7 Commitments Happy Couples Make Any Time Their Relationship Hits The Rocks
Some promises stick while others fade away every time.
Nemanja Novakovic via Shutterstock While many people make relationship resolutions on an anniversary or at the beginning of the year, the truth is that most calendar-oriented resolutions won't stick. When people are truly ready for a better marriage or relationship, they make a commitment the type of goals that actually work rather than messing around with resolutions that are meaningless in everyday life.
While data on the effectiveness of annual resolutions isn't hopeful, information about what types of goals help people succeed is prevalent. The consensus in research? That commiting to do something works better than commiting not to do something!
As Dr. Marina Milyavskaya, a researcher into goal-setting told Outside Magazine in 2021, "A goal that is specific, measurable, realistic, and personally meaningful can help us keep on track and change (or maintain) our behaviors." So forget the resolutions or empty promises and commit to actionable goals!
1. They commit to addressing their own unconscious behaviors
Rather than resolving to lose extra pounds, stop smoking, or stop using substances, why not make an intention to do your best every day? Your best on one day may be trying to stop eating excessive carbs or it may be attending a recovery group.
Unconscious behaviors, like unhealthy coping mechanisms and maladaptive behaviors, eventually eat away at everything you love the most. Your ability to achieve goals and to be open and loving is compromised by your compulsive behaviors.
Anyone who has been through recovery will tell you that the daily intention to stop is the key to success. “Keep coming back” is a saying in 12-step groups that defines this intention. "It works because you work it" is the second part, making the point that there are no magical solutions to your own growth. Not as an individual, and not as a couple.
There are all kinds of organizations out there that will help, and they are all free! They simply require your intention and best effort.
2. They commit to better T.V. and social media consumption
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A little mindless T.V. can help you unwind, and that's totall OK. I use cooking shows and light comedy for this purpose. But many people are hooked by dark, violent, and explicit series which can depress mood and waste valuable time. They can also suck up hours of your evenings, cutting into the sleep that is so essential for our physical and emotional health.
There is a downside and upside to the digital age we live in. On the downside, social media can downgrade your ability to be a loving, compassionate, inspired person.
But the inverse is also true. There's more media available than ever to help you feel better about yourself, achieve your goals, and help you be a more loving and compassionate person.
Try searching for podcasts or series that inspire you. I like podcasts about emotional intelligence and healthy relationships. Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations is one of my favorites. They don't all have to be stuffy. You can relax and enjoy topics related to your favorite hobbies or sink into deep conversations between people doing hard work to be happier and healthier, like Neal Brennan's Blocks podcast, where comedians and actors talk about their emotional blocks and how they got past them.
If you are religious, there are thousands of sermons online that can be a source of inspiration for many of you, too! And read books! I love digital books. You don't even need a Kindle reader, you can download to read on your phone or tablet. Many people love audio books, too.
So there is really no excuse not to consume amazingly helpful media. What will help you be a better "you" that you enjoy on your own, and what can you enjoy together that will help you be happier, healthier and more connected in your relationship?
3. They recommit to practicing gratitude meditations
There are lots of different ways to practice meditation. In his book Mindsight, Dr. Dan Siegel does a great job describing how mindful meditation has a positive impact on the brain and body. And what's good for you is good for your relationship.
The basic practice has to do with learning how to let go of thoughts and allow yourself to simply feel what you are feeling without judgment. This breaks habitual thought patterns that are often critical of self and other. It also allows emotions to surface that we don't normally feel because cluttered thinking keeps them buried in the unconscious.
An expert on self-compassion, author and researcher Dr. Kristin Neff gives mindfulness meditation a focus in what she calls the practice of loving kindness. This involves focusing your thinking and emotions on sending loving kindness to the people you care about. You can also practice loving kindness for yourself. This will eventually rewire your brain and replace your negative thoughts and emotions.
Taking time to practice gratitude on a daily basis can be incredibly transforming. Human beings have a problem with unhealthy comparison and competition. Making the choice to be grateful is the best antidote.
Another way to practice gratitude is to write gratitude letters to people who have been kind to you or inspired you. A study conducted at U.C. Berkeley found that subjects who wrote these letters had significantly better mental health in 12 weeks. Berkeley’s Greater Good Center is packed full of resources for practicing gratitude and for making positive changes.
4. They commit to making their partner their 'primary' again
Unless someone tells me differently, I came up with this term. The concept comes from attachment theory, which was originated, by Dr. John Bowlby and expanded upon by Dr. Mary Ainsworth. These researchers found that infants form a primary attachment with one caretaker who they look at as a lifeline for emotional and physical support. When this primary attachment is insecure it often causes relationship problems later in life.
Researchers Shaver and Hazan found that adults also pair bond in lifetime relationships and have secure and insecure attachment styles. The book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, talks about how secure and insecure attachment styles affect adult love relationships.
The bottom line is that we must make our primary adult love relationship primary in order to keep the relationship emotionally secure. Jealousy related to your partner’s affection is a strong survival instinct.
When you bond with another person as adults you regulate each other’s emotions, immune systems, pain and fear thresholds. You depend on each other financially and often share a sacred relationship with your children.
You make your primary relationship primary by letting your partner know that he or she comes first in everything — before other friendships, family members, job commitments and yes, even the children. Taking inventory every day about whether you are making your primary relationship primary is about protecting and growing your most valuable asset.
5. They re-commit to spend one-on-one time together
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Okay, taking time for a relationship is clearly one of the best daily goals your relationship get better. Problems develop when couples do not take time to connect and be intimate. So often they wait until the relationship is on the verge of death to come in for therapy.
What I've observed is that couples will spend thousands of dollars on therapy, but it's like pulling teeth to get many of them to even spend fifteen minutes a day connecting with each other. See, love takes time and communication is complex. True physical intimacy is an artform that requires a couple's own special recipe of holding each other to create enough warmth to light the fire.
Established love takes intentionality. Gone are the new-love days of making out for hours or spending days in bed. You just don’t maintain the same neurochemistry in mature love relationships.
Mature love takes time. Time to make decisions, to hear each other’s thoughts and emotions. It takes time to work through disagreements, for recreation and time to stay connected with extended family and friends, and of course children.
6. They set an updated intention for their relationship
After going through the incredible pain of a twenty-five-year marriage failure, I wanted to get it right in my current relationship. So Paula and I started out early defining our relationship's mission and vision. We had the whiteboard covered with color-coded bullet points, arrows, symbols, and all sorts of craziness that would seem indecipherable to even us today. It was great fun and very helpful.
Our hours of white boarding resulted in Paula quitting her job in accounting to administrate my couples' therapy practice, write a book together, and produce relationship education content. All part of our mission and vision to help couples prevent the problems we had in our earlier marriages.
We have been together for ten years and are pretty much on track with the overall intentions we set early in our relationship. That doesn't mean that we aren't continually checking in with each other and asking hard questions about keeping the relationship on course. So setting your intention for your career goals is one thing. It is also important to set goals for how you want to recreate, connect with others, grow your spiritual life, and raise your children.
It is helpful to set your intention about how much stress you want to have in your life. What do you want your day-to-day relationship to feel like? What is on your bucket list for travel and life experiences?
How much time and money do you want to devote to helping others? What would that look like?
This one can be a lot of fun, but it doesn’t just "happen". You must take time to talk and dream together, then include these things in your list of goals and commitments.
7. They commit to being spiritually centered however is meaningful to them
Staying spiritually centered is about understanding who you are and why you are on the Earth. It is about getting in touch with your "true self". Many writers throughout the ages have learned how to find a source of love inside of them that exceeds the love they can produce by their own effort.
Being spiritually centered requires reading about the lives of the great examples of divine love and practicing what you learn from them. Taking the time to meditate, pray, reflect, and to find the light of love in others as well as in creation, are all part of becoming spiritually centered.
It begins by knowing and living in the reality of the presence of divine love. Your true self will come forward when you can experience who you are as a human being with a spiritual center.
Setting intention about this requires taking time to read sacred texts. Try connecting with people who can serve as mentors and spiritual guides.
How to make your commitments more goal-oriented
In his book Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts — Becoming the Person You Want to Be, American leadership coach and author Marshall Goldsmith says the following:
“We are superior planners and inferior doers. We make plans, set goals and fail to achieve them. If we hope to achieve the plans we make, we need structure. We do not get better without structure.”
Goldsmith is known as one of the world’s most effective executive coaches. He has done coaching and goal setting with fortune 500 business leaders like Alan Mulally, former president and CEO of Ford Motor Company, Jim Yong Kim, twelfth President of the World Bank, and Aicha Evans, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Intel.
Goldsmith suggests asking yourself active questions on a daily basis:
- They can start with: “Did I try my best today to (fill in the blank)?"
- When you set an intention to do your best every day, you make progress.
Within the exercise you should both track your answers and decide who it is that will hold you accountable.
According to Goldsmith, this simple exercise always works when practiced daily. The problem is that few people continue without assigning accountability.
If you're involved in a supportive, healthy relationship or marriage, you may want to ask the person you love to be your accountability partner. Emotional honesty strengthens bonds in loving relationships. If you can take the risk of being vulnerable and doing this exercise on a daily basis with your partner, it will help you achieve your goals as individuals while drawing you closer together as a couple.
Goldsmith emphasizes the fact that this exercise only works when you state your intention on a daily basis. What's most important here is the sincerity of your intention, rather than the specific outcome. It may take weeks or months to get to a desired outcome, and both you and your partner should be careful not to judge each other harshly if an outcome is never achieved.
Judgment causes shame, which damages self-esteem and our ability to make progress.
If you feel judged by your partner, it will harm rather than help your relationship. The accountability partner’s job is simply to listen and be supportive of the partner undertaking this exercise.
Michael W. Regier, Ph.D. is a Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist who works with individuals and couples. He and his wife Paula are authors of the book Emotional Connection: The Story & Science of Preventing Conflict & Creating Lifetime Love.
