“Good relationships don’t just happen. They take time, patience, and two people who truly want to be together.” ~Unknown

Things changed. You can’t put your finger on it, but you know it’s true. You wish you could make it better. You want to fix it.

The problem is that you don’t know how.

Maybe it’s already too late, and the relationship ended despite all your efforts.

In the barrage of cliché advice and consolation you get from friends, relatives, and “experts,” the answer is as elusive as ever. It’s not helpful when people tell you that it just wasn’t meant to be, time heals all wounds, or that sometimes couples grow apart.

So what is the trick? What is the secret to having a happy, long-lasting relationship?

I recently spoke on the phone with a friend who lives in a different city. We hadn’t spoken in a long time, and it was good to catch up on things. Among all the things we discussed like careers, vacations, and other fun stuff, we ended up on the topic of relationships.

After discussing my current relationship status and how things were going, she talked about her situation. She’d been dating the same guy for around three years, and clearly was having questions about whether or not she should stay in the relationship.

She said he was a nice guy and they had a good thing going, but something just wasn’t there anymore.

This is something that isn’t all that uncommon. We see it frequently in life, where two people get together, are happy, they get comfortable, and then drift apart. It’s a sad part of our reality, but it is one that many people have been through.

While I listened to my friend talk about her situation, I remembered having been through some of the same stuff in my own life. Then, she suddenly stopped and bluntly asked me, “What is the secret recipe for a long-lasting relationship?”

The question caught me a little off guard, but after a few seconds of careful and hurried consideration, I came up with an answer that I feel is absolutely true. It is something that I’ve heard advice-givers pass to others. However, I believe the key to it working is effort on the parts of both people.

The Secret Recipe

It isn’t really that complicated, but it is difficult for people to implement. Each person in the relationship needs to focus on the things that brought them together. That’s it. Seriously.

I know what you’re thinking. That is too simple. Or maybe you already tried that. Did you?

I mean, did you really put a ton of effort into getting back to the things that brought the two of you together?

When you first started dating the person, you were attracted to them on at least a few levels. While the physical thing changes over time, and sometimes people think that the grass is greener on the other side, the core of most relationship issues is not physical.

In my experience, the real problem is with the connection that has been lost between the two people.

It is that connection that must be re-established.

Ask yourself why you started seeing the other person in the beginning. Did you have fun together? If so, what kinds of things did you do? What changed? Why did they change?

These kinds of questions can stimulate an avalanche of excuses from people. Some will say that they grew apart. Others try to claim that when they had kids, everything changed. Still more will say that they aren’t who they were when the relationship began.

That last one is tough. As humans, we are constantly changing, growing, evolving physically and with our characters. However, it is still possible to repair the damage, and it all begins with tracing your steps back to the things that brought the two of you together.

What created the connection between you? Dig deep into those things together, and take the time to revisit those experiences, ideas, and moments.

This was the answer I gave my friend on the phone. I told her that it is crucial to reconnect to the things that brought you together, and by doing that, you can renew the excitement, passion, and friendship that were established early on.

Put Into Action

It’s all well and good to talk about the theory of stuff, but does it really work? I never recommend anything to people if I haven’t either tried it myself, or seen it work on someone else. In this case, I actually put the idea to use in my own relationship.

When my girlfriend and I initially got together, we had plenty of deep, stimulating conversations. We read books together on the porch and spent a lot of time just talking or hanging out.

After a while, though, we became very comfortable with each other. We slipped into a mode much like many couples do, where we methodically ask how each other’s day was and then turn on the television to watch our favorite shows.

Somehow, we had found ourselves in the same situation many other people get into when they’ve been together for a prolonged period of time.

I could tell that she wasn’t as happy as she used to be, and I had to admit that I wasn’t feeling the same excitement about the relationship as I had when we got together. Instead of ending it and going our separate ways, I decided to get back to what brought us together in the first place.

I noticed that she reads a lot on her iPhone, and began asking her to share the articles she was reading with me by sending a link. Since she is constantly reading on her breaks at work or on the porch at home, this gave me a way to reconnect with what she was interested in.

Now, we are back on the same page. I read the things she’s interested in (not all the time but quite a bit) and we can have engaging conversations about those topics when we get home. Our day has gone away from the ordinary “how was your day, honey” conversations to something more meaningful.

And as we all know, communication is one of the most important things to have in a relationship.

I’ve talked to several people who are much older than I about this. Some of them have been married for forty years or more. The happiest ones always say the same thing.

They say to treat the relationship like it was new each and every day, and concentrate on the things that brought them together in the first place.

What’s your story? Have you been through something like this? What did you do? How did it turn out?

Photo by Scarlett White

About Ernest Dempsey Ernest Dempsey is a Counselor and fiction author from Chattanooga, Tennessee. You can check out his books or his powerful blog posts at ernestdempsey.net or follow him on Twitter @ErnDempsey.