6 Top Tips For A Better Relationship

Covid and particularly lockdown has brought along so many different stress factors that has increased pressure on relationships. From fear of infection to fighting infection, from job losses and financial pressure to working from home and homeschooling, from social limitations to experiencing cabin fever (walls closing in) and not to mention unequal distribution of household chores.

We have had to learn new ways of living and working in confinement at a speed we are just not used to and this has caused a lot of stress with little outlet outside of the home.

So what can be done?

6 Top Tips For A Better Relationship

Even the strongest of relationships needs work even if it is only a little tweak here and there to smooth the odd bump in the road. Here are some amazing suggestions that can help you improve your life.

1. Love yourself first before you can love someone else.

Take time for your own wellbeing. Make it a priority to take care of yourself and recharge your batteries regularly like making time for a hobby that you enjoy doing. Make a list of things that you enjoy that fill your particular needs and help you fill your self-love tank like have a soak in a bubble bath or reading a good book. When your self-love tank is full, you have enough love left to share with others.

2. Communitate effectively.

Communication is a big issue in relationships and it is so important to effectively communicate your truth, wants and needs. So often we expect our partners to read our minds and know what we need at any given time without having to express it verbally. Although this would be a wonderful superpower to have, us mere mortals will need to make due with communicating our needs if we want them met.

3. Listening to hear, don't listen to respond.

Listening to hear what your partner is communicating helps you to be present in the issue at hand and truelly make your partner feel heard. When both parties feel listened to and heard, issues can be resolved together as a team.

Listening to respond comes from a defensive position where you are eager to have a retoric ready in order to win ground over your partner. In this type of situation, you tend to dig up old disagreements and resentments to state your case which has the outcome of making your partner feel attacked and thus also respond defensively. Needless to say, the conversation is likely to escalate, leave things unresolved and have the feeling of being on opposite positions instead of working together to resolve the issue.

4. Hit Pause

Our best efforts to 'listen to hear' can sometimes go out the window when our buttons are pressed. If your argument escalates, it is ok and advisable to 'press pause' and agree to return to the discussion when you have both cooled down and can communicate with mutual respect and openness.

5. Speak The Lingo

Understand your own as well as your partner's love language. The 5 Love Languages roughly include words, gifts, touch, acts and time. For example, if time is your love language, you will appreciate undivided attention from your partner. If your partner's love language is words, he/she would register love through little notes or spoken words of appreciation of them. You may have a combination of love languages such as words and touch or touch and time.

By knowing how you experience love and how you want to receive love, will help you better communicate your particular love language to your partner. In the same way, knowing your partner's love language will help you show affection in a way that your partner appreciates and understands as being love.

(The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman.)

6. Make time

There are so many things that happen during the day and it is easy to just carry on with life and work through the never ending checklist. However, before you know it, you look up and you don't know the person you are with anymore and the gap seems too far to close.

However, with every effort made to reconnect is another step closer to each other. Make time for each other regularly so you can keep and build on that connection between you. Have a weekly date night or schedule in a bit of time every day to just talk or do something fun together. Sometimes this time will only be when the kids are asleep.

Incorporate these easy to implement Top Tips and I'm sure you and your partner will feel loved and appreciated this Valentine's Day.

Post contents inspired and adapted from Sieberhagen-Grey, Charlea. 'How we keep our love alive'. You Magazine, #737, 21 January 2021, p 20-21.

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