Meta description: Keep love alive using these simple self-care tips for helping you to improve your future romantic relationships.
Love. They say it makes the world go round, and when you’re lost in the heady days of a new romance, it can definitely feel like that’s the case. Yet, studies show that around 40% of people feel unhappy at some point in the course of their relationships.
Sometimes, this unhappiness stems from pure incompatibility. But, if you commonly find yourself struggling after a certain point in romantic relationships, something else may be going on.
Perhaps you struggle to commit or simply don’t know how to keep the romance alive. These are common problems, but overcoming them is crucial for your future and happiness. After all, when you do find your one true partner, you’re going to want to keep them. In this article, we’ll discuss a few simple steps to help you do precisely that.
Contents
- Signs You’re Sabotaging Your Romantic Relationships
- How to Improve Your Romantic Relationships
- Are you Ready for Your Happily Ever After?
Signs You’re Sabotaging Your Romantic Relationships
As mentioned, sometimes, a romantic relationship will fall apart because it simply isn’t meant to be. Studies show that the average person will have between 7-8 romantic entanglements before settling down.
For self-care reasons, leaving a romantic relationship that simply isn’t working, or no longer makes you happy, is important. But, if your romantic relationships tend to fall apart around the same time, or in the same ways, then the relationships themselves may not be to blame.
For various reasons, including a fear of intimacy, or a simple misunderstanding about what makes a relationship work, some of us are guilty of sabotaging the romance in our lives. Signs that you’re doing this include –
- Picking regular fights
- Criticising your partners
- Excessive jealousy or distrust
- Holding grudges
- Failing to maintain intimacy
- And more
Each of these examples of self-sabotage can do significant damage and can make it increasingly hard to keep the delicate balance of a romantic relationship on track.
The question is, how can you turn things around to improve your romantic relationships at last?
How to Improve Your Romantic Relationships
Romantic relationships are one of the world’s greatest gifts, but they don’t come for free. Instead, happy couples are continually putting work in to make their relationships as strong as they can be.
Just a few key ways to improve your romantic relationships include –
Be Realistic
Unrealistic expectations are the sticking point in more romantic relationships than you could count. And, it’s hardly surprising considering that romance films show such ideal romantic scenarios. As a result, most of us are guilty of setting unrealistic expectations about everything from how much time we expect our partner to spend with us, to how much sex we should ideally be having.
In reality, though, our partners won’t 100% fulfil our needs all of the time. They won’t even agree with everything we say. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s more than okay, it’s the thing that can help us to learn to accept someone as they are, and can provide us with the opportunity to encourage them, rather than constantly trying to change them. According to Dr Chloe Carmichael, PhD, ‘You have to remember that they are also a separate person with separate strengths and separate weaknesses.’
Instead of criticising your romantic partners when they disagree with you or fail to meet your expectations, challenge those expectations, and use this as a moment to learn acceptance, which is far more likely to result in true love.
Communicate!
You’ve probably heard it said before, but we can’t stress enough how vital communication is for any romantic relationship. Communication is so important that one study listed it as the number one reason for divorce, with around 67.5% of marriages ending due to an inability to listen to, or properly speak with, one another.
As well as making it easier to navigate difficult relationship topics, satisfying communications have been proven as an act of self care that can increase subjective well-being and provide greater life satisfaction (Lyubomirsky, 2018). At the very least, communication makes it possible to avoid misunderstandings or stop resentments from simmering.
The best ways to ensure all-important open communication in a romantic relationship include –
- Setting aside plenty of time to talk
- Listening without judgement
- Asking open-ended questions
- Being honest about what you need, and encouraging your partner to do the same
Be Flexible
We’re all set in our ways, but being too stringent about things like how you want the laundry folded can be bad news for a romantic relationship. After all, your partner will have their own ideas about how to do things, and if you completely override them all of the time, you’ll struggle to stay happy together.
That isn’t to say that you should always bow down to whatever your partner wants – that’s sure to leave you both unhappy. However, flexibility in a relationship should come back to one keyword – compromise. After all, to build a life together, you’ll need to find new go-to ways of doing things together.
Areas that especially require compromise might include things like how you organise your house, or spend your free time together. You may also need to be more flexible with things like splitting holidays between your families or just making time for one another’s friends. In either instance, putting in the effort to meet your partner in the middle is vitally important. If your partner feels certain of your ability to compromise, they may also feel more comfortable communicating what they want with you. And, that’s sure to make everyone happier.
Make Time for Your Partner
Our partners tend to be the only people we have time for in the early stages of a romantic relationship. But, when you’re been together for a while or are already living together, you may slip into bad habits regarding the quality time you actually spend with one another. After all, you see each other all of the time. You might not see any need to go out of your way, or disrupt your hobbies, to communicate with your partner.
Ultimately, though, just being around one another isn’t enough to keep the romance alive. You also need to dedicate specific quality time to each other, whether that involves sitting and watching a film together, playing games, or just having a good chat. Marriage Foundation research also reveals that couples who go on regular date nights together have 14% lower odds of breaking up. In that sense, simple things like going out for a monthly meal together, can be a vital act of romantic self-help. And it doesn’t even take much effort to achieve!
Take Care of Yourself
When we speak about improving romantic relationships, we typically refer to things that you can do with and for your partner. But, a positive romantic relationship also requires you to be happy in yourself. And, that won’t be possible if you don’t also take some time out for a little self-care.
After all, you’re bound to get snippy at someone if you’re around them all the time. To avoid that, it’s important to take yourself out on solo dates sometimes or to spend time with friends and family members away from your partner. Even a self-help act as simple as locking the bathroom door and spending some solo soaking time in the bath can make a difference here. Either way, relationship experts state that you generally split your time with and without your partner around 70/30.
By continuing to prioritise these crucial self-care activities, you ensure that you’re able to collect your thoughts, fill your well, and generally give more of yourself to your partner when you go back to them.
Are you Ready for Your Happily Ever After?
Happily ever after may be a damaging myth but, if you want to join the 86% of happily married couples, then there are steps you can take to improve your romantic relationships. Largely, this requires you to let go of what you think you know about love, and instead engage in positive relationship self-help, including open communication, flexibility, and a continual focus on prioritising one another and yourself. If your romantic partner is the right person for you, then they’ll also prioritise these vital pointers to keep your love alive for a long time to come.
Summary
40% of people report feeling unhappy at some stage in their relationships, while the average person has between 7-8 romantic entanglements before they settle down. It seems that love is not the simple journey that films would have us believe. In fact, it’s fraught with setbacks that can split us up if we aren’t careful.
Luckily, there are ways to improve our romantic relationships, and they can lead to far more fulfilling connections overall. Letting go of unrealistic expectations is especially important for accepting your partner as they are. Meanwhile, proper communication can stop yours from becoming one of 67.5% of marriages that end due to communication blockages. Compromise is vital to ensuring everyone’s happiness, while couples who make time for each other face 14% lower odds of breaking up. Taking time for self-care is also vital in any relationship, and ensures that you’re able to refuel and give yourself fully to your partner the rest of the time.
Romantic self-help pointers like these may seem unnecessary when you’re first lost in the love of a new partner. But, these crucial steps can help your relationship to thrive for far longer than it would otherwise. Here, we consider where you might have gone wrong in your romantic relationships up until now, and the best ways you can rectify those mistakes for a future romance that’s grounded in equality, fairness, and self-care.