I believe that all human beings are different and make different relationships. In fact, I may have had X love relationships and in each one of them I felt that the dynamic was different. So I believe there are no formulas, no single, effective recipe that helps us build a relationship the way you can build a chocolate cake: by following instructions. But there are constants that are repeated if we want a relationship to work and last, ingredients that will make love to maintain and grow as flowers grow.

I would say that the first ingredient is communication. I'm going to try to sort out what I want to say on this point, because there's a lot that comes to my mind about this.

Maybe you don't want to talk a lot or you are an introverted person, but if it's about couple issues, you have to talk: I don't like this, I prefer this, I feel this way, I didn't believe, I'm sorry. People understand each other by talking. Silence leaves room for assumptions and in a love relationship assumptions are not good. Communication is the basis on which the relationship is built (that's how important it is) and it is what will allow us, in principle, to get to know the other person.

I have read that men communicate less than women and that they are less willing to talk about relationship problems; also that when we love there is room for silence. Let's stop romanticizing silence. Silence, in a couple, can become one of the biggest noises. It is good that I have a partner with whom I can communicate with my eyes, but if we have not reached that level of relationship, let us use words or gestures, which say twice as much.

Another ingredient is reciprocity. It is false that the one who loves does not expect anything in return. The one who loves needs to be loved. A couple relationship is a constant give and take. When I love I give affection, understanding, attention and I expect, in equal measure, what I give. Certainly we do not go with a meter or a measuring cup, seeing the amount of love we receive from the other, but we do expect and value the gestures of love that are offered to us.

How about adding a super important ingredient to the couple: “dedicating time to each other”. I believe and defend that a couple are two individuals and as such they are two worlds. Each one has their own world, their own time, their own space and that is respected; but they are also a couple, so there should be a time, a place for the couple. In the course of the day, no matter how much work we have, there should be a time to be as a couple. It is necessary that this time is not an obligation, but a need to be with each other, to talk (again the word communication), to laugh, to eat, to have a drink, to caress each other.

Regarding the latter, let's add the sweetest of ingredients: sexuality. For a loving relationship to work, there must be carnal desire between the couple. Maybe that passion is not the one at the beginning, an erupting volcano that sweeps away everything; but it can be that chimney, that flame that warms up in the coldest days. The idea is not to have sex every day (if you can do it, perfect), but to caress, to kiss, to spank, to pinch, to see how your skin still responds, after so long, to the other. I believe that one of the advantages of having had a partner for many years is to know the other person (to know what he/she likes, what he/she doesn't like, what he/she prefers). The knowledge of the other, instructs. So, under this precept, let's play daily the keys of that body so that it does not go “out of tune” and produces the most beautiful of melodies.

The penultimate ingredient is respect and admiration. When we admire and respect, we do not necessarily love, but always, when there is love there must be admiration and respect. I could be a friend of a chavista, for example, but I could not be his partner, because to love requires to be pleased with the things the other does, to share, if possible, that vision that the other has of the world that surrounds him; to respect the work, to admire him not only for what he says, but also for what he does.

No one is obliged to love another, but since we do, let's do it in the most beautiful way, I once read somewhere and I couldn't agree more. If we dare to give and feel one of the most beautiful feelings in the world, then let's love with everything: with our arms, with our skin, with our eyes.

Here is my last piece of advice: We must give 100% in a relationship. Not 50, not 70: 100%. For a relationship to work, the interested parties must bet everything on that relationship. In an era in which everything tends to be ephemeral and disposable, by betting everything we have on a relationship, it “forces” us to build, to review, to work so that the relationship does not fail and if it fails, there is the possibility, we have already given 100% of ourselves and we will not be left with the regret or the doubt of what would have happened if we had given more, because we gave it all.