It's understandable if you're wondering how we can say that a bad love life has to do with personal timing. Our theories are the result of long-term empirical research. After seeing the constant and unwavering connection, over the course of more than twenty years, between patterns in the comprehensive charts and circumstances in thousands of people's lives, we're convinced the ups and downs of personal fate can be identified with astrology and numerology (but not with the over-simplistic forms you've been exposed to, such as "horoscopes").

Don't feel bad if you've done all you can to improve your love life and, or relationship, and still don't have a long-term, mutually happy and satisfying relationship; that type of relationship has a lot to do with those two rarely mentioned ingredients that are mostly outside of your control.

Copyright © Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo