Whether you’re single or taken, I hope you have a great day today. For the post today, I decided to link to this page that I have bookmarked. Luckily, I haven’t had to reference it yet with my 2+ year relationship with boyrobot going strong. I want to be one of those old and gray couples that are still in love! This metafilter question is posed to people in long term relationships and advice on how they keep the flame going strong after all these years.

My favorites:

I’ve only been married 3 years (anniversary yesterday – yay for me and mrs mooders!), so I can hardly claim to be an expert and I know you want advice from long-time marrieds, but for what it’s worth here are two tips, amongst the thousands you are sure to receive, which I think are really important.

1. Accept that your partner is another person – their own thoughts, opinions, prejudices, quirks, habits and needs. Love and respect what they are, not what you think they should be. That said, if they have habits that are harmful or potentially unhealthy, you [sh|c]ould mention a change would be beneficial to all.

2. Take pleasure in the small things. The grand, sweeping, romantic gestures can only be sustained for a while. Soon, real life seems to encroach and makes the last-minute, surprise weekend in Paris very unpractical. Instead, love the fact that, for example, your partner greets you warmly when you get home, or buys your favourite dinner when grocery shopping, or applies point no. 1 (above) to you, or seeks your opinion when applying for a job and so on.

Both of these points underline they love you, they respect you, they wish to be part of you and your life. Think about it. Of all the things that have to be right for two people to be in love and share their lives with another. It’s amazing. Remind yourself of it every day. Then you will never take that person and what you share for granted.

I’ve only been in a relationship for 3 years, however my parents have a phenomenal relationship, and they’ve been married almost 50 years. What I’ve observed from them is:

-LOTS OF FUN AND LAUGHTER – they are a social couple – they’re always having parties with friends, going kayaking, skiing, hosting wine tasting, going to cooking classes, going on vacation, going out to dinner together, going to the beach together, going to rock concerts. They spend a lot of time with each other’s friends. And they still crack each other up. And they keep trying new things.

-TIME TOGETHER, TIME APART – Neither one is a workaholic. They both get home around 6PM, and rarely work on weekends. They spend quality and quantity time – almost always family dinners, lots of family vacations. They do have their time apart, though. My dad golfs a lot and volunteers a lot. My mom has her girlfriends.

-CO-DEPENDENCY – I’m not sure either would function well alone. On the other hand, they compliment each other well. My mother is organized, clean, responsible, pessimistic. My father is fun, hard-working, easy-going, optimistic. They’re very different, but it works.

And my favorite:

Be ridiculously silly with each other, as much as humanly possible. If you establish this now, it will allow you to interject levity to almost any situation, no matter how serious it gets.