Making it Last

In honor of Valentines Day I wanted to post some articles that I ran across recently that explore the qualities and strategies for making a relationship last. (Of course, I wanted to post it BEFORE Valentine's Day, but you know how it goes, right?) You can find them here:

Wall Street Journal

Real Simple Magazine

I think we all know it takes work to maintain positive relationships and this is just about the most important work we do. As the first article says, it is really easy to understand why relationships fail, but harder to understand why they could ever work.
What do you think is a valuable quality or strategy for cultivating a long-lasting positive relationship? It doesn't have to be specific to marriage. Many of the same qualities and strategies are required for any kind of loving relationship.
Of course, the list is long, but one thing I think is important is to keep your cool when you are upset and to never deliberately say anything hurtful.
What do you think is important? Let's see if we can make a good list and then I'm going to pick one that I know I could improve upon and then work on it over the next little while. Will you join me?