The four pillars of a good relationship + a dodgy number five

{photo by me}

The first time around I chose the wrong man. I didn’t know it at the time because I was young and believed things about relationships that turned out to be untrue. In hindsight, I can see why my husband and I were never going to work.

An intimate relationship with another person rests on four essential pillars ~ intellectual, emotional, spiritual and physical.

Intellectual

Intellectual compatibility is about similarities and differences. You want to be with someone who is as smart as you or perhaps smarter. It doesn’t have to be educational intelligence, it can be life experience or expertise in a specific area. The aim is to have something in common and something to learn. Being on the same level will eventually get boring, as will one of you being at a totally different level.

Duckfish is smart. He won my heart with eloquent emails crafted with perfect spelling and grammar. He is more emotionally intelligent than I am and teaches me how to embrace my feelings and express myself rather than keep things bottled up inside. He says I know more about the way people interact with each other and how to be unattached to material possessions. Our minds are interesting to each other.

Emotional

The emotional level of the relationship must be equal. You should like or love each other the same amount. If someone is totally besotted with you and you kind of like them then it’s doomed. Duckfish and I love each other equally – more than and beyond.

Spiritual

It is a difficult relationship where you don’t agree on core beliefs and values. My ex-husband was an atheist and I am deeply spiritual. He thought my belief in the magic of living and the goodness of the human heart naïve and delusional. Duckfish and I stare up at the stars and wonder where we’ve come from and what lies ahead after we leave this physical experience. It’s wonderful to share the same view of the world and to contemplate that our souls have always been looking for each other since before we were born.

Physical

Sexual chemistry is the fourth pillar. In my short dating career I met men who were right in the other areas but I didn’t want to jump their bones. Physical attraction cannot be prescribed by height, weight, age or ethnicity. It is an elusive certain something that only shows up when you meet in person.

Duckfish is sexy, even after twenty months when experts say the honeymoon glow should be fading. I could go on and on … but I won’t. This also relates to your level of sex drive. If you want it all the time and your boyfriend doesn’t then there’s trouble ahead. Choose a man who wants you as often as you want him.

Ξ

Some of you have asked me how to find a man on internet dating sites. My advice is to address all the four pillars of a relationship in your profile. How smart does he need to be, what kind of emotional involvement do you want, what are your spiritual beliefs and how important is physical intimacy to you?

The fifth pillar

Because Duckfish can’t help but add his input to every advice model I come up with, there’s his fifth pillar — humour. If you don’t find the same things funny and you don’t find each other funny then you need to move on. Life is too short and relationships too complex to not have any laughter in your world.

And in this instance, it appears Duckfish might be right.

How does your relationship measure up to this model? Did you get it right the first time or are you in a second relationship?

Tagged as: relationships