Ties that will last

Love is an art and building healthy lasting relationships is even more so. To begin to understand love though lets look at the different kinds of love. First there is Storge which is the kind of affection one finds between parent and child. There is also Agape which is charity such as the pure love of Christ. These two types of love are unconditional. The next one is Eros  which is a sexual or physical romantic love and the last one is Philia which is love between friends and brotherly love.

When getting into a relationship many fall into a Eros love. It takes more then just that though to build a lasting love. You need to have the charity of Agape love and many would argue you need the love of Storge and Philia too. When building towards a lasting relationships there are steps you should take and you shouldn't move to the next step till you feel like you have completed the one before it. The steps goes as follows, know, trust, rely, commit, touch.

The first is know, you get to know someone by adding together talk, together, and time. You need to be able to talk to each other and disclose. You need to hang out together. Go on dates, see them in different settings. This way you get to know how they act and not just their favorite color. The last part is time. It normally takes about 3 months for habits to show up and you get to see a persons true self.

Once you know a person you can start to put trust in them. Once a person has proven to be trustworthy then you can rely on them to fill your needs.

Next is commit. Simply put, no, you shouldn't commit to anyone that you don't know and can't trust and rely on. This sounds obvious when stated but so often we see people get into exclusive relationships with people they hardly know, let alone can trust and rely on.

The last part is touch. This part normally gets out of whack. So often couples skip to a stage where they trust and snuggle with someone before they even truly know them. This is simply not healthy though. Physical touch by nature, even  just simple hugs, can really make a bond between people. You see this if you go on long trips with people you don't know. By the end of the trip after sitting by someone for a long time even if you don't talk much you feel closer to them by the end.This is why touch should be last. By having touch in your relationship you will feel closer to the person and hence are more likely to trust and rely on them with out truly knowing them first.

In the end most of it comes back to knowing someone. If you want to have a good relationship you need to truly get to know the person first. You need to see them in multiple situations. This way you know before hand what you are inviting into your life before you commit to it.