Who says being in a committed relationship is hard? Though relationships can be challenging they don’t have to be if we are intentional about how we go about creating our successful relationship. There are some key ingredients that we need to bring to our relationship for it to be gratifying and successful. Research shows that successful couples demonstrate some key ingredients that we’d be remiss not to emulate. And, according to John Gottman, renowned relationship researcher, the opposite is also true. There are key characteristics that when found in a relationship are strong predictors of break-up or divorce.