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Making Love Last:
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Have you ever noticed that most fairytale romances end with a passionate kiss and the words “happily ever after”? Have you found yourself wondering, “Well, how? How do they end up happily ever after?” This very important question is one that couples therapists have been studying for decades. While we don’t yet have all the answers, we do have a pretty good idea about the behaviors and attitudes that seem to make love last. The best news is that you don’t have to be an expert to apply these ideas to your relationship; you can benefit from the years of research by applying these following golden rules!
1. Make your relationship a priority.
One of the things that makes dating so different from marriage is that while we’re dating, our relationship is our number one priority. We make time for each other, we call each other, we send each other loving notes during the day, and we go out of our way to make the other person feel special. As our relationship matures and as time elapses, many of these behaviors fade away. We become very comfortable with our relationship and we just trust that the other person feels loved. Yet when asked what they miss most about dating, most people report: “I miss feeling like a priority.” So whenever you can, find simple and authentic ways to convey to your partner how much you love and adore him or her. Make time to be alone together, even if it is just for one hour a week as you walk around your neighborhood and talk. The relationships you nourish with time and attention will flourish.
2. Look for negative cycles.
Dr. Sue Johnson, one of the most prominent psychologists in the world of couples counseling, recently wrote a ground-breaking book called Hold Me Tight. In this text, Johnson describes how most struggling couples are caught in a negative cycle. A negative cycle is a never-ending feedback loop, where each of you make the other out to be the bad guy. Everyone feels hurt, unheard, and pushed away when caught in this cycle. When you’re in the cycle, the more one of you attacks, the more dangerous that person appears to be; the more one of you looks for attacks, the harder the other hits back. To keep your relationship happy and healthy, actively look out for and try to stop negative cycles from happening. Look at your behavior and ask yourself: why am I doing this? Am I attacking him because I want him to know how hurt I am? If so, instead of trying to convey your feelings through a hurtful jab, slow down, calm down and try to honestly say how you feel. For example, saying, “Honey, I am hurt because you have gone golfing with your buddies the last four Saturdays and haven’t asked if I’d like to spend a Saturday with you, and I would.” You will get a much better result from sharing your hurt feelings than by trying to hurt someone and then expecting them to figure out why you are upset.
3. Beware the four horsemen.
Another well-regarded couples expert, Dr. John Gottman, has written several best-selling self-help books about making marriage last. In his books, Gottman describes the four horsemen, also known as the four behaviors that will sink your marriage, and they are: criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. Most of us are familiar with the first two – criticism and defensiveness. Being overly critical of your partner, complaining about their every behavior, and constantly critiquing your spouse are behaviors that are not compatible with relationship success. Equally troublesome is being highly defensive: if your partner cannot tell you anything that troubles them without your getting upset, angry, and defensive, then pretty soon your partner will stop telling you much of anything! Contempt is a heightened form of criticism, where one actively attacks their partner’s character, belittles them, insults them, and really tries to tear down their self-esteem. Stonewalling occurs when one person simply refuses to respond to the other—a stonewaller may walk away in the middle of an argument, ignore their spouse completely, or mentally check-out during a discussion. All couples act in some of these ways during their marriages, but when the four horsemen become the norm—rather than the exception—the relationship has a high likelihood of failing. In fact, Gottman’s research reveals that 80% of couples who actively allow the four horseman to run wild in their relationships end up in divorce.
4. Be kind, don’t rewind!
Perhaps one of the most talked-about behaviors to avoid is the act of sand-bagging, gunny-sacking, or bringing up past wrongs during a current argument. When you are in a discussion with your spouse, try to focus on your feelings and avoid playing the game of “Well, you did this, so I did that.” Sadly, no one finds that game to be fun and it isn’t effective communication. Stick to one issue at a time, try to stay on topic, and focus on why you felt what you did. Then talk about how you can work together as a team to resolve the issue. Always keep in mind that you want to find a way to work through an issue in a loving way. The best way to do this is to try to imagine how your partner is feeling, speak softly, and focus on how you can help your partner to stay calm. When we’re angry and flooded with emotion, it’s impossible for us to think logically.
5. Respond with emotion first, logic second.
I have long believed that if we treated our spouse with the attention and care that we show our children, we’d have longer-lasting marriages. By saying this, I certainly don’t mean to imply that we should subtract some attention from our kids and give it to our spouses, but rather, that we should approach our spouse’s hurt feelings with the same mindset we approach our hurt children. To illustrate this point, think about how you would respond to your child if she was out riding her bike and fell down. Would you run over and say, “Oh jeez, Kate, I can’t believe you didn’t listen to me, and you don’t have your helmet on, and last month when we talked about riding bikes, I told you to be more careful!” Hopefully not. I imagine you’d say, “Oh honey, I am so sorry you’re hurting, don’t worry, it will be okay, I am here with you,” as you scooped your daughter up in your arms. Guess what? Most of us would love to be responded to in this way when we’re hurt or upset. We long for emotion, for connection, for sympathetic understanding. Only when we feel that someone understands our pain do we start to relax enough to hear what the other person is saying. So start conversations with your spouse by expressing some affection, then work in some of the ideas you have for making things different and better.
As adults, we like to believe we have matured so much, have become so sophisticated, that we look at children’s fairytales and wonder how we ever believed in them. However, the reality is that most of us deeply long for the kind of love hinted at in those very same fairy tales. What we really want is much deeper, much richer, and much more powerful: it’s the love that lasts forever. You can have that love by paying attention, every day, to the helpful hints above and remembering that whatever you nourish, will indeed flourish!
Kathleen Nickerson, PhD, is a founding member of the Feel Better Network.
You can reach her via the Ask an Expert Forum.
Kathleen Nickerson © 2009 All Rights Reserved. Rights include the right to reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
