These 3 Habits Have Been Proven To Fully Protect Your Relationship As You Age
Hector Reyes | Unsplash Our idealistic view of relationships is based on what is often projected in romantic comedies or attractive social media pictures. This view implies that in the best relationships, partners are happy, loving, and attuned to each other the majority of the time. This assumption is false.
In reality, couples in healthy relationships experience attunement about one-third of the time. The rest of the time, partners are in the process of rupturing their relationship and then repairing their mistakes. You may find it helpful to view your relationship as moving through an ever-evolving process of attunement, misattunement, and re-attunement.
If you are in a committed relationship, it's time to become an expert at making repairs. As couples age and life gets fuller, staying connected takes more than love or good intentions; it comes down to a few habits that act as a buffer against resentment and emotional distance.
These 3 habits have been proven to fully protect your relationship as you age:
1. Talking face-to-face
The eyes are part of our brain, and because our brain needs to register the repair, being face-to-face with your partner engages the re-attunement phase. Our brains are caught up in determining if the person sitting in front of us is a friend or foe.
When you repair in a genuinely loving manner, you are sending a message to your partner’s brain that you are friendly and on the same team. When this message registers with your partner, their nervous system relaxes, and the door is open to resuming the loving connection between you.
Research shows that when you talk face-to-face with your partner, you're way more likely to feel satisfied with your relationship than if you're texting or calling. When couples make quick repair attempts with eye contact and gentle tones, their bodies actually calm down, and their brains start accessing empathy again.
2. Spending quiality time together
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Dr. John Gottman, renowned American psychologist and author of Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, explains that when couples invest time in creating a solid foundation in their relationship, it is easier to weather the storms that arise.
If you are understanding of each other and spend time doing nice things for one another, making repairs, and getting back into attunement happen readily. But if you treat your partner harshly, ignore them, or disrespect them, then your repair attempts will fail.
3. Admitting you're human
Being humble by admitting you are human — and therefore capable of making mistakes — will endear you to your partner. Being open to making repairs as ruptures occur will keep your relationship on track. And continuing to invest in treating your partner well will reduce those blunders to small blips on your relationship screen.
Research shows that when you're willing to admit you might be wrong, you tend to feel more satisfied and in love with your partner. When you can humbly own up to your mistakes during arguments, it actually helps you repair the relationship faster and understand each other on a deeper level.
Dr. Beth O’Brien is a licensed psychologist who specializes in couples counseling and has helped countless couples create healthy, secure marriages.
