Lucas Graham
“Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity,” says relationship expert Esther Perel in her book Mating in Captivity.
“At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?”
Good point.
When you get into a relationship with someone, you’ve got to learn how to reconcile different parts of each other into a cohesive whole: you and your partner ought to be friends, co-habitants, lovers, co-owners of properties, or co-parents, just to name a few.
And that’s not always easy.
But if there’s one thing you can do right now to help your relationship thrive, it’s to let go of these 6 habits that quickly diminish passion and excitement where romantic love is concerned.
Ready?
Let’s jump right in!
1) Don’t take each other for granted
Starting with one of the biggest mistakes couples make, a lack of appreciation can completely destroy a relationship.
Why?
Because appreciation is how you show your partner that all their love and effort are being cherished.
It’s how you say, “I see you. And I’m grateful to you.”
Love isn’t just something you should receive with no acknowledgment whatsoever, after all.
The moment you show your partner gratitude for being so loving and affectionate, you’re motivating them to give you even more love, which kicks off a positive feedback loop of kindness and appreciation.
Don’t just take my word for it. According to researchers, “Showing gratitude to loved ones improves connection and relationship satisfaction.”
Moreover, “Couples who express gratitude spend more time together,” not to mention that appreciation apparently improves your intimate connection and sex life.
So, what are you waiting for? Go tell your partner how much you value their presence in your life. Tell them a big “Thank you”. And watch your connection strengthen in a snap of a finger.
2) Don’t dismiss one another’s bids for connection
When relationship expert John Gottman asked himself what separated successful relationships from those that ended up in flames, he set off on an illuminating scientific journey – one that ended with some pretty incredible results.
According to Gottman, the thing that determines the success of a romantic relationship the most is how partners respond to each other’s “bids for connection”.
A bid for connection is an attempt to bond with your partner. It’s when you ask them for attention, affection, advice, or any other positive interaction.
Imagine you and your partner are walking down the street. Suddenly, you see a beautifully colored bird.
“Look!” you say, pointing at it.
If your partner does as you say and appreciates the bird’s beauty with you, turns the situation into an inside joke, or connects with you in any other positive way, they’ve responded to your bid for connection.
If they barely look and continue talking about themselves or staring at their phone, they’ve rejected your bid for connection, thereby weakening your bond one small dismissal at a time.
Other common bids for connection on Gottman’s list include:
- Simple requests (“Could you take the trash out please?”)
- Show an interest in each other’s accomplishments (“What do you think about this poem I’ve written?”)
- Engage in conversation (“I want to tell you what happened at the office today…”)
- Help one another destress (“I’m so tired and exhausted today…”)
- Show affection (“Do you want to cuddle me while I read?”)
These all seem like very small things, but over time, they pile up. Relationships where passion and excitement die tend to be those where bids for connection are not being responded to effectively.
3) Don’t get stuck in the same old routine
Routines are great and all, but if there’s one way to kill passion and excitement, it’s to get so stuck in a particular routine that you completely forget to gather new experiences and grow as a couple.
This applies to your dynamic both inside and outside of the bedroom.
“When you make time for enjoyment and recreation together it can strengthen your connection and build a positive perspective in your relationship,” says couples counselor Kari Rusnak, MA, LPC, CMHC.
This makes complete sense, of course, but far too many couples disregard this kind of advice and then watch the passion between them wither and die.
Since you spend so much time together, it’s important that you bond by trying out new hobbies, seeing new places, and playing new games.
It’s important that you both get the chance to see your partner in a new environment and to face new challenges together.
If you don’t grow, you’ll stagnate. And stagnation often leads to boredom, a lack of appreciation, and – yep, you’ve guessed it – the death of passion and excitement.
4) Don’t stop dressing up for each other
I’ll be the first person to say that it’s vital you both feel comfortable enough around one another to wear whatever the hell you want, be it your pajamas, a tracksuit, or nothing at all.
Your partner should love you in your entirety – no matter if you’ve just dressed up for a date or if you’ve woken up with the flu, sick, exhausted, and not at all conventionally attractive.
However, there’s a careful balance to be struck.
If you never let your partner see your raw self, you’re not letting them love you completely. If you never dress up for them and put effort into your appearance, though, you’re basically saying that you don’t care enough to seduce them on a sexual level.
And that can pose some serious issues.
Remember when you first fell in love with your partner?
Chances are, you really appreciated how they dressed, smelled, and looked.
You enjoyed that they always put their perfume on, that they tried to appear attractive when you went out on a date, and that they generally presented themselves as a sexually appealing person who was very much attracted to you, too.
If you’ve gotten too comfortable in the past few months or years – so comfortable that you no longer try for each other – it’s possible that you’ve been unknowingly killing your sexual chemistry at its very core.
As Esther Perel says, “Love likes to shrink the distance that exists between me and you, while desire is energized by it. If intimacy grows through repetition and familiarity, eroticism is numbed by repetition. It thrives on the mysterious, the novel, and the unexpected.”
Couples whose passion remains strong know how to strike the perfect balance between familiarity and mystery, between comfort and desire.
5) Don’t let your friendship die for the sake of efficiency
One thing I see many new parents struggle with is that all their admin chores take up so much of their time that they inherently feel emotionally disconnected from one another.
Unfortunately, some couples struggle to recover from that, and before they know it, they’ve become co-parents and co-habitants only.
As for the romantic, friendly, or sexual side…
They’ve kind of lost those parts of themselves.
And while this is completely normal when you’re going through a rough patch as a couple, it’s important that this kind of situation stays temporary. It’s important that you reconnect once there’s finally an opportunity for you to do so.
Because in the end, it is your sense of friendship that will determine the success of your relationship in the long run. It is your dedication to each other’s happiness that will make a real difference.
Don’t let your friendship die just because it’s more convenient not to connect.
6) Don’t build your whole lives around one another
When you decide to spend the rest of your lives together, it makes perfect sense that you’re going to play a massive role in one another’s daily routines.
That’s just a fact.
But if you want to keep the passion and excitement alive, it’s equally crucial to maintain some sort of individual identity.
Have your own hobbies, friends, and side projects. Don’t rely on your partner for everything no matter how tempting it may be. Instead, keep branching out in new directions.
And why is this so important, you may ask?
Because when you fell in love with your partner, you fell for who they were as an individual. And it is that individual identity you should both preserve that will help you foster a strong sense of desire and intimacy in the long run.
Let’s turn to Esther Perel once more: “The grand illusion of committed love is that we think our partners are ours. In truth, their separateness is unassailable, and their mystery is forever ungraspable. As soon as we can begin to acknowledge this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility.”
The familiarity you build together is what helps you bond on an emotional level. The independence you foster separately, however, is what drives your passion to a large degree.
You can have both. You’ve just got to embrace the beauty of balance.
