Looking for lasting love? Follow these eight expert tips. Photo / Getty Images
Looking for lasting love? Follow these eight expert tips. Photo / Getty Images
The path to true love is never a simple one. However shows like Married At First Sight look to change that, with experts matching couples based on apparent scientific compatibility.
Despite the shows truly horrific track record of tumultuous relationships, the show's love experts do come with some pretty solid credentials.
Accredited UK Sex and Relationship Therapist Jo Coker, one of the experts on the show, spoke to the Telegraph about common relationship clichés and misconceptions.
Here are eight signs you're in a lasting relationship, according to Coker.
While many may believe the best relationship means finding the yin to their yang, Coker says while this has some truth, it isn't necessary for lasting loving.
"Broadly speaking, people can be opposite in smaller dimensions and still get on well.
"One can be a couch potato, the other a fitness fanatic, but dig deeper and they're very rarely opposite in terms of their how they view the world. People tend to have similar ideological beliefs, which means that when it comes to making big decisions, they're on the same page."
In the modern age of Tinder, it can be easy to assume that a perfect union requires you both being equally gorgeous. While this might hold some truth, it's really the attractiveness of your personality that holds the key to a relationship's longevity.
"It's a big generalisation, but people do tend to go for similarly attractive people," notes Coker.
She says the problem is when we fail to realise that "looks are only one element of a relationship.
"You can have really attractive people who become incredibly unattractive when you get to know them. Likewise you can meet someone you're not immediately attracted to but as you get to know them and know their personality, they become very attractive, because they're kind or they make you laugh."
In order to make it last when looks fade, Coker flags what many may believe they're aware of but often fail to adhere to: there has to be more to the relationship than just physicality.
"... the truth is, if you're looking to have a happy long-term relationship you may not always stay physically attractive - so a successful partnership needs to have more going for it than just fancying each other."
3. "Happy wife, happy life"
"I would say 'happy couple, happy life' because no one should be dominating the happiness stakes," insists Coker.
The age-old saying is problematic, because couples who never talk out their problems are often headed for trouble, she says, noting the couple she "dreads" is the one that claim they've "never had a cross word in over 40 years".
Coker says this sort of claim will often leave her wondering "what they've missed or swept under the carpet, because it suggests that one partner has simply given in to the other one in order to avoid conflict. But in any relationship, no matter how good it is, there will be grittiness, discussions that need to be had, and rightly so."
Going to bed angry creates hostility in a place of calm. Photo / Getty Images
4. Never go to bed angry
Many happy couples swear by never going to sleep angry at one another. Coker agrees this is a good idea. Otherwise your bedroom can become a place of tension.
"As people, we can't achieve perfection all the time, but don't get into bed, turn your back and feed the resentment, it won't help."
Coker reiterates that in a relationship, "you're a team and there will be ups and downs ..." She says by going to bed angry you're creating "anxiety and tension" in a place in your home that should be your "sanctuary".
"Ultimately it just puts an avoidable strain on your relationship."
5. Will coming from a broken family mean you'll create one too?
While some studies hint that you are more likely to end up divorced if you came from a broken home, this isn't always true.
In fact, people who come from divorced parents can actually be better at sticking things out, something Coker says is both good and bad:
"You hang onto marriage by your fingernails, because you don't want to replicate divorce from your early years. But nobody should stay in a relationship they're not happy in, and divorce certainly doesn't carry the stigma that it used to, so it's much more common now."
She says we're in an era where society aims to manage divorce by focusing on how it may impact children, and with a "therapeutic" approach.
"The truth is, with the huge strains on families these days, in a society where everyone increasingly wants it all, marriage can be very hard."
"A good sense of humour is so important," says Coker. "Couples develop their own kind of humour, and it becomes a shorthand way of communicating for them. This is especially useful if you can diffuse situations when you're feeling overwhelmed. Essentially, to laugh together at the ridiculousness of life."
7. Sex is important, but not key
People's sex drives come and go at different stages in life and partners won't always be on the same page. But Coker believes that is okay as long as couples communicate their needs and discuss the issues early on.
"Some couples don't want or need that much sex, some like lots of it. The problem comes when sex drives are out of kilter, which will happen in most relationships, and no one is talking about it. Sex isn't the barometer here, communication is, and the real key thing is to discuss it early on so that it doesn't balloon into a bigger problem than it needs to be."
The idea of falling in love with someone as soon as you see them seems far fetched, but Coker believes it comes down to what you conceptualise love as:
"But for me it's a complex set of emotions that grows and develops. I believe in attraction at first sight."
