Love is a fragile and vulnerable state of being and can manifest in ever-mystifying sets of behaviors. It is impossible to intentionally create it, to control its nature, or to predict how it lives and why it dies.

Challenges, stress, crumpled resources, and broken dreams are often seen as the enemies of sustaining love. Yet, some couples are able to struggle through hard times, heavily battered by difficult crises, and somehow become more connected as they navigate those treacherous emotional waters. Others, whose love was nourished and protected, still somehow lose it, often for reasons they cannot understand.

I have worked with couples for more than four decades, throughout multiple societal and cultural changes that have affected how they form and live through their intimate relationships. I’ve watched and noted what behaviors and interactions seem to be present from the beginning of these relationships that hold and deepen in commitment over time, and I will share 13 of them with you.

As you read through them, explore whether these ways of being are happening in your relationship now. Though they may not be fully predictable of your future together, identifying them will give you a glimpse of what is more likely to come.

Successful long-term love requires that both partners show up whenever either reaches out in a crisis. They know that those SOS cries are never shouted in vain, and nothing comes........

© Psychology Today