4 Relationship Tips Taken From Real Couples That Will Give You a Good Place To Start

When it comes to building a strong relationship, there are a lot of things you can focus on—communication, shared goals, making time for each other, or settling disputes. But so often you get caught up in day-to-day life and forget to make the time to think about these things and what they mean for your life as a couple. In order to give you a little help, the popular relationship app Happy Couple asked over 543,987 couples a few questions about what their relationship goals were for the year ahead and found a few interesting takeaways.

If one of your goals is improving your relationship, here are four relationship tips taken from real couples that will give you a good place to start.

# Being a good listener is the best kind of support

When your partner has a problem or needs help with something, it’s natural to want to step in and fix things. But this usually isn’t what they really need. 50% of people said being a good listener is the best way a partner can support them. Coming in second was helping them get things done (28%) followed by being a good problem solver (20%).

# If you’re making time for each other, make it quality time

It seems simple, but having more quality time together as a couple is often the hardest thing to do. When asked how they’d like to spend their time together in the year ahead, 41% of people said they wanted to spend more quality time together. Other popular things couples want to spend time on? 38% said they wanted to tackle their resolutions and goals together, and 17% said they wanted to make more time for romance.

# Honest communication is more important than shared values

All relationships hit ups and downs, even if you agree on everything. Perhaps that’s why 50% of people said honest communication is the key to a happy, lasting relationship. But shared values and goals wasn’t completely left out—it got 37% of the vote ,while other things like sympathy and compassion and great sex had less than 10% of the vote.

# Good relationships are about growing as individuals too

It’s important to grow as a couple but don’t forget to grow as an individual too. 51% of people said that the main goal they shared with their partner was, oddly enough, self-improvement. Helping each other become better people and better partners often goes together, so while making your goals for your relationship don’t forget to focus on yourself as well.