5 Tips to Strengthen Your Relationship
Whether you're married or involved in a long term relationship, these simple tips can boost it to the next level.
-PJ Gach, BettyConfidential.com
There are some couples whose relationship seems so perfect, you wonder what their secret could be to make it work. Jamailliah and David Lamb have been married for over 10 years and work together in a volatile field: The theatre.Their Brooklyn, New York based stage company,Between The Lines Productions, Inc. has them very busy and sometimes stressed. Every day they work together as partners, producing and creating shows. Neither Jamillah nor David has maimed each other in all the years they've worked and lived together! That's so rare, think about it, could you work with your significant other?
"We get more opportunity to grow together because, between home and work, we're making 100 decisions a day instead of 10," Jamillah says. The couple live by their guiding rule, "Love like kids, act like adults." "That means to love freely and completely, without a fortress around your heart, and behave responsibly," David says.
Their book, Perfect Combination: Seven Key Ingredients to Happily Living & Loving Together, describes how they've been able to make a marriage and a working partnership work. They've also shared their tips on how to build a happy, healthy relationship for their readers.
Here are some of their tips:
1. Enjoy life
Some couples won't go to theme parks until they have children. But letting one's inner child out to play with their partner's inner child strengthens a relationship's bond.
2. Forgive the small stuff
No one is always right, and no one wants to be around someone who always needs to be right.
3. Appreciate individuality
Everyone needs to have their own identity, including those in a long-term relationship and couples who work together. David enjoys his comic book collection, while Jamillah keeps a library of romance novels.
4. Do not misdirect anger
In psychology, it's called transference; dumping your bad day on someone else. It is poison for any relationship.
5. Remember your love
Couples may fight, but guard what you say. There's no need for ugliness even when you disagree.
David and Jamillah feel that couples need to remember relationships take work, but they can also be a blast of fun, David states,"Love is worth the sacrifice. Today, with stories of celebrity couples walking away after only days of marriage and even more people living as though sacrifice is nearly a curse word, we say: 'It's worth the sacrifice.' For us, it means that we are willing to give up something that we thought was valuable or important for something even more important: love and our happiness."
Jamillah agrees, "Couples should never take each other for granted," she advises. "In love, as in business, everyone wants to be appreciated. The simplest gesture can go a long way to help your significant other feel like they are making a significant contribution to your life, your family, or your business."
About David & Jamillah Lamb
David and Jamillah Lamb have been married for 10 years. They founded and have run Between The Lines Productions, Inc. since 2003. Born and raised in Queens, N.Y., David attended the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and New York University School of Law. He is the playwright of "Platanos y Collard Greens." Jamillah Lamb grew up in the same Chicago neighborhood as first lady Michelle Obama. She earned her master's degree in public policy at Harvard. Together they wrote Perfect Combination: Seven Key Ingredients to Happily Living & Loving to share what they have learned as successful partners in love and in business.They live in Brooklyn with their daughter.
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