Relationship Tips 101

An engaging, secure love relationship can be an ongoing source of support and happiness. Good relationships strengthen all aspects of life: your health, your mind, and your work. However, if the relationship isn't supportive, it can be a tremendous drain. Relationships get better or worse depending on how much or how little we understand and invest in them. These tips can help keep a healthy relationship strong, or repair trust and love in a relationship that has been broken.

 

What you expect from relationships is what you are likely to get

Curiously, how you felt about the people who cared for you as an infant may have shaped your expectations of love. If your caretaker was understanding and caring about what you needed, you trusted them and the emotions you felt for them. But if your caretaker was confused, frightened, or hurt you, your expectations of love may have become colored by these experiences. This relationship with your primary caretaker may also have made you feel uncomfortable with emotions–both your own and other people’s.
Most relationship advice comes from the observation of people who are in either very good relationships or bad relationships. People who want their relationship to be good are given advice such as to fight fair, avoid taking out their problems on their partner, and to expect ups and downs. This is good advice, but it doesn't take into consideration how negative early life experiences  shape many people’s view of love and relationships. To change this view, you need to understand why the experience of feeling loved is so important to your brain and nervous system as well as your heart.
  
Understanding love relationships

Human love has an evolutionary purpose.  When we experience feeling loved our brain and nervous system become more relaxed and efficient and we feel happier and are healthier. Feeling loved is nature's antidote to stress. There is no quicker or more effective way to override too much stress and upset than positive face-to-face communication with someone that makes us feel understood, safe, and valued.
Falling in love is often an experience that seems to just happen to us but preserving the “falling in love” experience takes commitment and effort. Given its rewards, though, it’s well worth the effort.

Tips on Preserving the Falling in Love Experience

• Be willing to invest quality time, energy, and focus in your relationship. This may not be easy given the demands of work, career, parenting, and the need we all have for time to ourselves. Failure to invest in the ones we love results not only in the loss of pleasure but in lost opportunities for health and overall well-being.
• Communicate what you feel as well as what you think. Emotional communication is the language of love. When we experience positive emotional cues we feel safe and happy, and when we send positive emotional cues to others, they feel the same.
• Don't be afraid of disagreement—see it as an opportunity to grow the relationship. Some couples talk quietly, while others raise their voices and passionately disagree. The key is not to be fearful of disagreement. Everyone needs to express things that bother them without fear of humiliation or retaliation. Couples who do this learn a great deal that helps them improve themselves and the relationship
• Enriching the relationship with outside interests. No one person can meet all of our needs, and expecting too much from someone can put a lot of unhealthy pressure on a relationship. Bringing positive energy from family, friends, and outside interests into a relationship can stimulate and enrich it.
  

  Simple ways to connect as a couple face to face

  • Commit to spending some quality time together every day on a regular basis. Even during very busy times just a few minutes of really sharing and connecting can help keep bonds strong.
  • Find something that you enjoy doing together, whether it is a shared hobby, dance class, daily walk, or sitting over a cup of coffee in the morning.
  • Try something new together. Doing new things together can be a fun way to connect and keep things interesting. It can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or going on a day trip to a place you’ve never been before.

  
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