This sounds so self-evident and obvious that many don’t realize how easy it is to go wrong. A beautiful smile, an exciting physique, winning words and shared laughs can color and outright distort our perceptions. When we are already “sold” on the particular person, it will be very difficult to step back and take careful stock of just what the other person truly has to offer.

As well, it’s also hard to discern everything unless one is able to spend lots of time with the significant other, under many different circumstances – as well as the most time-efficient way to actually do this is to live together.

For it is in living together and being exposed to the mundane routines of everyday life that a person’s full character comes into the picture. It may sound incredible, but little details can be very telling, and they are hidden within the nuances of the everyday.

While dating, everyone is on their best behavior, even if only unconsciously. Being an intimate part of each other’s lives, nonetheless, in the way only a husband and wife could be, truly shows who the other individual is – and who you yourself truly are.

Living together is nothing more than a practice run at marriage. It is the adult version of “playing house.” No matter how well you believe you know the other person, and no matter how well you think you know yourself, there is nothing like living together and experiencing another man or woman in all his or her humanity, both good and bad.

 It takes two. 

Often with the pain and heartbreak of a break up, it is easy to blame the other person for your misery.  But the truth is that if the relationship was no longer working, you were part of the problem.  Evaluate what went on so that you can apply the lessons to your next relationship.

 Give women their personal space.

Women like to cuddle and snuggle.  They may seem to always be around.  But they need their personal space too.  Men have a tendency to be possessive.  We want to keep tabs on where they’re going and what they’re doing there.  If any woman has ever cheated on you, this instinct becomes stronger.  But, trust is a key component in a relationship.  When you invade her personal space, you send the message that you don’t trust your girlfriend.  This can easily lead to the end of the relationship.

You get stronger over time.

When you wake up in the morning and the hurt’s so real, you may believe that you will never get over the break up.  But the truth is that not only does time heal all pain, but you will emerge from the break up a stronger person.  As philosopher Frederick Nietzsche said, “that which doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger.”

 It’s okay if it wasn’t meant to be.

Coming to accept that a relationship wasn’t meant to be is a key factor in healing.  If you had started projecting your relationship into the future – considering marriage, thinking about children – and then the woman you were with broke everything off, consider it a blessing.  It is better to end a relationship that wasn’t meant to be earlier rather than later.

 Good things don’t happen unless you make them happen.

Finally, the last lesson I want to share with you is that you can’t control what happened, but you can control to how you react to what happened.  If you want good things to happen in the future, you have to make them happen.

Go out and meet some new people.  Have some fun.  Eventually, you will find another relationship.  And, if you have followed the advice in this article , the relationship will be even better and stronger than the previous one.

A lot of people think that marriage counselling is only for people who are at the end of their rope. I thought this for a long time.

I thought that marriage counseling might help and, despite the snickers of my friends, went and gave it a try.

Marriage counseling doesn’t work overnight, but it does work. In my case, it took a good eight months before we were really working as a team again. It might seem like a lot of time, but compare that to a lifetime. Eight months of marriage counseling is worth another 30 years of marital bliss if you ask me.