I think I have understood, at least for me personally, what the fundamental base, or the fundamental rule, of any relationship is. It does not matter whether it is friendship, work or love. Whereas in love it is likely to be most crucial.
No matter what you do, how you act, what you say, first think about how you would feel in the place of your partner. If it triggers something negative in you - think twice about whether you really want to act this way. If it would hurt yourself, do you really want to risk that it could hurt your partner? “Treat others the way you want to be treated”. This saying is the cornerstone of any happy and honest relationship.
The last thing I want to do is seeing my partner being hurt. And the very last thing, seeing him being hurt because of me. Of course it can occur, that you say something that hurts him out of impulsivity or the heat of the situation. This is totally fine and absolutely normal. But then you can still make the situation less worse with simply talking about it, admitting that you said something hurtful and apologizing to your loved one for what you said.
And the very last thing, but maybe most important, all of this counts as well when your partner is not present in a situation. I think there are many people who (sadly) think that what the other person does not know will not hurt them. And of course, theoretically this is true. But in my eyes this is exactly the key point, as to whether or not a relationship will exist happily for a long time. You have to act the way you want your partner to act as well, in any situation, no matter if he or she is present or not.
But maybe that is just me and I am totally exaggerating here. Maybe it seems as if I am very prude, but honestly, I do not care one bit. I will always choose to be seen as prude by anyone, rather than hurting my lover and best friend.
I truly cannot and probably will never be able to understand why some people flirt, or do similar things with others, just because their partner is not around to see or hear it. I really and deeply feel that you should always act the way as if your partner was there by your side, because everything else seems like lying to me. And that is pretty easily explainable: There is no sense at all in acting differently when your partner is there then when he is not, because the love between you two is always there. And for me, this very love should be reason enough to think twice about how you would feel in the place of your partner and whether you would want your partner to feel that way or not. Because after all, love is the very foundation of the relationship the two of you have with each other.
Personal thoughts on the fundamental rule of any given relationship - 23.11.2020
