With one person it is easy, free and we feel relaxed, but with another we just expect that there will be a move right away - we sharpen our knives, we look unkindly, we don't trust and we are ready to run away at any moment. In addition, such a reaction can be caused not only by strangers, but also by very close people. It is very unpleasant when you have to die inside and grit your teeth when someone who once was closer than close, who once promised to protect, but now attacks and you have to protect yourself from him, enters the room.

When trust closes the door of the relationship room, it is much worse than when passion leaves it - the fire can be compensated by the heat of smoldering coals, while the broken ground under your feet cannot be replaced with anything. Trust is one of the foundations of a relationship - if you save money on good cement, the house will be a little crooked. Even if it is not so noticeable on the outside, inside everything will roll, tumble and tear with noise.

Mutual trust means knowing that the person who is next to you will be there tomorrow and the day after that. And then if he decides not to be, you'll know from him, not from the lipstick marks on his collar.

When you trust, you don't set a trap with the goal for the other to get caught and you don't write a secret diary with a list of who hasn't done something and who doesn't love whom anymore. You truly learn to love art when you stop hammering nails into a relationship, because even if you take them out, marks will remain. This metaphor is that all the unpleasant and hurtful words we say in anger can be compared to nails that we drive into a board, and the board in this case is a relationship. (If you've ever seen a cork board pierced with pins, you'll know what I'm talking about.)

In love, we always look for truth, warmth, security, the opportunity to be ourselves and not pretend, and also - a source of life force, refreshing and healing. To meet a person who will be able to share with you the value of "not attacking the other" is a great success. When home is home and not just another kingdom, when both without a dream also have a clear plan of action and a common goal means much more than an insignificant flash of dissatisfaction.

I understand: not bringing irritation home is difficult. Bright thoughts about love usually come to us in moments of peace and joy - in a temple, at sunrise by the sea or late in the evening when we have gone for a walk and the smell of blooming jasmine fills our lungs with a feeling of happiness and gratitude. But when a tick bites in the forest, the washing machine breaks down at home and the dog destroys the new shoes, it becomes quite difficult to remember the miracle of love. And the anger caused by a series of annoying events is served to the partner instead of dinner. It doesn't matter that he is not guilty of what happened, he just happened to be at hand - well then suffer!

However, nobody wants to suffer. The usual (and normal) reaction for most people is to take offense and cower in a quiet corner. Or the other version - to give in to the emotional infection, to shut up and increase the speed with every moment. Further events develop according to the formula "you shall reap what you sow". You didn't hold back, you spat poison in your communication and it will be a family evening poisoned with dissatisfaction and irritation.

That is why I wholeheartedly recommend agreeing on important things for you at the very beginning of the relationship, when the rapprochement is just beginning: you are not yet tired, you are still favorable to each other and full of enthusiasm, you are still adventurously ready to change and you do not ask for half a kingdom and a horse.

You haven't accumulated resentments and defaults yet, you are beaming and both are ready to try to agree on what each of you thinks is normal and right. For example, not to hide anything from each other. Do not create warehouses of hurtful but unspoken questions in yourself, so that one day it all does not explode like New Year's fireworks. Treat each other's scars with sensitivity and respect, left from relationships in the past and from childhood. Not to punish each other with silence, but to sit down and get clear about where it hurts, what hurts and what needs to be done to get better. It is absolutely clear that it is not possible to provide a safety mat for everything and everywhere, and there is no need.

The fabric of relationships is alive, soft and submissive - it is possible to heal everything accurately, as long as there is such a desire and if problems are not allowed.

It becomes much more difficult to repair longer relationships that have been two years or more, especially if they have been constantly swayed, the unpleasant has been suppressed and from time to time the eyes have been closed to what has been thrown back, down, forward, in the end, to such relationships that you did not want to create, but as a result have come together - torn, complicated, incomprehensible, unbearable. In them, any attempt to change seems like a dance of pre-death agony: "You really think this will help?", "You and I are just too different, that's all."

Agreement - it means, first of all, the limitation of destruction. Stopping all that evil and dark that is ready to come out. It remains only to give in to despair, fatigue, cold or alcohol. The decision to adhere to certain rules in a relationship does not hinder their development in any way, on the contrary, their observance will save the couple more than once from reckless actions and from words that can cause irreversible damage.

When you agree, you and your partner enter into an unwritten contract about what you will never allow yourself to do to each other. Thus, you lay a strong, safe and level foundation on which you will build a spacious and cozy house. The weather outside the window may change - let the winds blow, hail patter, snow fall (consider them metaphors for life events, disputes and conflicts), but the windows will remain intact, the doors will remain in place and no one will be hit by a suddenly broken shelf. The main thing is to carry out repairs from time to time, cosmetic or capital, depending on the situation.

Agreement is not a fly in the ointment, nor is it something set in stone forever, it is not an instruction for the dull and lifeless.

Trust each other. I use the principle in life: to trust one hundred percent. I will either have a lesson or a person for life. Try to be gentle with your relationships - don't attack yours. Agree and change the rules together if you realize that you have grown out of them, if life has changed, if you have changed, but you still want to go hand in hand and return to the same house.

Author of the article: relationship mentor Zane Ozoliņa