3 Principles of Healthy and Strong Relationships Without Cheating

AVAlexander Volchek

“I'm having a hard time, damn it. I'm earning the money. You have to do what I say.” That kind of thinking belongs in a psychiatric hospital. In fact, it's very good to want happiness for another person. People are constantly changing, and of course relationships have to change. They have to change; they have to develop.

AVAnna Volchek

Listen, we've covered five reasons, essentially, why people's partnerships can fall apart. Could we now talk about, say, three key principles for making a partnership between a man and a woman strong, lasting, and stable? What should they pay attention to first?

AVAlexander Volchek

It's very important that we started with what destroys relationships and filmed that. Once we've discussed the foundations of a breakup, it becomes clear what to do so that a relationship can be harmonious and happy. What creates a strong foundation, so that when problems arise in life, when different circumstances and situations arise, the relationship only grows stronger, and both people help each other live through them instead of the relationship getting worse? There's a view that the strength of a relationship is tested in difficulties, not when things are good, right? It's tested in difficulties. The most important part of any relationship is to strengthen each other, strengthen each other. Yet we often think of good relationships simply in terms of ourselves: I want to feel good. I want to think of a good relationship as something that helps both me and my wife develop. If my wife is developed and continues developing, she's much more likely to bring something that helps me develop or brings me happiness. There's a very good video with Karl Lagerfeld about this. He says, “I don't understand men. I disagree with men who think women don't need money—”

“—and consider women who constantly ask for money bad.” He points out that you men constantly want your woman to look beautiful, be well groomed, dress well, and look stylish in public. Yet those men say women don't need money. The most important point is that if the woman is happy, or the man is happy—the other person, not you watching this video, but your partner—then your partner is most likely developing, and you, too, are very likely to be happy and develop. So when you feel that you want happiness, it's very good to want happiness for another person. That's a very powerful rule in life that makes development possible. What is happiness for another person? First, it's your own desire to understand and explore this. What constitutes happiness for the other person in your life? From time to time, I realize I don't know which things bring my wife true happiness. What is true happiness? Ask your partner. Ask them that question. This happened to me recently. I asked Polina, “Polina, what is true happiness for you?”

“What is the happiness that helps your life develop so tremendously?” It's so important. Ask the other person questions. That's number one. The second thing is to understand that any expectations you build around another person are an illusion and manipulation, and will always lead to a problem. You simply have to understand this. I'm not calling on you to stop having expectations; that's how society is, how it's arranged. I don't have expectations myself, but I'm not calling on you to stop having them. I love my wife and live with her without goals or expectations. Yes. But if you want to build a foundation for your relationship, at least look at the expectations you're forming. Just acknowledge them. Have them, but at least acknowledge them. Know: “This is my expectation. I know it may lead to a problem.” Identify it for yourself. Don't hide it from yourself. Of course, it would be wonderful if you could discuss it with your partner. Likewise, recognize that your other half has expectations too. If you have expectations, acknowledge that you have them. The problem is that people in the modern world are so selfish, so possessive, that they don't want to acknowledge that their partner has expectations.

I had a friend who considered cheating on his wife perfectly normal. When I said to him, “Listen, if you think cheating on your wife is okay, then it's okay for her to cheat too,” he said, “No. She can't cheat. I can, but she can't.” What is there to talk about, then? What balance, happiness, well-being, or mutual connection could we even discuss? What personal development could we talk about? A psychiatric hospital. That kind of reasoning belongs in a psychiatric hospital. If you reason like that, at least realize you need to be confined to a psychiatric hospital. If you want a real relationship, there can fundamentally be no betrayal. No betrayal under any circumstances. None at all, including betraying yourself. There can't be.

AVAnna Volchek

What you said about not having expectations also resonates with me. Having expectations is like striving for an ideal: that greatly limits the scope of a relationship. Any ideal, any effort to see your partner as ideal, actually narrows your relationship a great deal, severely limits it, because the perfection of an ideal always imposes a certain limit. You don't see the whole picture, the entire range of relationships you could have. The same goes for expectations. When you set expectations, you very strongly—

AVAlexander Volchek

You're absolutely right.

AVAnna Volchek

—limit the possibilities that could exist. For me, these expectations really echo your material about ideals and their limitations.

AVAlexander Volchek

You're absolutely right about the presence of expectations. But we're talking about how to resolve this now. You're pointing out the problem with expectations: having them limits your relationship. Let's examine a real problem. A man comes to a woman and says, “I married a different person twenty years ago.” Or a woman says to a man, “I married someone I expected to be different.” They are limiting their idea of what's possible for them and what they could have. If someone wants their relationship to stay in the state it was in at the beginning, that person is causing the relationship to deteriorate. Remember: if you say your partner has changed and you don't like it, you are the one strongly holding back the relationship. I'm not talking about changes for the worse, about someone starting to do bad things. But you're confirming that you don't want your relationship to develop. One of the main features of a healthy relationship—continuing our discussion of what makes a relationship healthy—

I've already listed several things, right? Anya, you've approached a very good point: relationships need to develop. That doesn't mean two people have to read intellectual books. It doesn't mean two people have to meditate together. It means understanding, in general, that relationships change. They simply change. That's life, our whole life. We're constantly changing. There is no constant; life is constantly changing. There are timeless constants you can enter through spiritual life and perception, but that's something completely different. Fundamentally, a person is constantly changing, and of course relationships have to change. They have to change; they have to develop. The question is whether they're developing in the positive sense of the word or deteriorating, because there is development that amounts to deterioration. But relationships have to develop; they have to change. We should strive for relationships to change in a good way. The desire to change is presented as an illusion in modern society. Look, everyone around us tells us we must change, keep learning, keep doing things, and so on. Yet when problems arise, a person says, “You've changed. That's why everything went wrong between us.”

So should we change or shouldn't we? Should we develop or shouldn't we? Fundament—

Or shouldn't we develop? The fundamental point is how people develop. Are they really developing together, or are they deteriorating? Someone who says, “We'll develop together by going to a swingers' party,” or says, “We'll develop together by adding some harmful influences, taking drugs together so we can have good sex,” or says, “We'll develop together by going away and taking ayahuasca together. We'll do it together because we're going to develop”—that person wants their relationship to deteriorate. First, they want themselves to deteriorate; but never mind that—the relationship deteriorates. Perhaps the relationship will even develop in the short term, but you yourselves will deteriorate. And because you yourselves deteriorate, your relationship will also deteriorate over the longer term. So many problems arise in relationships because, at the beginning, someone does things for the other person to avoid losing the relationship. They end up deteriorating while the relationship supposedly develops; then the other partner deteriorates too. You drink alcohol for a year, or spend a year supporting the other person's behavior. For example, a man comes home, doesn't say hello, and says, “I'm tired, so I'm not going to say hello.”

“I'm having a hard time, damn it. I'm earning the money. You have to do what I say.” The woman thinks, “I don't want to lose him now. Perhaps everything will change in the future.” The relationship is kept going; you yourself deteriorate, and you allow him to deteriorate. Right now, at this moment, the relationship grows stronger. It really can even grow stronger, with no apparent problems arising. But in the future, there will always be a gulf in situations like this. It's important to remember that.