About seven years ago I met ago, I met a boy. He was cute, I got his number from a friend, we started texting, and a year later he asked me out. Four years later, on my eighteenth birthday party, he proposed to me, and two years later we are still happily engaged.

Why am I telling you this? Relationships take a lot of work. They are not easy and they are a big commitment and sometimes they can seem impossible. I am one for one in the relationship ring, and happily engaged so I figured I would just write about my experience and what has worked for me and maybe it can help someone else.

1. Communication

Communication is difficult and it can be messy. It can also seem frustrating and scary. If you are unsure how to go about it, you can always read another article I wrote about communicating with your partner. My Fiancé and I try to communicate about everything, we always have. When we do not communicate with each other, this is when the arguments and frustrations come about. We try as much as possible to let each other know what one of us is feeling and allow the other to air their grievances. We listen to each other and try to be supportive.

The other side of this is that we go to each other first before talking to other people. If I am upset with him, I do not go to my girlfriends before I discuss it with him. I have found that this leads to more drama and conflict. The sooner I go to the source and talk to him, the sooner we can sort out what happened and fix things.

2. Keeping it Just Us

Over the years I have been asked numerous times by various people different questions about my fiancé and I that are none of their concern. I am happy to share details of how yesterday he texted me something super cute but I am sorry I will not be sharing any details about fights or anything other than surface-level topics. Maybe this is just me, but I do not want to share my relationship. A large part of our dating years was spent in the band room with two-hundred other people. As soon as we allowed one or two other people know about these details, it was no longer our relationship, it was a band relationship.

I will talk to you about how we solve our differences but I will not share details with you that are none of your business because you are not in the relationship.

3. Flirting

Flirting looks different for everyone and can take on different forms. My favorite way to flirt is to send cheesy pickup lines through twitter. We flirt with each other all the time. Like I said, we have been dating for six and a half years. That is a long time and a lot of flirting. For me flirting is just a little way for me to show my love for him. Flirting is also fun especially when you are flirting with your best friend and someone you are in love with because you will usually get a good response.

4. Change

I said it before and I will say it again. Change is a good thing. You can read about it in my other, short article, here. I mean, just look at what change can do. I decided to sift through Facebook for one of the first pictures of us and found this. Man how things have changed. But that is a good thing! Every minute of every day I have gotten the opportunity to fall in love with this amazing man all over again. Every time he has made a choice to better himself that has changed who he was, I get to re-fall in love with him.

Change is terrifying and can break a relationship if you are not prepared to move forward and change with that person. However, part of being in that kind of relationship is being able to pull each other towards these changes that make each other better.

5. Love Languages

A lot of people do not know what a "love language" is and I think they can be beneficial in a relationship so I will go through a quick explanation. There are five basic love languages: Acts of service, quality time, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, and physical touch. If your love language is acts of service then you value actions more than if someone were to just tell you something. People whose love language is quality time enjoy individualized attention from their loved ones. Those whose love language is words of affirmation feel the most loved when others affirm them through words. Lastly, a person whose love language is physical touch feels the most loved through appropriate touch.

If you are curious, you can actually take a quiz to see what your love languages are. You will get a score on each of the five love languages (so you could have more than one) which can help you and your partner figure out the best way to help you feel loved. If you just google "five love languages quiz" you can find one.

I score very high for physical touch, quality time, and acts of service. My score for words of affirmation was only a four and I scored a zero for receiving gifts. This means that if my fiancé's main way of showing me love was gift giving, I may not see it this way because I do not interpret this as my main love language. However, I love holding hands or when he puts his arm around me because I score high on physical touch so, say we are watching T.V which would be quality time, he might put his arm around me. Right there are two of my five categories.

It might be a good idea to get a sense of what your partner's love languages are, especially if you are noticing that what you are trying to convey as love is not coming across in the same manner. Perhaps they do not have the same love language as you and you need to learn their love language in order to determine how best to show them love.