Relationships can be difficult, even for the most committed and loving couples. Whether you’re dating or married, it’s important to make time for one another whether it’s a committed weekly date night, planned intimacy, or scheduling check-ins at the end of the work day. However, a psychologist says that one of the best ways to stay together is to actually make some time daily to stay apart.
Psychologist Dr. Mark Travers wrote that one of the best habits for the happiest couples to practice is for each person to take time for an “individual reset” each day. Each weekday can be filled with stress from answering emails from work, raising kids, and other tasks or interactions throughout that keep your brain focused, worried, processing, or all three. All of that stuff leaving you “on” could distract you or keep you feeling on edge when you’re supposed to be relaxed and focusing on time with your partner.
@jayshetty Quality time alone is only going to improve our quality time together ❤️
So while prioritizing time alone sounds illogical on paper, Dr. Travers says it’s important that each person takes some time alone after the work day ends to “reset” before engaging with their loved one. This can be a few minutes or an hour. You can do whatever you want during that time: a short walk outside, a full workout, transcendental meditation, or watching an episode or two of your favorite TV show. Do whatever recharges you, as long as you do it solo. Offering your partner time by themselves can be a gift to them as well.
@netsrikmal appreciating the time we hav together and apart #boyfriend #girlfriend #couple #relationship
Doing this individual reset allows you to mentally clear your plate, leaving you ready and open for time with your partner. This allows both of you to focus better on each other during your time together rather than juggling that alongside all the other thoughts, worries, to-do lists, and concerns that have piled up throughout the work day. “It might sound counterintuitive, but sometimes the best way to reconnect is to recharge separately first,” Travers shared on CNBC.
Making yourself ready and clear allows you to be present and better at all the other things that help keep romantic relationships alive and connected. By having your “me time,” the bit of “we time” you have with your partner will be more focused, whether it’s sharing dinner together, becoming physically intimate, or just playing a card game.
@spicycounselor Wanting time for yourself is part of a secure relationship. ⠀ When we feel comfortable with distance, when we can tolerate uncertainty, we build relationship with ourself. When we pair that with being ok with vulnerability and togetherness as well we have secure attachment. ⠀ Anxiety in relationships tells us that if we won’t spend all our time on communication or together, then something is wrong. ⠀ Avoiding intimacy over relies on independence and distance to cope with the discomfort present in emotional closeness. ⠀ We need distance and separateness in relationship however to balance our “we” identity vs our separate “I” identity. ⠀ Normalize asking for alone time and still offering clear communication and reassurance. ⠀ Normalize enjoying time separate and opening up fully to time together. ⠀ This is the paradox of closeness. ⠀ #relationships #healthyrelationships #dating #marriage #couplescounseling #attachmenttheory #alonetime #counselor #therapy
There are a few other daily habits that Dr. Travers recommends to keep relationships strong. One includes setting up a morning routine together to mentally remind yourselves that you’re a team, whether it’s getting up a little early to chat or just sipping coffee and quietly eating breakfast before work. Another is to regularly check-in with a text or a quick phone call throughout the day, even if all you end up doing is saying “I love you” or sharing a funny GIF. He also recommends doing a small “Are we okay?” audit before bed to get any issues out in the open before they grow too big to tackle.
So do your best to spend some time for yourself so you can be fully charged and present for the people you love most.
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Pictured: A healthy practice?
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.