FLIRT: the key to a good relationship

FLIRT: The five letters and the meaning of the whole word, I have chosen as the requisites for maintaining a healthy relationship with your partner. Now, you might ask why you would listen to me: I have been married now for more than 5 years, before which I was in a relationship with the same person for 2 years and have been his friend for about 9 years now. We (my partner and I) have had our share of troubles, the ride has not been smooth, but something kept us going. When I sat to think about how were we still managing, that is when I realized the five key parts, and of course the importance of the word itself. I have seen a lot of relationships not working out the best they could, arranged and love marriages alike. Even in the case of people who are still married or decided to stay together for the sake of multiple reasons that they find important enough, the relationships are crumbling. Yes, relationships need compromises, but they could also be so beautiful, peaceful, and ecstatic at the same time. Look around, be it relationships that are a few months old to relationships that are 50 years old, you will find some common elements that decide whether a relationship will work (by which I mean that both partners are happy and satisfied) or not. This is my observation of what makes a relationship fight the challenges that life throws at us.

In the following text, I have used ‘he’ for the partner and she for the writer/protagonist/first person. This is simply because my partner chooses to be a ‘he’ and I to be a ‘she’, however, this text is…