Relationship Goals: 10 Tips for Keeping Your Love Alive
Keeping your love alive will help you achieve your relationship goals - so check out these tips to help you build a strong, committed relationship! These suggestions will help you fall in love with your husband (or wife).
“Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. That is what makes a marriage last –more than passion or even sex,” said Simone Signoret.
The stronger your threads are, the better your marriage will be. These tips for keeping your love alive will help you achieve your relationship goals…
Relationship Goals: 10 Tips for Keeping Your Love Alive
1. Untangle money issues. “Often, when couples argue about money, it’s not money that’s the problem,” says William Harley, PhD, author of His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-proof Marriage. “Instead, the money fights are a byproduct of relationship neglect.” Money can become a weapon when one spouse uses the other’s spending habits as ammunition or when a spouse spends money to get even. To achieve your relationship goals and keep your love alive, figure out exactly what you’re arguing about!
2. Take risks together. Trying new things together, such as sky diving or learning about astronomy, unites you as a couple. Psychology professor Leaf Van Boven from the University of Colorado explains that happiness is found in what you do (not what you buy) because experiences are open to positive reinterpretations, become a meaningful part of your identity, and contribute to a successful relationship.
3. Get angry! Expressing anger and resolving conflict not only creates a happy marriage and keeps your love alive, it also lengthens your life span. “When couples get together, one of their main jobs is reconciliation about conflict,” says Ernest Harburg, researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan . “Usually nobody is trained to do this.” His research reveals that couples who suppress anger are twice as likely to face early death as those who express it.
Marriage and family counselor Lisa Brookes Kift offers these tips for keeping your love alive:
4. Commit to checking in with each other every day - or at least a few times a week without distractions. Marriages often get “dry” when couples get busy and don’t prioritize each other and get a read or take the pulse of how the other is feeling. This tip for keeping your love alive and achieving your relationship goals will help you stay committed.
5. Crack each other up - stupid pet names, looks they give each other or whatever. Humor has a knack for binding couples together and de-escalating conflict. It also demonstrates friendship in the marriage which is very important.
6. Be mindful of criticism, contempt, stonewalling and defensiveness. If a lot of any or all of these exist in a marriage - research has shown that the chances are much higher for divorce. Criticism and contempt do not keep love alive; in fact, it’ll thwart your relationship goals for good.
Psychologist Bruce Eimer offers these tips for keeping your love alive:
7. Remember the romantic beginnings. When you look at your husband, visualize the person you dated and married. Remember that person is still alive inside of him. The stressors and tribulations of life may have made that inner goodness hard to see.
8. Appreciate your partner. Look at your husband and take a moment to appreciate all of the things that he does for you and gives you. You may in fact want to express your appreciation for him verbally and/or non-verbally. To achieve your relationship goals, tell your husband what you like about him and watch him beam. You’ll beam too!
9. Keep dating. Make one day a week a special day–a day during which to schedule a “goody time” — which will keep your love alive. This can be any shared activity that you both can appreciate (such as a dinner out, going to the movies, etc.).
10. Keep communicating. Research shows that contempt and holding back communication are harbingers of marital trouble and potential failure. So, find things about your spouse to appreciate and respect, and don’t stonewall. To achieve your relationship goals and keep your love alive, talk, touch, and communicate. When communication stops, things are likely to really go down hill from there.
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