The Art Of Staying In Love: 10 Simple Habits Of Couples Whose Love Actually Lasts
Build emotional connection and foster communication.
fizkes | Shutterstock As a couples therapist who focuses on intimacy issues, I’m interested in helping people to feel safe in their relationships and to encourage, build, and support secure bonds. Most couples come to therapy wanting help because they are feeling unsafe emotionally or have experienced some form of betrayal of trust, which has shattered the secure bond between them.
Counseling can help, especially when it comes to figuring out how to communicate effectively. Safety and developing a secure bond in the relationship can be encouraged by building an emotional connection with your partner. That means doing some things differently to improve communication in your relationship.
10 simple habits of couples whose love actually lasts:
1. Identify and name your feelings
The first step to identifying your feelings is to recognize that you are having a feeling. Many people are unable to even recognize that they are feeling anything.
When asked what they are feeling, reply “I don’t know.” If you are human and you are alive, you have feelings, period. So learn how to identify and describe what you are feeling.
2. Share your feelings with your partner
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Once you can identify your feelings, you need to share them with your partner. Your partner wants to know you, and your feelings are part of knowing you.
You can’t share what you don't know. If you don't know your own feelings, then you can't share much of who you are. Learning about your own feelings helps you connect to yourself emotionally, which helps you learn to create an emotional connection.
3. Practice sharing and listening for understanding
This technique helps people share one idea or perception at a time. One person shares their feeling first, then the other person listens for understanding and repeats back what they heard. If they got it right, then switch roles; if not, try again.
4. Spend quality time together
Spend time together where you are present emotionally, physically, and spiritually with each other. Be in the present moment.
Put down your phones, close the computer and talk or play a game. Take a walk, a hike or do a project. Schedule it so you don't forget!
5. Make your partner your go-to person 24/7
Find ways to make your partner feel they are your top priority. Return phone calls promptly. Send positive text messages to each other throughout the day. Be creative.
6. Do what you say you are going to do
If you say you will mow the lawn, mow the lawn. If you don't intend to take out the garbage before work, don't indicate you will do it. In short: Keep your promises.
7. Love all of your partner — warts and all
Don’t point out their weaknesses. Accept your partner in all things, all of their weird little quirks. Remember, you have them too, and you want the same respect from your partner.
8. Build up your partner in words and actions
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Be positive and help your partner to be the best they can be. In turn, they will help you be the best you.
9. Have your partner's back at all times
No throwing them under the bus. Building safety and trust means protecting your partner and making sure you are always standing together through every life circumstance with strength.
10. Protect your relationship from other people
By protecting your relationship from other people — whether it is an in-law or the threat of a flirty coworker — it is up to the two of you to make sure your relationship is strong and secure with each other.
Make sure you address threats to the marriage or relationship and make accommodations that strengthen your relationship above your individual needs.
By serving the marriage, you will learn how to create an emotional connection more stably and satisfyingly.
Teresa Maples-Zuvela, CMAT, CSAT, LMHC, MS, is a licensed mental health counselor who specializes in working with women who have experienced betrayal in intimate relationships.
