How do you keep a relationship strong?
Suaviq · checked · 6 sources
The short answer
Keep paying the kind of attention you paid at the start. Tell your partner specific things you notice about them, ask a second question about their answer, and do new things together instead of only relaxing together. After an argument, come back soon and say one kind sentence. Research links feeling understood and sharing new activities with a better relationship, and the habits behind both are small enough to practice this week.
Reading this will not change how you talk to people. Practicing will. Suaviq gives you a 1:18 video and 10 real-life exercises for this, easy ones first.
Why do long relationships start to feel flat?
At the start, you notice everything about the other person. After a few years, you know their habits so well that you stop asking about them. You still love each other, but you spend more evenings on the couch and fewer evenings finding anything out.
Aron and colleagues looked at this in a survey, a door-to-door study and three experiments. Couples who did new and exciting activities together reported a better relationship, and boredom with the relationship explained the link. The couples rated their own relationships, and the experiment was a short task in a lab. In our experience, relaxing together keeps you comfortable, and doing something new together keeps you curious.
What makes a partner feel cared for?
Researchers use the term perceived responsiveness for the feeling that someone pays attention to who you are and values it. Reis, Clark and Holmes describe it as the main idea behind research on closeness, and they link it to well-being. Their chapter reviews other studies and does not test any particular way to show it, so treat the exercises below as our practical version of the idea.
The simplest version is to notice one thing out loud. Say “You sounded lighter on the phone with your sister today” instead of “You look nice.” A compliment tells them what you think of them. An observation tells them that you were watching.
Then ask one follow-up question about their day. Huang and colleagues found that people who asked follow-up questions were liked more by the person they were talking to. Their studies used strangers, but the habit costs you nothing to try with the person you know best. Once in a while, ask something you have never asked them, like what they wanted to be at twelve.
How do you make up after an argument?
Driver and Gottman observed newly married couples. When one partner made a small request for attention and the other responded, the couple showed more positive feeling when they later discussed a conflict. The sample was small, and the study found a link, not a cause. Several widely quoted Gottman percentages come from popular books, not from this paper.
Our rule is to come back within twenty minutes of a fight and say one sentence. It can be as small as “I hate it when we argue, and I am still on your side.” You do not need to solve the problem in that sentence. The twenty minutes is our own number, not a research result.
In the next disagreement, describe the pattern instead of the person. “We both get short when we talk about money after work” gives you something to look at together. “You always get defensive” gives them something to defend.
Should you tell your partner how you really feel?
Most people hold back the personal things because they expect to look weak. Bruk and colleagues found that people judge their own vulnerability more harshly than other people judge the same act. Most of their studies asked people to imagine situations, and they did not test whether sharing improves a relationship. They do suggest that you are a poor judge of how it will come across.
So once this week, share something personal before your partner asks. Later, when you feel braver, ask them what you do that they would like you to do less. Listen to the answer without defending yourself. It is the hardest exercise here, and the one most likely to change something real.
How do you keep a relationship strong for years?
Choose one small thing you do together on a schedule, like a Sunday walk or coffee before work, and protect it for a month. A ritual keeps you paying attention in the weeks when neither of you feels romantic.
Once a month, plan something that takes real effort from you and none from them. Bring them to a place, a subject or a plan they would not have found alone. In our experience, your partner can see effort, and it tells them you are still choosing the relationship. Our principle for this whole topic is simple: be a person with a whole life to share, and keep that life interesting.
Exercises to practice, easiest first
These come from The Long Devotion topic. Do one a day, and move to the next when it stops feeling hard.
Step 1
Notice one thing out loud
Tell them one specific thing you noticed about them today. Make it an observation, not a compliment.
Being noticed is rarer than being praised. It is the first thing people miss when attention fades.
Research. Researchers call it perceived responsiveness: the feeling that someone pays attention to who you really are and values it. It is the main idea behind research on closeness in relationships, and it is linked to people's well-being. Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004)
Step 2
One real follow-up
Ask about their day. Then ask one more question about their answer.
This works the same way as Topic 02. Here you use it with the person who is most likely to stop receiving it.
Research. Follow-up questions made people more liked by the person they were talking to. The effect was found in the person being asked, not in people who read the conversation later. Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017)
Step 3
Ask something you have never asked
Find one question that you have never asked them in all your time together.
Knowing someone's habits is not the same as knowing them. Most long-term partners have large parts of each other's lives that nobody asks about.
Research. Pairs of strangers answered 36 questions that became more personal as they went on. Afterwards they felt closer than pairs who made small talk. Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone & Bator (1997)
Step 4
Protect one ritual
Choose one small thing that you do together regularly, and protect it for a month. It can be the same walk, the same coffee or the same evening.
Attention that happens on a schedule continues through the weeks when neither of you feels romantic.
Research. A study observed newly married couples. When one partner made a small everyday request for attention and the other responded, the couple showed more positive feeling during later arguments. Driver & Gottman (2004)
Step 5
Bring one new thing
Introduce them to a place, a subject or a plan that they would not have found without you.
Doing new things together keeps a long relationship alive. Relaxing together does not do the same.
Research. A survey, a door-to-door study and three experiments found the same thing. Couples who did new and exciting activities together reported a better relationship. The link was explained by how bored they were with the relationship. Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna & Heyman (2000)
Step 6
The twenty-minute repair
After an argument, come back within twenty minutes and say one sentence. It does not need to solve anything.
The silence afterwards does the damage, not the disagreement.
Research. Responding to a partner in ordinary moments was linked to more positive feeling and more humor when the couple discussed a conflict. Driver & Gottman (2004)
Step 7
Plan something that costs you effort
This month, arrange one thing that takes real work from you and none from them.
People can see effort. It tells them you are still choosing the relationship.
Our opinion. This is our own view. The closest research is about responsiveness, which concerns being understood, not effort as a signal.
Step 8
Name the pattern, not the person
In your next disagreement, describe what keeps happening. Do not describe what they are like.
Two people can look at a pattern together. A judgment about someone's character only makes them defend themselves.
Clinical practice. Separating an event from a general judgment about a person is the same step as naming the thinking pattern in Topic 05. Here you apply it to someone else. Clark & Wells (1995)
Step 9
Say the vulnerable true thing
Once this week, share something personal before they ask.
You are the worst judge of how this will come across.
Research. People judge their own vulnerability more harshly than others judge the same act. This is called the beautiful mess effect. Bruk, Scholl & Bless (2018)
Step 10
Ask what they need less of
Ask them what you do that they would like you to do less. Do not defend yourself when they answer.
This is the hardest question in the topic, and the one most likely to change something real.
Research. Responsiveness means paying attention to who the other person really is and supporting it. To do that, you need to know things about yourself that they have not felt able to tell you. Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004)
Sign up free with your email. Watch the lesson, then try the first exercise with real people, and come back to say how it went.
Common questions
Do the 36 questions work for long-term couples?
Aron and colleagues designed the 36 questions to create closeness between strangers in a lab in about 45 minutes. Pairs who answered them felt closer than pairs who made small talk. The authors say the method was not designed to make people fall in love, and they did not test it on couples. Asking your partner one question you have never asked uses the same idea.
Are the famous Gottman relationship statistics true?
Be careful with them. Driver and Gottman did publish a study of newlyweds that linked small everyday moments of attention to more positive feeling during later arguments. But several widely quoted Gottman percentages come from popular books, not from that paper. Trust the direction of the result: responding to small requests for attention goes with better arguments later.
Does boredom hurt a relationship?
In studies by Aron and colleagues, couples who did new and exciting activities together reported a better relationship, and boredom explained that link. The couples rated their own relationships, and the experiment was a short lab task. A practical response is to bring one new place, subject or plan into your shared life each month.
How soon should you apologize after a fight?
Our rule is within twenty minutes, with one sentence that does not try to solve anything, such as “I am sorry I snapped, can we try again later?” The twenty minutes is our own number. In our experience, the long silence after a fight does more harm than the fight itself.
Sources
- Aron, Norman, Aron, McKenna & Heyman (2000). Couples' Shared Participation in Novel and Arousing Activities and Experienced Relationship Quality.
- Reis, Clark & Holmes (2004). Perceived Partner Responsiveness as an Organizing Construct in the Study of Intimacy and Closeness.
- Huang, Yeomans, Brooks, Minson & Gino (2017). It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: Question-Asking Increases Liking.
- Driver & Gottman (2004). Daily Marital Interactions and Positive Affect During Marital Conflict Among Newlywed Couples.
- Bruk, Scholl & Bless (2018). Beautiful Mess Effect: Self–Other Differences in Evaluation of Showing Vulnerability.
- Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone & Bator (1997). The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness.