Is your soul mate feeling more like your "ol' mate"? Has your sizzle fizzled? Find out how to live happily "every other day" after.
Love at first sight is easy. It's love at 1,001st sight that can be very difficult.

Actually, even love at 101st sight can get a bit hairy—about the same time you let the stubble on your legs grow just a little bit, and you walk around without makeup. This is also when your man may fart in bed for the first time and walk around without his metaphysical makeup—when he shows his most authentic face.

Guess what else: This is also an exciting time love-wise because it's when true love blooms—when you both finally show your true human selves.

The Problem? People are sometimes overly human, as my favorite philosopher Aristotle recognized in many of his philosophical passages, including this one: "If a man is a man because he resembles an ideal man, there must still be a more ideal man to whom both ordinary men and the ideal men are similar."

Translation? There is no such thing as an ideal partner. Nobody's perfect. Everyone has a little streak of jerk . You're never going to find perfect, custom-fit love in a world of off-the-rack people. If you want to be part of a perfect couple, you must accept you will be part of an "imperfect couple." You will have ebbs in all your fun-filled flow. You will not always feel 100 percent in love with your partner, 100 percent of the time. And that's okay.

Translation to the translation? True love is what happens when disappointment sets in and disagreements unfold.

In my book Prince Harming Syndrome , I share an interesting finding from John Gottman, founder of The Love Lab. Gottman can predict if a relationship will survive—not based on how well a couple gets along, but by how well they don't get along. He believes a couple is only as strong as their weakest moments and how they handle disappointments and disagreements.

Another interesting love factoid: Gottman also discovered that long-term, happily married couples disagree just as much as couples who divorce. The big difference? Happily married couples accept there will be disagreements. Happily married couples value growing and working through problems—for the sake of being in a long-term, supportive, thriving relationship.

What kind of relationship are you in?

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