Falling in Love…And Staying There!
-By Dr. Mark Goulston
February 27th 2009
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The Bride was beautiful. The Groom was dashing. The flowers and cake were perfect, and the honeymoon was wonderful! You are soooo in love, and an exciting new phase of your relationship is beginning. Is there any way to guarantee that this love will last forever? Happy couples have found that there are certain habits that will certainly improve your chances!
Purple Peacock has found 10 habits of highly happy couples that Dr. Mark Goulston, a psychologist, consultant, and author, suggests that every newlywed couple should begin — and married couples in all stages should cultivate, to keep your marriage as wonderful as your wedding. The following is taken from an article by Dr. Goulston published in The Bottom Line/Personal (January 2009) newsletter. We at Purple Peacock want you to start strong and stay strong, so you can have a harmonious and long-lasting relationship, and we are excited to pass these tips along to you.
1. Go to bed at the same time. Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times even if one partner wakes up earlier to do things while his/her partner sleeps.
2. Cultivate common interests. Don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If you don’t have common interests, develop them. At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own. This will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.
3. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode. When happy couples have a disagreement or an argument that they can’t resolve, they default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.
4. Focus on accentuating the positive. If you look for things that your partner does wrong, you always can find something. If you look for what he/she does right, you always can find something, too.
5. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after being apart for the day. Couples who say hello with a hug reaffirm their love for each other.
6. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning. This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle the stresses of the day.
7. Say “good night” every night, regardless of how you feel. This tells your partner that regardless of how upset you are with him, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.
8. Do a “weather” check during the day. Call your partner at home or at work to see how his/her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync later in the day. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him/her to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.
9. Walk hand in hand. Happy couples that are pleased to be seen together and often are in some kind of affectionate contact — hand in hand or hand on shoulder, for example. They are saying that they belong with each other.
10. Stick with it. Even if these actions don’t come naturally, happy couples stick with them until they do become a part of their relationship. It takes 30 days for a change in behavior to become a habit and a minimum of six months for a habit to become a way of life — and love!
One Response to “Falling in Love…And Staying There!”
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February 27th, 2009 at 9:47 am
These tips are great. After being married nearly 19 yrs I have learned that being married is the greatest of life’s experiences…but you must nurture it daily. Those 10 steps help to make all the difference. Thanks for posting those suggestions!