Things You Should Never Have To Compromise For A Relationship:

1. Family ties.

Barring a terrible or offensive incident between your family and your significant other, everyone should be able to (at the very least) attempt to get along once or twice a year. You deserve your partner’s best effort when it comes to your family. While not all future in-laws are a treat, when you love someone it’s incredibly unfair to essentially say you dislike where they came from.

2. Friendships

You don’t want to compromise friendships for the sake of your relationships because your friends (among other things) are your best safety net. You can’t choose your friends over your relationship because where does that leave you when your relationship gets rocky? Who will you have to turn to if you ignored them when you got into a relationship?

3. Your confidence

Dating someone who makes you feel less than, and ignores what you have to offer, is never okay. The person you’re with should help your confidence show through and boost you in front of friends and family, as opposed to putting you down or undermining you. If you’re allowing someone to question how you act, or the way you are, you’re setting the precedent that it’s okay for them to do that in the relationship.

4. Your career

Everyone falls into a separate opinion category on this. Personally, I’ve always been taught to put your career first and that stuck with me, but I also know a lot of couples who have had to make adjustments to their career in order to accommodate their relationship. It’s acceptable to make small adjustments to mutually benefit a relationship, as long as they aren’t hindering your career in a big way. It’s not okay to throw your career goals out the window and follow someone else around as they pursue their dreams.

5. Your comfort level

A strong relationship should provide comfort to your life in a way that nothing else does. You should be with the person that you most look forward to going home to at the end of the day, the person that makes you feel most at ease. If your partner puts you on edge more than they provide comfort, that’s risky. You should never be made to feel like you’re intruding on their life.

Things It’s Okay To Compromise On:

1. How often you see family and friends

A significant other cannot mandate that you need to drive a friend or family member out of your life completely. However, they can, in a constructive way, say that they prefer to see a certain person a little less. As long as they’re supportive of you continuing to see that person without them around, and they are cordial to the people they dislike when they come over, you can both reach a compromise.

2. How often you have sex

Some people are once a day types and others prefer twice a week, so this is bound to come up in your relationship once you’ve settled into a comfortable routine. That will mean meeting halfway on both your ends, even if it throws you a little outside your comfort zone.

3. When to move in together

When this comes up, one person will be completely for it based on the fact that it can be a huge money saver, but the other can pull back because (even if you spend every night together) it’s a huge step. Deciding when you will both be ready, without putting it off for too long, can be confusing because you don’t want to take a step you aren’t ready for. At the same time, if you keep avoiding it, it will seem like you’re not interested in taking that next step at all. Making sure there is 100% open communication on this subject is key.

4. What you should be spending money on as a couple

Even if you don’t have a joint bank account, when you’re spending everyday together, you’re splitting grocery costs and balancing going out to dinner and meeting friends for drinks. If one of you is set on being extravagant while the other is trying to save money, it’s going to cause problems sooner rather than later. The two of you can figure out a strategy that keeps both of you comfortable and ensures no one is hyperventilating about money.

5. Unrealistic expectations

Standard realistic expectations should of course be respected, but everyone has to taper their unrealistic expectations at some point. You cannot sit seething about something your partner didn’t do because they didn’t realize that it was expected of them. You can’t hold your partner accountable for something you never actually verbalized.