If you want to learn to have a successful relationship, you need to start taking responsibility for everything. You can only control what you do, not what anyone else does — not even your romantic partner.

Remember: good relationships don’t fall out of the sky. Good relationships require growth, work, and change. Here are just 7 habits of a successful relationship.

We need to reward hard discussions, not punish them; we need to value our honesty over our partner’s comfort; and we need to remind ourselves that “easy” is not the goal. The goal is depth.

A trusting relationship is not something you find fully formed in a perfect Tinder profile just a few more swipes away. Trust is something you build with a person who is roughly in the same spot on their journey in life as you are.

In order to find someone to partner with us, we have to do the work to make ourselves whole, on our own. Only then can we partake in a healthy, lasting relationship.

There are hundreds of apps for every sort of person. You can even filter for all the qualities you are looking for, down to the color of someone’s hair. More and more individuals are using these apps, and they are more advanced than ever. We should all be happily dating, right?

Many times in life, the shame that we carry with us isn’t even our own. It is the shame of others projected onto us. In order to let go of this, we have to recognize what is ours and what isn’t

Vulnerability is one of the paradoxical aspects of life, values, and character. By showing our weakness, we prove ourselves strong. Only a strong person would show weakness, right? That’s why vulnerability is so powerful.

Shame is an indicator that we are out of alignment with our deeply held values, whether we realize it or not. This may sound like a simple fix, but it can take months, years, and is really the work of a lifetime.

In order to really open up to someone about shame, we have to feel 2 things: 1) Feel like we are being heard 2) Feel like we are not being judged.

Often the source of shame is deeply buried in our past. Long ago, when we were dependent children or teens, something hit us emotionally and left us feeling afraid, inferior, or feeling like we are not enough.

Shame and gratitude can’t be held in your mind at the same time. If you don’t believe me, try it! If you feel like you can’t feel grateful right now, I would say that gratitude is one of the emotions that you can train yourself to feel.

Shame can be a central problem in our lives without us even knowing it. Are you having trouble at work, or do you struggle in a relationship, or are you cycling wildly between self-love and self-hatred? That could all be unaddressed shame. Let’s look at how we can tell and what we can do if we think that is what we are dealing with.

Get your sexual fears behind you! And I don’t mean forget about them, I mean stop letting them get in the way of the life you want to live. How do we do that? By writing down and verbalizing our fears and goals.

For some of us, love can be like a drug. Unlike other drugs, we can’t live without love. Abstinence is not an option, then. How do we live with love in a sober way?

While tinder can be a place of really unhealthy dating habits, with the right outlook, it can be done very well and can lead you to healthy, lasting love. Let’s look at the common pitfalls, how to avoid them, and at the things to do instead.

Love is not always a sexual feeling, and sexual feelings are not always about love.

Do you have thoughts that you are not proud of? Guess what? You’re human and that’s completely normal. The issue arises when we decide we have a problem with ourselves. We think we are somehow a bad person because we had an unwanted thought.

On this special episode, we take a detour of the normal format and have an informal discussion with myself and with Taylor Foreman, head writer for the podcast!

If our goal is to stay with our current partner, be it marriage or just a commitment to each other, then we need to work on our self-image. This is not a trivial matter, either. We need to get brutally honest about whether all of us; I mean everything that makes us, us; is in it for the long-run.

What are our values? Because some people don’t know, and if we aren’t clear about them, they can easily slip to something like “power” or “control.” 

Talking about how the sex isn’t good doesn’t mean you’re not meant to be. It just means you need to work on the sex life! Everything that is mentionable is manageable. Mention it. Manage it. 

Sex and love are different things, obviously. However, we all have a notion in our heads that they should be together. Or maybe we rebelled from that idea and think that sex is perfectly fine without love. I’m not here to make a moral claim either way, but let’s talk about why we have the inclination that they should be linked together. Is there any validity to that? 

Sex and love are tied together as one is the expression of the other. Yes, you can have sex without love, but it is like dancing without music--weird, awkward, and no one enjoys it.