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Relationship Work: How to Keep Love Alive | Consonance (Gleichklang)
The partner search has been successfully completed. Now it is about maintaining and developing love. Because there is no standstill in love life, just as in all other areas of human behavior and experience.
Why do some relationships last a lifetime, while in others love eventually ends? In this chapter, you will learn what partners can do to maintain their love.
What we call relationship work is a decisive factor in whether a relationship remains stable and happy in the long term or not:
- In a relationship, it is about continuously striving together so that both sides become happy and stay happy in the relationship. In this sense, relationship is always also relationship work.
The following eighteen tips, some of which are interrelated, are intended to help you do this relationship work together.
Relationship is learning, and we learn for a lifetime. Talk to each other in the relationship and, for example, read this chapter together. Make it a joint habit to practice interacting lovingly and warmly with each other again and again, to clarify and resolve existing conflicts and problems, to reduce perfectionist expectations, to forgive each other’s mistakes, to find compromises, to focus on the positive, to identify goals, and to tackle changes. If you succeed in this, you will be rewarded with a satisfying and lasting relationship.
These are the 18 strategies with which you can maintain love:
Show Love
Love wants to be expressed and shown in a partnership. The more love is shown, the more it is strengthened. Tell each other that you love each other, that you are happy together, and that you want to stay together. The more clearly partners express this, the more likely the relationship will endure. Expressing romantic feelings is therefore one of the best relationship stabilizers.
Shared Activities
“Shared joy is double joy” – align your relationship with this motto. Look for commonalities in everyday life that inspire you both and that you can both enjoy.
Activities in the partnership counteract loneliness and boredom. Shared positive experiences strengthen sympathy, love, and cohesion. At the same time, it will also make it easier for you to overlook some of the less pleasant little things.
Discover hobbies and interests that you would like to do together. Build a shared circle of friends, maintain family relationships together, and dare to try new things together, thus repeatedly opening up new shared experiential resources.
Exchange views on what you like and what would interest you. Let yourselves be inspired by lists of hobbies or reports from friends, family, books, or the internet. Seek and you shall find. If you both contribute your part, you will succeed in bringing shared activities into your everyday life that strengthen your daily satisfaction, life satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction.
Tenderness and Fulfilling Sexuality
Tenderness, physical closeness, and eroticism promote relationship quality. The more tenderly partners treat each other and the more actively they shape their sex lives, the less often they separate. Embracing, kissing, caressing, talking openly about sexual interests, and living them out together in an experimental way promotes relationship depth as well as mutual relationship satisfaction and life satisfaction.
The better partners manage to develop and maintain physical closeness, tenderness, passion, and eroticism in the relationship, the more satisfied they will be with their relationship. Phases of declining passion are normal, but passion can and should be rekindled again and again.
Changing locations and practices can also be helpful. And if both wish it, there is nothing against including third parties in shared sexuality, for example by visiting a swingers’ club or other forms of consensual non‑monogamy.
In mutually desired asexual relationships, tenderness can fully replace sexuality.
Communicate Effectively
Communication does not end once the relationship has been found; rather, continuously striving for open communication is the be‑all and end‑all of a partnership.
Communication must not be a one‑way street. It is not about announcements, demands, or proclamations, but about reciprocity, talking, listening, and clarifying.
As already during the getting‑to‑know and relationship‑building phases, it continues to be about being able to openly exchange views on mutual feelings, wishes, needs, and perceptions in a fear‑free atmosphere, where self‑disclosure is not met with reproaches, pressure, or insults.
Make sure not only to talk about yourself, but to continue showing interest in your partner’s feelings, wishes, needs, and perceptions.
One of the most important learning tasks for couples is to refrain from reproaches, devaluations, and blame‑shifting, even when disappointed or receiving unpleasant messages. Once partners start punishing each other for unwanted expressions, this can quickly escalate into a vicious circle. Above all, partners stop talking openly and authentically with each other when they have to fear the other person’s reaction.
If both sides adopt a fundamental attitude focused not on reproach and devaluation but on understanding and clarification, relationships can thrive and even difficult situations can be overcome.
Of course, communication is not only about the logical‑linguistic exchange of information: communication processes also have an emotional component. Both of you should work on maintaining a loving, warm attitude even with difficult topics and showing this non‑verbally as well. Make agreements to this end and remind each other kindly when implementation does not quite succeed on one side or the other.
Clarify and Resolve Conflicts
It does no good to bury one’s head in the sand when problems or conflicts arise. Conflict avoidance leads to unsatisfactory situations persisting, which can result in lasting frustration, helplessness, and bitterness.
Conflict resolution often must go beyond pure communication. It is not only about an open exchange but about recognizing the conflict, identifying conflicting needs or views, and reaching a solution on that basis.
Solutions can consist of one side being genuinely convinced of the other person’s standpoint. However, make sure that neither you nor the other person generally adopts an attitude of compliance and subordination of one’s own needs. Only when there is truly a conviction that the partner’s position is correct or better suited than one’s own does it make sense to adjust one’s position to that of the partner.
Often solutions will take the form of a compromise. Both meet in the middle or decide on a “both/and” approach, meaning that sometimes one side and sometimes the other side prevails. It is important to take such compromises seriously and to work on adhering to them through friendly reminders and loving attention.
Conflicts can also be an indication of dissatisfaction with the way everyday life is organized. Much more important than the specific cause may be working on shared activities or life goals and a more interesting arrangement of everyday life. In this sense, conflicts can also be signals for rethinking, change, and updated life planning.
Sometimes it may make sense to consciously postpone the resolution of a conflict. Postponement is sensible when the conditions for change are not yet in place or one or both sides need time to reflect. Perhaps a fundamental change is being sought, such as a move, a job change, or emigration. Perhaps an illness is involved. In these cases, it can be helpful to wait initially.
However, waiting and postponing should by no means become a habit outside these special situations, as otherwise a dysfunctional pattern of conflict avoidance may hide behind the guise of waiting, and frustration and bitterness can actually accumulate.
Shouting, cursing, constant reproaches, repeated threats of separation, or even physical violence make no sense. The more such harmful conflict strategies are used, the unhappier the relationship will become.
However, even here, a distinction must be made between isolated incidents in the face of overwhelm, helplessness, and despair, and a permanent pattern. If a destructive conflict occurs, the crucial task is to guide it toward constructive conflict resolution through empathy and taking the other person’s perspective.
Think and Act in a Solution‑Oriented Way
It does no good to complain in general terms; problems need solutions.
Relationship conflicts are specific types of problems. In addition, many other problems can arise that ultimately affect all sides in a relationship:
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Financial problems, work problems, health problems, problems with the family of origin – the list could be continued extensively.
It is right to exchange views on problems. But it is important not to stop there. When discussing problems, the focus should be on the solution. Think together about what can be done to change an unpleasant situation. This also includes developing a fundamental attitude in which problems and crises are seen not as catastrophes but as challenges that can be accepted and mastered.
A helpful problem‑solving approach is one in which you jointly identify the undesirable current state and the desired target state, thus identifying the barriers that make it difficult or impossible to reach the goal. Once you have identified the barriers, it will be easier to think about possible solution strategies. Brainstorming can often work wonders, where you jointly search for possible solutions. From these solution strategies, you can select the most suitable one. Once this is identified, it is a matter of implementing it and, if success continues to elude you, switching to another solution strategy.
Finally, there are problems that truly cannot be changed. If that is the case, the solution lies in acceptance. Many problems lose their pressure‑generating character when acceptance replaces resistance.
However, you should be careful not to accept problems that are in fact changeable. Because this can quickly become a pattern that makes it harder for you to develop genuine satisfaction.
Partnership means “shared life” – whether you have moved in together, live in separate apartments, or are in a long‑distance relationship. Couples who understand shared life also as a problem‑solving process have the best prospects of maintaining and positively developing this shared life.
Put the Positive in the Spotlight
A glass may be half full or half empty – it depends on the observer’s perspective. If you and your partner focus on the positive aspects of your relationship, you will be better able to maintain happiness in the partnership.
It is not about suppressing conflicts or problems. On the contrary, that is harmful. However, it is equally harmful to focus primarily on the negative and overlook the positive.
This is a bad habit that we humans quickly develop:
We get annoyed when a train is late, but we do not rejoice when it is on time. In everyday life, we too often perceive mainly the annoyances and irritations, but overlook the countless processes that go well. In some people, this can go so far that they find it difficult to make any positive sensory perceptions at all.
Pleasure exercises can help here, in which – completely independent of possible problems – conscious attention is paid to positive sensory perceptions such as taste, smell, or touch. Partners can also do such training together, and it can include sexual‑tactile aspects.
What is decisive for relationship satisfaction is adopting a fundamental attitude that adequately appreciates the positive aspects of everyday life and the relationship. Make it clear to yourself what you like about the relationship and the other person, and express this. Make it a habit not only to have conversations about problems and conflicts but also about your satisfaction with the relationship, your successes, and achievements. This will also make it easier for you to address and resolve actual conflicts and problems without calling the relationship into question and hurting each other.
Compromises Are Necessary
It has already been mentioned several times that there is no perfect fit. However high the compatibility between partners may be, no relationship will be balanced in all aspects at all times.
Compromises in the context of problem and conflict resolution are not just the lesser evil; they can even help you to question and flexibilize your own ideas and patterns, thereby promoting your personal development. If all perspectives in a relationship were always the same, you would only confirm each other and no development would take place.
In this sense, as important as a good basic consensus is, differences can have a positive, driving function that allows both partners to reconsider their own positions and change them through emotionally affirmed and accepted compromises.
The willingness and ability to make compromises in a relationship improves relationship satisfaction and increases the chances that the relationship will endure.
Willingness to compromise requires reducing one’s own perfectionist expectations and recognizing that imperfection is part of human existence and togetherness. Perfectionism leads to rigidity, dissatisfaction, and intolerance, which burdens a partnership. Tolerance for mistakes enables composure, letting go, and tolerance. This makes it easier to reach compromises.
Even though romantic love is usually happier than pragmatic love, pragmatic considerations have their value in a relationship. These include acceptance. If a relationship is satisfactory overall, it may be sensible to tolerate one or another quirk of a partner or to distance oneself somewhat from one or another ideal image.
Tolerance for each other’s mistakes and weaknesses promotes connectedness.
Remain Willing to Change
The importance of mutual willingness to change cannot be emphasized often enough. With its help, couples can prevent monotony, boring routines, and their relationship from falling asleep.
A relationship never stays the same. Therefore, look for opportunities for change, bring tension into shared life again and again. Start new private or professional projects and keep an eye out for what can be done to further improve the relationship and your shared life satisfaction.
In the relationship, exchange views on what you are satisfied with and want to keep, but also on what you would like to do differently. Sometimes it can also be about accepting changes that have already occurred, rather than developing frustration, disappointment, or even anger by clinging to old patterns and expectations.
The character of a relationship can also change. Many relationships begin in a highly romantic way but develop increasingly into friendship over time. Even though romance and passion can be rekindled again and again, the deep connection of friendly‑companionate love is unquestionably not something that stands in the way of relationship happiness. Being able to accept and appreciate the friendly bond while simultaneously developing new ideas together will keep your relationship going.
Work on Life Goals
Goals are an important incentive to maintain or change behaviors. Those who have goals are usually happier than those who cannot name any life goals. Couples who have shared goals are happier than couples who essentially lead their partnership without direction.
Talk about how you would like to live in the short, medium, and long term. Do not shy away from ambitious goals that can give your life the luster of adventure and boldness – although they should still have a connection to reality.
Goals are not defined just once but must be clarified, supplemented, and changed again and again. Those who have shared life goals have a reason to stay together and not throw in the towel at the first obstacle and flee from a relationship.
Live Shared Moral Values
Couples who are connected by firm ethical principles are more satisfied than couples who do not share any ethical values with each other. The crucial challenge is not only to verbally advocate values but to put them into practice together.
A partnership based on a jointly practiced ethic becomes a life project that does not falter at minor storms or waves and can hold its own even in major upheavals better than a relationship lived apart from moral values.
Shared values create meaning. Experiencing meaning, in turn, gives us the ability to be resilient when we are confronted with problems, crises, and challenges.
Moral values can relate to many areas. They can include political‑social, religious, or aspects oriented toward the individual person and their principles of action.
We live in times of man‑made climate change, the ruthless destruction of our natural livelihoods, and equally ruthless treatment of the animal world, with which we share the will to live and the capacity to suffer. In such times, with all their upheavals and those yet to come, an ethic of sustainability can significantly contribute to transforming relationships into life projects and thus preserving them.
In a relationship, discover again and again what connects you ethically and morally, and on this basis, develop a shared way of life that corresponds to these values. This will make not only your partnership happy and meaningful but your entire life.
Stand by Each Other
Love is not only for the good times; it is shown precisely when things are going badly for partners. Do not rely on a fair‑weather relationship; be there when you are needed.
Love is far more than passion, sex, or desire. Let us recall the 30 components of love according to Karandashev and Clapp (2014, 2016).
True, companionate‑romantic, complete love includes wanting to care for the other, wanting to protect each other, and supporting each other as partners in need.
Do not be afraid of agape, the self‑sacrificing style of love, but accept this component of love as an important part that belongs to a complete, mutual love. If love is balanced, standing by each other can only deepen it.
So support each other in your relationship when problems and burdens arise, help each other, and be there for one another.
Keep Playful Love Active
“I fall in love often, but for short periods” is a statement from the Marburger Einstellungs‑Inventar für Liebesstile (Bierhoff et al., 1993). So it is not surprising that this playful form of love usually does not last long.
But even if such a form of playful love is short‑lived, much can be learned from it. Focusing on the positive in the present in shared moments again and again and flirting with each other, even when the relationship has long existed, has a revitalizing effect. Such playful elements in a committed relationship can contribute to greater ease.
Love in the fullest sense is a deep and sometimes – when problems arise – also heavy feeling. However, this should not prevent you from also activating the playful, pleasure‑oriented, and flirtatious components in your relationship.
Humor, wit, craziness, compliments, and flirting do not only belong at the beginning of a relationship; they can accompany a partnership for life. Make sure to maintain this playful character of love in your relationship, despite all the seriousness of life, or to let it flare up again and again.
Schedule Relationship Days and Partner Days
In the routine of everyday life, partners often forget to do sufficient justice to each other’s needs. The demands of everyday life cannot be entirely suspended. But if you pay attention, you will discover and create spaces for your relationship in every life situation.
Schedule fixed relationship days on which your relationship alone forms the focus of the day. On these days, do something that you both enjoy. City trips or short nature getaways are just two examples. Relationship days can just as easily take place at home. Gardening, forest walks, swimming pools and saunas – the possibilities are endless. Even with a small budget, shared activities can easily be found; after all, nature is still free, for example.
Not always are all wishes and needs of partners the same. Sometimes mindfulness for each other gets lost in everyday life. Here, partner days can help, where one side is entirely in the foreground. Of course, such partner days should be scheduled alternately.
Relationship days or partner days can be fixed recurring days – for example, Sunday – or can be set irregularly. The logic of the relationship day is to do something positive together and not let anything else distract or drag you down. The logic of the partner day is to focus on the needs of the partner and to let them come to the fore as much as possible on that day. Since the days alternate, all sides get their turn and the necessary reciprocity is ensured.
Depending on the relationship type and everyday life, relationship days or partner days may be chosen. Of course, both types of days can also be established.
The advantage of such special days is that this simple method breaks through dissatisfaction and entrenched patterns and allows relationships to find new freshness.
If a whole day cannot be arranged, evenings or mornings can of course be chosen, depending on your life situation.
Give Freedom
Your relationship exists because you feel mutually connected and your partnership is a shared life project. Shared activities and shared life planning are central to a relationship.
Nevertheless, people need their freedom. The extent to which independence or togetherness is valued in relationships varies among people. When choosing a partner, you should already have ensured that no irreconcilable opposites come together. However, everyone needs occasional freedom.
The need for freedom and independence can change over the course of a relationship or fluctuate temporarily. An increased need for togetherness or an increased need for one’s own activities, undertaken separately from the partner, can arise.
The changes or fluctuations in the need for closeness or autonomy may occur in the same way in partners or may be contradictory. Address this situation and make agreements that do justice to all sides. Even contradictory needs can be implemented, for example, by increasing spatial closeness on one day and giving more space for independent activities on another.
Giving each other sufficient freedom is, in a certain sense, the counterpart to shared activities and is equally important. Make sure to give each other sufficient opportunities for your own independence. Above all, refrain from any form of possessiveness and restriction of freedom in the form of controls and prohibitions. Control signals distrust, and restriction of freedom often provokes resistance.
Control and regulation lead to reactance, which psychology defines as the frustration‑induced desire to do the opposite of what the other demands. The result may also be a loss of openness and transparency. This can even lead to double lives, on which relationships later break.
Do not make the mistake of believing that trust is good but control is better. If you take the path of control and regulation, you worsen the relationship quality and may have even set out on the path to the end of the relationship.
Respect Your Own Boundaries
Despite all willingness to compromise, there are boundaries that you should not cross even in and for a partnership. No relationship may endanger your psychological or physical integrity and health.
Make yourself aware of your boundaries and clearly state what is indispensable for you and what you are not willing to accept.
Those who know their own boundaries and discuss them with the other will be most likely to become happy together.
Accept Help
Acquaintances, friends, and family members can support you as a couple when the relationship enters a crisis. It is important that they are positively disposed toward the relationship and take a balanced position.
When that no longer helps, professional support can often still help. Many couples in crisis can overcome their difficulties with the help of couples counseling or couples therapy and place their partnership on a new foundation.
Talk to each other when you have the impression that you can no longer get out of a crisis alone and that professional support could be helpful.
Forgiveness Is Part of Love
Every human being makes mistakes. In a relationship too, every person will sometimes violate agreements and arrangements to a greater or lesser extent. With a forgiving attitude, partners can prevent their relationship from breaking over such mistakes and violations.
Do not burden yourself and your relationship with bitterness or reproaches related to past behavior. Instead, forgive transgressions and mistakes and thereby show your love to your partner.
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