Love by itself is never enough to have a relationship work. The divorce courts are full of people who love each other. The key to having a great relationship is to make sure the other person feels loved.

When the experience of love is present you are happy, alive, and free. You feel good about yourself and good about life. You are confident, creative, and very effective. You radiate a very positive energy and great things happen around you. This is the experience of love.

This is also the happiness that we seek. It’s what we want in our relationships and in our lives. So what creates the experience of love? The experience of love is created by giving the gift of acceptance and appreciation.

See this in your life

Notice how you feel when someone genuinely accepts and appreciates you. Doesn't this feel good? Of course it does. You feel better about yourself and better about life. You also feel better about the other person.

The same thing happens when you accept and appreciate someone else. That person automatically feels better about life and better about you. By giving acceptance and appreciation, you create the experience of love.

Now notice how you feel when someone is non-accepting, critical, or controlling toward you. Instantly, the experience of love disappears. You get hurt and upset. You put up your walls of protection and automatically become critical of the person who is non-accepting.

The same thing happens when you are non-accepting of someone else. That person gets upset, puts up his or her walls of protection, and automatically becomes critical and resentful of you. Then you get hurt. Your walls of protection get stronger and you become more judgmental and critical of the other person. Then the other person gets more upset and becomes more critical of you. Then you get more upset at the other person.

The cycle of conflict

Without knowing, you create a cycle of conflict, a cycle of hurting, attacking, and withdrawing from each other. This cycle then goes on and on without either person ever noticing his or her role in the problem. It's this cycle of conflict that creates the suffering in relationships.

To end the cycle of conflict, or to make sure it never starts, make sure the other person feels loved, accepted, and appreciated. This is the key to having any relationship work.

Unfortunately, this is much easier said than done. Some people are very difficult to accept. Fortunately, acceptance is nothing more than surrendering to the truth. The people in your life are exactly the way they are whether you like it or not.

Surrendering to the truth is one of the keys to being effective. When you are at peace with the truth, you can see the truth. When you can see the truth, you can see what you need to do based on facts instead of emotion. We'll talk more about this in the next article.

We will also talk about how to end the cycle of conflict.

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