What is the key to Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness long- term marriage?

According to twentytwowords.com, Hugh said “You love each other — and respect each other. You truly want to be together.”
Respect and caring are so important in determining who will stay together. Respect and caring create what I call mutuality in the relationship. Mutuality means that love, respect and caring are felt equally by both partners, and shown equally by both partners.

Mutual love means you can feel secure that you both love and are loved equally, and are approximately equal in your energy for staying together. There are four major areas of mutuality that must be present if a relationship is to succeed and grow: love, benefit, trust and support.

• Mutual Love: Love is the constantly renewing energy that keeps a commitment alive. When both partners feel loved, and both feel appreciated for being loving, commitment can thrive.

• Mutual trust: As promises are kept and feelings respected, trust in each other grows. In order for equality to exist, both partners must experience roughly the same degree of trust.

• Mutual Benefit: The benefit we gain is based on what each person knows he or she will get out of the relationship, and how each person is enhanced by being in the relationship. While each partner may perceive different benefits to differing degrees, and may value certain benefits differently, the sum total of the relationship must feel similarly beneficial to both partners; if not, unequal power results, and resentment will develop.

• Mutual Support: Although relationships can involve a certain amount of stress, when we feel committed, we feel willing to face the difficulties and the challenges of working things out. Implicit in a loving relationship is the understanding that you and your partner will support each other—emotionally, financially, mentally, spiritually, verbally—to the best of your ability, through both good times and bad.

When the above four conditions exist, the mutuality necessary for true love exists. Recognizing this is especially important if you have past relationship experience in which your needs have not been met, you felt unloved, or you were abandoned. Evaluating your mutuality is also a good way to discover whether you are ready to commit to a relationship, or need more time to build. If you're paying attention to whether you and your partner both feel love, trust, benefit, and support, your intuition will probably be a reliable indicator of whether mutuality truly exists. Most people report that they are aware when their relationships feel unfair and unequal.

If the love between you does not feel mutual, try talking about it. You may find your partner is showing love in ways you don’t understand.

For low-cost counseling, email me at tina@tinatessina.com