All relationships — especially the ones near and dear to you — take work. But many of us get so wrapped up in our inner worlds and busy lives that we neglect everyone from our partners to our close friends.

According to Christina Steinorth, MFT, a psychotherapist and author of Cue Cards for Life: Thoughtful Tips for Better Relationships, “Relationships don’t magically take care of themselves — as with most living organisms, they need nurturing.”

Throughout the years, in her private practice, Steinorth has seen the same problems plague all relationships. She identified poor communication and poor conflict resolution skills as the most common concerns.

In fact, she called poor conflict resolution skills “the kiss of death,” for even the best relationships. “If you assassinate your partner’s character every time you have an argument and hold grudges from one argument to the next, I can pretty much promise you that your relationship will end up a sad state of affairs.”

And these skills are just as relevant and essential for your family, friends, boss and co-workers. Below, Steinorth offered 10 pointers for improving any relationship.

The best way to ensure a healthy marriage — or relationship — is to make sure you regularly trade back rubs.

Not necessarily the physical kind — though those are great to give and receive too.

No, what I’m talking about creates the foundation for a healthy, growing relationship. Because if your relationship isn’t growing, it’s stagnating or worse — declining. Relationships — like anything you want to succeed in life — need constant attention and care. Fail to attend to them regularly, and they may whither and die.

Each letter in the acronym BACK RUB stands for something vital to a good relationship. Click through to see what they are.

Lately, I’ve been honing in on the notion that you can’t expect others to save you, you have to save yourself. First.

I tend to think that sometimes people walk into relationships that ultimately fill a void. They look to the other person to give them something that they cannot give to themselves, such as a sense of security.

Sometimes we don’t even realize that we may be in the middle of acquiring a safety net. The realization that someone else is doing the saving may be romanticized (think about the enchantment of being “rescued”). But if you don’t do the work and confront yourself what needs to be confronted, you’ll never really be able to learn those lessons and move forward.

This “saving mindset” was demonstrated in one of the more recent episodes of the HBO series “Girls.”

This guest article from YourTango was written by Kelly P. Crossing.

We’ve all heard the same stories about divorce: the parent who does his best to badmouth his ex, the parent who tries to keep the kids away from the ex as some sort of punishment, the parent who manipulates child support payments. These things do happen and plenty of children are harmed because of these and other divorce-related mistakes.

On the other hand, many parents do divorce right. Lots of parents understand that divorce is terribly hard on their children. These parents try to minimize the trauma every step of the way.

Here are five divorce techniques parents get right…

This guest article from YourTango was written by Dr. Karen Sherman.

In an article on Time.com, divorced couples offer lessons about what it takes to sustain a solid marriage. Relationships are tough; they require a whole lot more than love to make them succeed.

The divorced couples in the article suggest learning how to manage conflict, which is important because a leading researcher showed that with 85 percent accuracy, he could predict within 15 minutes which couples would divorce, simply by watching how they handled conflicts.

Fortunately, you can learn from these divorcées’ mistakes and learn to manage conflict in your relationship or marriage. Here’s how.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Dr. Tina Schermer-Sellers.

The fire of love is a fragile and fickle flame. I often hear stories of people leaving good relationships because they have developed deep connections outside the marriage. So, how can you keep your marriage intact?

There are four, cultural elements causing marriage and love to be more fragile in these modern times. They are:

1. We marry for love.

We have been doing this for less than 100 years. Up until recent history, we married because of family loyalties, property, status, religious mandates and social tradition.

Love is a fragile thing … it needs lots of TLC! If love is ignored, the bond in the relationship will weaken. Inside this weakness dissention, criticism and distance grows. Love is like a small flame; it needs lots of consistent time and attention to stay strong!

We know you were just assaulted with all those Valentine’s Day articles. We’re sorry about that.

But it’s important to consider that “true love” is not just a theory or a figment of a writer’s imagination.

Nor is it just the fictionalized stuff of romantic comedies. It can occur in day-to-day reality, too.

Below are 14 ways to help make it happen. You may be surprised to learn that true love is not only attainable — it may be closer than you think.

This guest article from YourTango was written by Mary Jo Rapini.

February is heart awareness month, so this study in the European Society of Cardiology caught my eye. It says that being unmarried increases the risk of fatal and non-fatal heart attacks in both men and women regardless of age.

Researchers also note that being married, especially among middle-aged couples, is associated with better prognosis of acute cardiac events before hospitalization and after reaching the hospital alive. Even when the couple is unmarried but co-habitating, there is a better prognosis after coronary events before and after hospitalization.

How can you gain these kinds of benefits from marriage?

What is true love? It’s a question that’s been contemplated by everyone from authors to artists to philosophers to clinicians.

And it’s one that naturally brings up another key query: How do we make love last?

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we asked relationship experts to share their definitions of true love and provide practical tips for prolonging it.

What True Love Isn’t

Many think of love as a feeling. And in some ways it is. According to Mark E. Sharp, Ph.D, a psychologist in private practice who specializes in relationship issues, “the experience of being ‘in love’ is primarily a feeling,” which begins with a powerful attraction and sexual desire.

But these initial intense feelings fade over time, he said. What’s left are “feelings of connection and affection,” if the couple works to sustain them.

We’re all too familiar with the adage, “Money can’t buy happiness.” But according to author Laura Vanderkam, in her empowering and thoughtful book All The Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending, “If money can’t buy happiness, perhaps we aren’t spending it right.”

Vanderkam encourages us to rethink how we view money.

Rather than money being “evil or soulless” or a point of comparison, she suggests we start seeing it as a tool for “acquiring, doing, and taking care of things that bring us joy.”

Let’s find out how.

Moving from casual dating to a serious relationship to the final stage — getting married — is a gradual process for most people. Unlike the whirlwind marriages we read about in romance novels, for most couples it’s not a decision made quickly or lightly. Nor should it be — if one is serious about making a marriage last.

But dating someone — even being engaged to them — is a lot different than marriage itself. Suddenly you’re not just sharing your lives together in the most intimate manner possible, you’re also sharing a lot of other things you may not have counted on.

So before you tie the knot, you may find it helpful to ask these five questions.

Whether you can be friends with an ex tends to be determined by the two people once involved in the relationship. But as with anything else, there are some expert opinions on the matter.

Susan J. Elliot, author, relationship coach, counselor and speaker/ presenter, wrote an article on the subject that was featured last year on the Huffington Post. Elliot stresses that even after an amicable breakup, it’s extremely difficult to be friends, at least initially. The bond of the couple needs to break and sifting through the emotional aftermath takes time in order to efficiently heal.

“Each needs to deal with the breakup in their own way, apart from the scrutiny of the person they just broke up with,” she said.

“Most people cannot remain friends after a breakup, but if it will ever be, it will be later — much later. The atmosphere immediately following a breakup is too emotionally charged for it to happen right away, if at all.”