Having been divorced myself and gone through countless number of relationships that have not worked, I definitely know what mistakes to avoid to make the relationship work.

1. You ignore issues as a couple. This is probably the worst thing you can do. Sticking your head in the sand around the issues you may have in your relationship is not the way to go.

The unexpressed feelings will slowly but surely start eating away at you, and over a period of time, what looked like small annoyances will transform into massive resentments. (And then before you know it, you’re hating your partner because you cannot put up with anything anymore.) Instead, deal with the issues as they come up. Just like when you clean your home, if you keep dusting away the cobwebs, you will create a consistently clean environment.

2. You don’t work on the relationship. Somehow, we seem to think intimate relationships will run on their own fuel without putting much effort into them. This is simply not true! A relationship needs work — just as a car needs fine-tuning.

At the very least, understand how relationships work; and at the very most, work on yourself and what you bring to the relationship. Healthy and fulfilling relationships happen from the inside out.

3. You don’t learn how to effectively communicate. As I’ve already mentioned, good communication is one of the cornerstones of creating a fulfilling relationship. However, there’s a right way to fight and a wrong way to fight. Resorting to “blame and shame” tactics will destroy any trust you’ve built and while it’s a normal defense mechanism, all it does is result in the attacked spouse shutting down. Learn to communicate clearly, listen intently and give yourself the time and space to do so safely. If not, divorce will be imminent.

4. You don’t spend enough time together. One of the other cornerstones to any successful relationship is giving yourself the time to connect with one another. If you are not giving yourself the time to do this, then you will feel disconnected and distant. The ironic thing is that the one thing that would fuel their relationships is the one thing that is not given — time.

Go for walks together, put time in the diary for a date together, go away without mobile phones together. Talk, laugh and above all, create memories if you want to avoid going down the rocky road of divorce.

5. You don’t delegate jobs. Living with another person can drive us insane. Messy people end up marrying neat people and unhealthy people marry healthy people. Whatever the scenario, there are going to be guaranteed differences in how two people live. What ends up happening is one person in a relationship feels resentful over the fact that they had to carry the load in their relationship.