Being in a healthy relationship is good for us. If we are communicating well with our partner, feel respected, listened to and cared for, then we instinctively feel everything is great in our world. When it stops working our happiness and health are both badly affected.

Here are a few suggestions and ideas to help you and your relationship over the coming year.

1. Understand that no relationship is “perfect”. It is unrealistic to expect that your relationship will work well all the time. It’s normal to react to the pressures and strains of family life. Sometimes the way you express your feelings to your partner can make things worse.
2. Talk with each other. Not many of us reach the end of our life and say that our biggest regret was that we didn’t watch more TV! Switch the TV off and spend some quality time together.
3. Take care of yourselves online, remember most things online are stored and are searchable. It might seem like a good idea to rant about your relationship in the heat of the moment, but this could come back to haunt you in a myriad of different ways 1 year or even 3 years down the line. If either of you use social networking sites regularly Facebook-proof your relationship.
4. If you are looking around for relationship help, accept that all advice is not created equal. Your relationship is precious, be selective. If you are looking online, ask yourself, “What do I know about this person?” Are they up-front about who they are and what they do? Do they provide any verifiable evidence that they know what they are talking about. Does what they say make sense to you? Does it fit with your own values and beliefs?
5. Friends and family may also want to give advice, and they can be supportive and helpful. However sometimes people have their own agenda at heart not yours, or sometimes the advice is very well intentioned but the person giving it doesn’t have much of a clue about relationships.
6. Get professional help when you need it, don’t put it off in the hope that things will get better on their own. Hope is a good thing but it won’t work as a strategy on it’s own in saving your relationship.
7. When life throws lemons at you, learn to make lemonade. Don’t see getting outside help as a sign of weakness or that your relationship is failing. The problems you are experiencing right now are a wake-up call. This is your opportunity to do something different and start over – to choose, to make changes, TO REBUILD.