by Pat Love
Relationship research shows something astounding:
Happy couples have just as many problems as unhappy couples that they never solve.
That’s right—happy couples aren’t happy because they don’t have any problems. On the contrary. They may argue, agree to disagree, or sweep it under the rug just like you and your partner do.
But here’s the surprising part: whether or not a couple has problems isn’t a predictor of stability in a relationship.
The greatest predictor of stability and happiness in a long-term relationship is whether a couple has the ability to stay connected with each other, regardless of any problems.
If a couple knows what to do to stay connected through the ups and downs of life, then they have an exponentially greater chance of having a joyful, passionate, secure relationship well into the golden years.
So how do you stay connected?
Do you have to have endless “talks” about your problems in order to fix them?
Do you need to go on regular “date nights”?
Have frequent sex?
Actually, there are ways for you and your partner to connect that don’t necessarily involve long, exhausting talks or may not even involve your partner!
In this article, I’m going to share just a few of these tips and tools from my video program, Wake Up In a New Marriage.
Some of My Favorite Tools That Can Help You Feel Closer and More In-Tune With Your Partner
I reveal dozens of ways to reconnect with your partner throughout my video program, Wake Up In a New Marriage but I wanted to highlight some of my favorites here for you:
From Class 1: Being Present With Your Partner Without Talking
One of the most important insights I’ve ever had in my career as a marriage and family counselor is that the deepest moments of connection happen when no one is talking.
It’s those moments when people just look at each other with appreciation and adoration. It’s when you’re present to your partner and to how you’re feeling. Presence is a big goal of my Wake Up In a New Marriage program—how to be more aware and tune into each other.
Here’s the tip: Think back to a time when you were really present with your partner; a moment that stirred you somehow. A moment when you thought, “he’s the guy!” or “she’s the One!”.
Did the moment involve talking or doing anything, or was it just a simple moment of physical connection, a softening of the eyes, an intimate touch?
EXTRA: If you want, share that moment with your partner. Tell him or her how it made you feel to experience that. Invite them to share the same with you.
From Class 2: Turn a Nitpick Into a Desire
When you focus on what’s not right (with your partner or your relationship) you nitpick. You communicate it in a critical way.
Why did you do it that way?
Why can’t you do it this way?
Nitpicking takes you out of appreciation and the present moment with your partner and can lead to you feeling disconnected and unhappy in your relationship.
But behind every nitpick is a desire. There’s something you want from your partner.
When it comes to making change, especially those changes that are necessary to reconnect with your partner, it’s easier to add positives than to eliminate negatives.
Therefore, in this tool, you take something you want to change—a nitpick—and you rephrase it to be a positive request.
I would love it if….
It calms me when…
Try it right now. Think of something you’ve been nitpicking about your partner. What is the desire behind the criticism? Is there a more positive way you can phrase your request?
Now, this is my bias. I think men like pleasing women more than women like pleasing men. Phrasing your nitpick as a desire makes it easier for him to know what to do to please you.
From Class 5: Changes and Transitions
There are two tenets to getting changes to stick in your relationship.
One tenet is that when it comes to making change, chaos science shows that we’re most amenable to making it during moments of transition.
These are periods of time when we’re letting go of one way of life and transitioning into another way of life. This could involve moving from one city to another, having children, becoming empty nesters, and so on.
Another tenet is that little changes can lead to big results.
My colleague, Steven Stosny and I took these two tenets and came up with a tool that helps you make changes stick in your relationship. It involves using the transitions in your day.
Waking in the morning is one of the big transition periods because you’re going from a sleeping to a waking state. So here’s how to take advantage of this transition time:
Whomever wakes up first, before you get out of bed, you make skin-on-skin contact with the other person.
It doesn’t even have to be a touch that wakes your partner. It can be a soft touch or a light kiss on the cheek.
The reason skin-on-skin contact is so important is that it increases oxytocin (the bonding hormone that’s also an amnesic that makes you forget the bad times). It tells your partner, “I’m here, I love you.” and this little tool takes NO time.
Reconnect Without Needing “The Talk”From Class 5: The 3 Communication Tune-up Questions
It’s interesting when couples tell me that they don’t communicate. It’s impossible to be in a relationship without communicating—you’re always doing it! Communication is simply sending a message. If your partner is not available, staying at work later than you have, arguing, silent, critical, blaming, or angry—it’s sending a message.
The message it could be sending is that you have a lack of connection.
What most people mean when they say, “We don’t communicate” is that they don’t get the desired outcome when they communicate.
Communication is important because it’s also a way for couples to send the right message to each other in order to stay connected.
The following are three questions you might ask yourself about how you communicate with your partner. Really take the time to think about these questions or write down your answers in a notebook. You could ask your partner to do the same if you like.
These are “heuristic” questions, which means they force you to make a shift by the mere fact of pondering them. True or false:
- I’m known for my good listening skills.
- Most of my thoughts about my relationship and partner are positive and loving.
- I am good about expressing gratitude about my partner’s positive actions.
These three questions have a lot of good information embedded in them. It’s a good way to test the communication health of your relationship because if you’re not being a good communicator in your relationship, it’s going to be challenging for your partner to carry the entire responsibility.
Those are just four tips and tools that I think are particularly effective, even though they take very little time and don’t necessarily require your partner’s participation (although it’s more powerful when both of you do them).
They’re effective because they add in positives and because they don’t take a lot of time and effort.
It’s why I’ve developed an entire program that uses tips and tools like this to help you repair and reconnect your relationship, especially if your go-to strategy before was blaming, criticism, endless talking, or expensive therapy.
All the Tools, Skills, and Tips to Help You Reconnect and Fall Back In Love With Each Other… In One Program
I had one requirement for developing the kind of skills and tools that would help couples reconnect: the research I evaluated about what works and what doesn’t to forge a happy relationship HAD to match my clinical experience as a licensed marriage and family therapist.
That means that I had to see evidence that the skills the studies promoted applied to real couples with real issues, and they had to apply across the board—regardless of age, circumstance, or background.
These skills had to work for couples who were simply growing apart, and it had to work in the most dire of circumstances, for couples dealing with the deepest pain or a crisis.
These had to be skills that were simple to learn and easy to do.
They had to be effective and had to transform a relationship quickly, even if only one person in the relationship was on board with learning and applying what they learned.
And they had to be skills that were naturally demonstrated by authentically happy couples—couples who saw themselves as being happy and whom others saw as being happy.
The result?
I took everything I learned that fit the guidelines to design and develop my video program, Wake Up In A New Marriage: Science, Skills and Stories To Help You Transform Your Love From Ordinary To Extraordinary.
This program contains dozens of tips and tools like the ones in this article and exercises on how to strengthen the major relationship skills that predict happiness and longevity.
You can start watching in a matter of minutes here:
Start WatchingThe skills and tools you’ll get with this program are positive and specific.
They work whether you’re looking to keep your new relationship happy, resilient, and break-up proof…
or re-spark passion and devotion in a relationship that has grown apart…
or prevent a separation by healing a relationship that’s been in crisis for a while.
No matter what the state is of your relationship, you’ll learn the skills it takes to make your ordinary relationship extraordinary.
May you have an extraordinary day,
