Comfort is, of course, a part of a healthy relationship. But when you get too comfortable, it’s easy to feel like you’ve become siblings or college roommates instead of the young lovers who once couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Is that you?
For many people, the most challenging stage of being single is the sometimes awkward stage of singleness that immediately follows a long-term relationship. For years, you've been linked to another person and now that so much time has passed since you were single, it can feel a bit odd being on your own again.
What steps can you take to increase the likelihood that your love will stand the test of time? I asked some key questions to a couple who have been married for nearly 60 years and they had a lot of amazing advice and insights to share on how to make a relationship work and go the distance.
Your partner makes his efforts. You may not even know about them, but you’d notice if he stopped. That’s for sure. It could be little things. Staying on top of that five o’clock shadow. Doing push-ups. Paying attention to the fit of his clothes. If he just stopped all of that one day, you’d be disappointed. It’s okay to admit that. It doesn’t make you superficial—it makes you human.
“Well maybe we should just breakup, then!” “Maybe you should just leave me for what’s her name from your office.” “Maybe this isn’t meant to be!” “Maybe I should just pack up and leave!” Ah yes, the old breakup bluff. You don’t mean it. But you say it when you feel backed into a corner, and when your partner is calling you on some stuff that is true.
It’s important to keep working on yourself, even when you’re in a relationship. But you are still in a relationship, so when you work on yourself, it’s something you can share in with your partner. If you’re taking an evening class or joining a book club or traveling to a place you’ve never been, include your partner. Many people make the mistake of keeping their self-improvement to themselves, and being quite private about it. But that leaves their partner feeling left out and isolated.
This can be a tough one, and the truth is that most couples don’t get through it. That’s okay. You’re not really supposed to get through it with someone until you find the one. I would say that the end of the honeymoon is a good filter—it shows us who we can really stick with. But it still sucks when it happens. You notice both of you just…putting in less effort. You don’t feel that your partner is ecstatic to be around you. He stops doing little surprises for you. He stops worshipping the ground you walk on. It feels like he’s…content with mediocrity. And you’re slacking off in the small gestures and surprises department, too.
Something else that the types of men who make fun of women for “letting themselves go” don’t understand because they’ve likely never experienced it is this: when a man really loves a woman, he sees her inner beauty more and more every day. It creates a glow over her that he sees all of the time, regardless of how she actually looks.
Remember when you used to wrap these in toilet paper, and then put that in a shoe box, and then put that shoe box in a dumpster in the next town? Yeah. Now you just let them balance on the top of the overly full bathroom trash bin. Exposed. Unwrapped.
Rather than think, “Oh no our relationship is falling apart because we don’t have tons of sex anymore” we think “Wow, we must have a really solid foundation because we don’t need to have sex every day in order to feel connected.” This new pace of sex has actually showed us just how bonded we are. We feel close, even without doing it all of the time.
I do notice people giving my poor boyfriend side eye. Though this is the 21st century, a lot of people still think it’s entirely up to the man to propose, and that my boyfriend is forcing me into some non-married purgatory. I’m perfectly capable of proposing to him if I want to. But, I don’t want a wedding right now.
Ask your partner on a proper date. I know, I know—he’s already your man. But everybody likes to be wined and dined. Leave a little note on his desk, formally inviting him to have dinner with you at a certain time and place. Let him know what the wardrobe will be and when to be ready
