Keeping Love Alive

4 tips to help you keep your relationship loving and emotionally fulfilling.

My mother once told me that the secret to a good marriage is when both partners put the wellbeing of their spouse above their own needs. This arrangement only works if both parties feel the same way. Otherwise, one partner will subordinate themselves to the needs of the other and that wouldn’t be good or equal.

However, there is a lot in this advice that does work and will help to enhance your romantic relationships over the long haul that is marriage.

•      Focus on your spouse not yourself. It is very easy to get stuck inside our own heads. What we are worried about or dealing with. It is therefore very easy to forget that our spouse has their own issues and concerns and problems that they are dealing with. By remembering to focus on your spouse, you actively become a helper to them instead of just a taker. You know you like it when your spouse pays attention to you in a really deep way, so do the same for them. This will bring you closer and give you both an appreciation for who the other person is and why you married them in the first place.

•   It’s the little things. I knew my husband loved me when we were dating and he was so concerned about me being sick that he offered to come over and clean my litter boxes for me. He didn’t want me breathing in kitty litter dust when I was fighting a respiratory infection. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you need a grand gesture of love to feel appreciated. Pay attention to the little ways your spouse watches out for your wellbeing. That is how true love is shown. Do the same for them. Make sure to do one little thing a day that shows your spouse that you care.

• Touch. Love is also shown through touch. How often do you hold your spouse’s hand? How often do you hug them just because? Life gets busy and can get in the way of affectionate touch. Taking care of children, doing chores, they all take time and leave us with few opportunities to touch each other affectionately. As a result, many couples only end up only touching each other sexually. And while that is important, it doesn’t necessarily contribute to feelings of love. Make sure to touch your spouse lovingly every day. You will be glad you did. Touch binds us together. Don’t neglect that part of your relationship.

• Celebrate your spouse. It is very easy to take our spouses for granted. After all, there are there all the time and their good qualities are why we married them. It is their annoying habits that bother us. The best way to get your spouse to give you more of their best and less of their worst is to celebrate what they do that is good. Thank them for their good behavior and they will do more of it. Yes, this is like training an animal, but you know what – we are animals. You respond the same way. Use this knowledge this power for good and celebrate your spouse’s good qualities will help your love thrive.

 What are ways you keep the love alive in your relationship? 

Being Reasonable About Love

Being realistic and rational about love doesn’t diminish the intense emotional experience that it love. It simply enhances it and makes it better. Unless of course, you love a complete jerk, in which case being rational will help you find someone better. 

Valentine’s Day is this week. This is a rather stressful holiday for many people. It shouldn’t be like that. Love is supposed to be a wonderfully blissful emotion. Except that it isn’t. It’s intense and it can come with all sorts of other emotions that may or may not make for a blissful happy life.

I am a Humanist so I take a rational and realistic approach to love and I am better for it. I am currently in a wonderful relationship (marriage) with a wonderful man. To get here, I had to be rational about love.  I realize this may seem counter intuitive, because most people want to be swept away by love.

Let me explain WHY being rational helped me to find the happiness of love and avoid the heartaches. At one point in my life I fell in love with a very sick man. The relationship was incredibly toxic to me. It was only by being rational (and seeking some professional assistance in the form of a therapist and a restraining order) that I was able to exit that relationship and find another that was healthier for me.

If you want a good relationship which will contribute to your overall wellbeing, you need to find someone who you can not only love, but who will be good for you as well. To do that you need to be rational and realistic about what constitutes a good relationship. Relationships aren’t just about emotions, though those are important. They are also practical partnerships and you need someone who is willing and able to be responsible for their part of the partnership.

Love is the emotion that makes me want to be responsible to my relationships. My reason and rationality is what helps me to actually be responsible. Reason and rationality also helped me choose the right person to commit to so that I had a good partner I can trust. This allows me to enjoy all the blessings of the amazing emotion that is love without the heartache that so often accompanies it.

I don’t see love and reason as incompatible. I see them as combining to enhance what is good in my life. Do you have a story about love and reason? Please share!