What's the key to successful relationships? Here Sonny Walia reveals the simple things you need to know to deepen your partnership and make your relationship work.

1. Learn how to argue well. The trick is to never say anything that you wouldn't want to hear said to you. Things can be said in the heat of the moment that we regret for a long time.

2. Research suggests you need five positive experiences to erase the memory of one negative experience. So give five kind words for each bitchy comment. Give five hugs for each cold shoulder.

3. Learn how to negotiate. Each of you states what you want, then both of you work together to find a way forward.

4. Accept the things that won't change. Some characteristics about your partner are there for life - and you have to face that and all attempts at trying to change them will not only be futile but will leave your partner feeling bruised and battered emotionally.

5. Learn to forgive. If you know you will never forgive your partner over something important, then give him - and yourself - a break and start again, with someone else.

6. Realise that the two of you will shift and change over the years. So, even if you think you understand him, or believe you have agreements sorted, check regularly - at least once a year - to make sure that neither of you has changed your mind.

7. Know when to leave. If your life aims are incompatible, there are heavy drugs or violence around, or if there is consistently more pain than pleasure, then walk before the relationship destroys you.

8. Don't think that going to counseling equals failure. It can turn a bad relationship around. It can turn an average relationship into a brilliant one. am an advocate of making the relationship work but sometimes one has to think whether the cost of trying to make a relationship work is too high a price to pay. When it is costing you your health and sometimes your sanity, it is better to leave and start over. But please keep in mind that your next relationship may have exactly the same challenges as you experienced in your past relationship, unless you are willing to give your self time to work on yourself and see where the challenges were... you may be going on a very queezy ride on a de ja vu merry go round.

Resourse: goarticles.com