When you want your relationship to stand the test of time, while it is important to know what you need in order to strengthen your relationship (more on that in a sec), it’s equally as important to be proactive about not doing the kinds of things that will weaken it too.
Some of those include:
Always trying to change your partner.
Constantly being critical of them or their family.
Holding grudges.
Not making intimacy a top (and consistent) priority.
Keeping score on who does (or doesn’t do) what.
Refusing to forgive your partner.
Not being intentional about spending quality time.
Not respecting their privacy.
Being a jealous individual.
Not giving them space.
If you’re doing any of these things (and/or if they are doing these things to you), the tip that we’re about to share isn’t going to make that much of a difference, one way or another. It’s always important to make sure you’re not causing damage in your relationship before looking for new ways to improve it.
Keeping all of this in mind, we did recently read about a cool way that you are able to strengthen your relationship, almost immediately.
There is someone who once said, “Good sex in a marriage is 10 percent of a relationship while bad sex in a marriage is 90 percent. What happens in your bedroom sets the tone for what is transpiring in the other rooms of your house.” There is a lot of truth to that, and it goes along really well with what we’ve discovered.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology recently published a study based on what they call “intimacy-desire paradox”. According to their findings, although it is ironic, the more comfortable two people are with each other, the less sexually-desirable they may find each other to be (which is why a lot of us find ourselves in seasons of being bored with our sex lives).
Is there anything that can be done about that?
What the researchers did was ask 100 couples to keep diaries about their sex life for six weeks. They asked them to keep a record of when their partner understood their needs and supported their goals, and how that made them feel sexually. At the times when each partner felt that way, it made them feel special and in turn, it made them sexually desire their partner more.
Not only is this study proof that sex is about an emotional connection just as much as a physical one, but it also provides us all with a solution when we aren’t as thrilled about our partner or our sex life as we should—or even want—to be.
So, the next time you find yourself yawning at the idea of having sex or wondering what you can do to strengthen your relationship, pick up two fresh journals and ask your partner to join you in writing down when they feel the most understood and supported. On those days, see how you feel sexually about one another.
We’d be surprised if you didn’t end up coming to the same conclusion that the researchers did; that the more emotionally connected to your partner you are, the more sexually desirable they become.
An easy yet life-changing approach to your relationship.
