Nurturing Your Love

Barbara C. Yelverton, Ph.D.

Many people want to find love and to marry, fulfilling the dream of living happily ever after. Some, who are in search of the dream, enter therapy for help with what seems to be an impossible task. Often these people may focus their efforts on feeling deserving of love, or maybe working through some problems with the opposite sex parent, or past relationships that have resulted in painful endings. Working through the fears and hurts is a way to clear the way for love. It may also clear the way to finding a compatible person, and gaining the confidence to take a chance on love.

Once the wedding happens, some people believe that they are set for life and their attention shifts to housing, decorating, careers, and many other priorities. This shift of attention away from each other may result in a sad ending to the promise of “until death do us part.” So how do you preserve your marriage and your love? How do you nurture your love?

Love is like a flower. It grows and blooms when it is properly maintained. Love requires attention to flourish. As your read the ideas presented below, think of your love relationship (or one of the past) and ask yourself if your actions are (or were) helpful to staying in love.

Basic to maintaining love is mutual commitment. This is a foundation much as the soil is for a plant. It is normal for life to bring the challenges of ups and downs in careers, health, prosperity, etc, and it is normal to have disagreements. If both partners are committed to staying together through good and bad times, it creates strength and contributes to a feeling of safety. Sometimes people say things during arguments such as, “Maybe we shouldn’t be together.” If they mean it, that statement may be appropriate, but if they are saying it impulsively or as a way to get a reassuring statement back, they are undermining their partner’s confidence that there is a mutual commitment. Anything that undermines the confidence that “we are a team” weakens the bond of the relationship and makes it more susceptible to harm.

It is important to trust that your partner is there for you. Some couples would like to be there for their partner but do not understand how to behave so that their partner feels their support. Many a well-meaning partner has tried to give advice to help and support their partner but the partner most wants to be heard in a sympathetic way and wants to know that their viewpoint is understood. Sometimes listening is the most supportive behavior that can be done, other times support involves taking action and helping. Often support is first listening and showing concern and then making suggestions if they are desired.

A gardener enjoys being around plants. Likewise, basic to maintaining love is treating your partner as special. This is an attitude and way of being with each other in which each thrives. It is the mutual giving of many small acts of love. Think about whether you treat your partner as special. A special partner can feel taken for granted if you don’t shower when “just with them” but clean up to be with others. When you let yourself be grumpy at home, but are all smiles and friendly with friends. When you don’t show enthusiasm for spending time with them or listen to them with interest. If you give compliments to others but not to them, erroneously believing that they know you love them or appreciate them. If you always want your way and are slow to compromise or to go out of your way for your partner, they won’t feel special. Feeling important and special is fuel to the fire of love.

Flowers require time from the Gardner to thrive but so do relationships. For many couples, time is a scarce commodity. We are attempting to do more and more in less time, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. There is no way around it for both plants and people—they need their time! Some couples barely talk to each other. Making time to be together, to talk, or to do a mutual interest that is enjoyable is strengthening to relationships. One study found that if couples spend some time together every day for 30 days doing something that they enjoyed, their relationship improved as measured in marital satisfaction pre and post tests. Couples who do not know what they like doing together except to go out to dinner would do well to think about other activities that they could also enjoy together.

How you each think about each other greatly influences staying in love. Try this experiment: Make a list of what you like about your partner. Include in your list items about personality, character, talents, appearance, and everything you can think about in any category. Read over the list when completed and you will likely feel a warm loving feeling for your partner. Often when people feel this warm feeling, their behavior softens in a way that they barely recognize but is felt by their partner

You may have looked at other couples who appeared to be in love and noticed as I have that there are many styles of marriages that are satisfying and successful. The principles above are general but there may be some specifics that are important to your successful partnership. You and your partner might find it interesting and helpful to nurturing your love if you each thought about what kind of a relationship you would like and how you have that now and in what ways you could move toward that ideal. Give yourself some time to think about it, educate yourself, and talk about it with each other. It’s worthwhile to cultivate your relationship so that you both thrive and live “happily ever after”