Making a long-term relationship work is a feat that not everyone can claim to have conquered. While relationship experts can tell you tips and tricks from their perspectives, sometimes it's best to go straight to the source.
INSIDER spoke with real couples who are in long-term, committed relationships to find out their biggest tips to making a relationship last.
Go on trips together and separately.
Travel is an important part of growing a strong relationship. It helps you deal with potentially stressful situations together, problem solve, and make some fun memories.
But you need to have your own life, too. That's why Holly Wolf said she and her husband Gary have taken many trips in their 30-year marriage, but they haven't always been together.
"We vacation both separately and apart," she said. "He's a hunter and outdoors man, I'm not. So it makes sense for him to go on those trips without me. I enjoy traveling with friends so I do that without him. But we enjoy traveling together, too — just the two of us."
Know you're not always going to get your way.
Anyone who's been in a close relationship, romantic or otherwise, knows that being close to someone for a long time can inevitably lead to some arguments.
No one likes to be wrong, but you're going to be, and that's okay! The ability to admit you're wrong can strengthen your relationship and allow small fights to end more quickly than they would if you were too stubborn to let it go.
"You have to be okay with not being right all the time," Declan O'Connell, who has been dating his partner Rachel Eagleton for two years, told INSIDER. "Compromising is something people always say but you have to be able to put it into your daily routine. At the end of the day you have to realize that you are happier now than you were before … even if they annoy you that day."
Practice authentic appreciation.
Being in a relationship inevitably means doing things for each other, but Todd and Diana Mitchem told INSIDER that their marriage works because they are thankful to each other for all acts of service — big and small.
"For us, appreciation is in every moment and with any small act," the Mitchems said. "We pride each other regularly and thank each other for doing even the smallest of things. We think that being authentic with appreciation keeps the fire alive because the couple is always focused on the best in each person. With three kids, careers, and a full life, we make appreciation a top priority. It's fun and sexy always to be appreciated."
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