The 12 Ties that Bind Long-Term Relationships
Which relationships stand the test of time, and why?
- Thinking positively about your partner. Having positive thoughts
about your partner means that you focus on the good, not the bad, in
your partner’s personal qualities and character. Ruminating about the
things that bother you can only lead you to magnify the small foibles
which will make your partner even more irritating to you than you would
otherwise feel. People in good relationships engage in “sentiment
override,” meaning that they remember more of the favorable than the
unfavorable experiences they’ve shared together.
- Thinking about your partner when apart.
When you leave your partner for the day, the evening, or for an
extended period of time, do you forget about his or her existence? Is it
out of sight and out of mind for you? If so, this may be a sign that
you’re not that much in love. You don’t have to spend every second apart
sighing longingly, but the fact that your partner isn’t there should at
least cross your mind some of the time during the course of the average
day.
- Difficulty concentrating on other things when thinking about your partner. If
you’re able to set aside your thoughts about your partner without much
effort, this suggests that your partner takes up only a small amount of
cognitive load. Multitasking isn’t particularly desirable when it comes
to musing over your loved one. In the O'Leary study, this factor was
particularly important for men.
- Enjoying novel and challenging activities. Like
definitely attracts like when it comes to personal interests and
hobbies. Spending time together is important, as you’ll see below, but
it’s how you spend your time that influences your relationship
satisfaction even more. Aron’s self-expansion model, tested in empirical
research, suggests that couples can improve their love for each other
when they spend their time together exploring new and challenging
activities. The O'Leary study identified this factor as especially
relevant for men. If you’re going to go bungee jumping for the first
time, your relationship will benefit when you and your partner face this
challenge together. If you’re not up to bungee jumping, seek out
mentally challenging ways to spice up your daily routines.
- Spending time together. If you love someone, you want to spend time
with that person, and the more time you spend together, the more your
love will grow. The time you spend should include some new and
challenging activities, as shown in point #4. However, even spending
time together in mundane household activities can enhance your love's
intensity. That basement remodeling you’ve been intending to get started
can actually become a way for you and your partner to strengthen your
emotional bonds. Cooking, gardening, grocery shopping, and even cleaning
the house are other ways to bolster your love for each other. This was
another factor that, in the O'Leary study, was more important for men.
- Expressing affection. Feeling love toward your partner is important, but so is expressing that love
in physical ways. It’s not wise to play hard to get when your goal is
to build the passion in your relationship. The affection you show
doesn’t have to be elaborate or overly gushy. A touch on the shoulder or
kiss on the cheek is enough to build your relationship’s intensity.
- Being turned on by your partner. Those
tiny touches of affection can not only boost your emotional connection
to your partner, but also stoke the sexual fires within. The respondents
reporting the most intense love for their partner in the O’Leary study
said that they felt their bodies responding when their partner touched
them. This doesn’t mean a full-out sexual encounter has to follow from
that touch on the cheek. Feeling a warm, tingling sensation from your
partner’s physical presence is enough to keep the fire inside stoked
until the time is right for sexual activity.
- Engaging in sexual intercourse.
It should come as no surprise that having intercourse is a positive
expression of a love’s intensity. People in love are more likely to have
sex with each other on a regular basis. The O’Leary study showed,
however, that part of the reason for the positive association between
sex and love is that people who are happiest in their relationships both
love their partners more and have sex more frequently. Whatever the
cause, the point is that sexual activity builds and maintains feelings
of love and even happiness that endure over time.
- Feeling generally happy.
People who feel happier about life also have stronger feelings of love
toward their partners. We can’t determine whether people who are in love
therefore feel happier or vice versa from the survey data in the
O’Leary study (and the finding was more true of women than men).
However, the finding suggests that if you’re experiencing personal
distress, this can leak out and cause your relationship to suffer.
Similarly, if your relationship is in trouble, your personal happiness
will suffer as well. Either way, it's important for you to seek help
before these negative effects take a heavy toll on your mental health.
- Wanting to know where your partner is at all times.
Being intensely in love, for men, is associated with wanting to know
your partner’s whereabouts. This component of intense love may seem a
bit like stalking. But to put a positive spin on it, if you want to know
where your partner is, this reflects the fact that your partner isn't
very far from your thoughts.
- Obsessively thinking about your partner. Being
slightly obsessed with your partner turns out to be positively related
to intense love, at least for women. The women most in love in the
O’Leary study didn’t particularly care about knowing their partner’s
whereabouts. However, they were more likely to engage in obsessive
thinking about their partner more generally.
- Having a strong passion for life.
People who approach their daily lives with zest and strong emotion seem
to carry these intense feelings over to their love life as well. If you
want your relationship to have passion, put that emotional energy to
work in your hobbies, interests, and even your political activities.
Your brain's reward centers respond similarly to love as to getting
excited about your other daily interests.Getting "fired up" in these
areas of life translates into firing up the feelings you have toward
your partner and in the O'Leary study seemed to matter more for men.
The
formula for keeping love alive in your closest relationship is a
complicated one. The study by the O’Leary team, in identifying these 12
factors, provides new evidence to show that not only can long-term
couples get along with each other, but they can maintain their passion
for many decades. Close relationships are the centerpiece of our sense
of identity and are fundamental to our feelings of fulfillment. By
changing your thoughts and your behavior about these relationships, you
can keep them fresh and vital for years.
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