5 Micro-Boosters That Keep Your Relationship Feeling Fresh And New
Renew the spirit of your relationship with these doable strategies.
Every long-term relationship goes through it’s “stuff,” and it’s not always easy to keep things fresh.
Routine niceties drop off when a relationship starts to go stale. Little nuances that kept love at the forefront, fall to the wayside when you begin to take someone for granted. As time takes its toll, a relationship can inexplicably erode like anything else if we’re not mindful.
We use birthdays and anniversaries to try to bring back some of those early feelings, but keeping a relationship vibrant, isn’t about creating excitement once or twice a year, it’s about daily maintenance.
By injecting daily micro-boosters into your relationship you can keep it blooming. Much like watering flowers or taking vitamins, it’s the little things we do every day that keep a relationship feeling brand new.
So if you’ve found things lacking or stagnating, injecting these five micro-boosters might be a doable way back to where you started. If your relationship is toxic, unfortunately, that’s above my pay grade. However, if you still have a lot of love but things are just a little rusty, this might be for you:
Check-in. My husband and I check-in throughout the day. We always have. Sometimes it’s just to say hi, how’s it going, I love you.
It’s a sweet way to keep the lines of communication open and to stay connected. If he’s having a bad day, he can have a second to vent. If the daycare kids do something funny, I can share that.
It’s a two-second conversation that says I’m thinking of you and something you’d have made time for at the beginning of your relationship.
Of course, there’s a fine line between sweet and thoughtful and needy and annoying, so you’ll have to monitor yourself to make sure you don’t get carried away.
Be polite. I still say please, and thank you to my husband. He says it to me, and we require it from our daughter. Even in our own house, behind closed doors with nobody watching.
Being polite isn’t just for bosses and strangers and seems to be the first thing couples drop from their roster once they get settled.
I show my husband that I don’t take him for granted after all of these years by asking for and receiving things politely.
Do a job you know they hate. My husband always shreds the cheese when we make pizza, I don’t even have to ask. That’s because it’s my most hated job in the kitchen.
If there’s a job that needs doing and your partner hates it, do it for them.
In the beginning, you’d have fallen over yourself to do these things. But once you’re together, you’re not trying to win them over anymore, so you probably stopped.
This is especially important if you’re with someone who always does things for you, it’s easy to get into a habit where you start to see them as the one who “does everything.”
Compliment them/tell them you’re proud. This may seem stupid, but I remember a girl I worked with walking into the room and saying, “Good morning gorgeous!”, to me many years ago and it felt good. It was just an offhand comment but it made my day.
I compliment my husband and daughter often and let them know when the little things they do make me proud.
It has the dual benefit of reinforcing good behavior and lets them know you’ve noticed. I think everyone deserves to feel validated and an easy way to facilitate that is to say a little something sweet. The idea is to find nice things to say to each other throughout the day.
Say I love you. I have a friend who’s been with her husband since college, and they’re one of the happiest couples I know. I remember overhearing them talking on the phone and saying, “Love you,” before they hung up.
I thought it was really special that after all those years, they still said it. I remember thinking how in love they still sounded.
Telling your partner, you love them in casual ways, reinforces the idea that love is still in the forefront of your relationship interwoven into even the smallest of interactions.
I don’t believe that it’s grand gestures that hold a relationship together, you can still feel alone at your own party. A piece of jewelry or bouquet of flowers won’t mean much if the love it’s celebrating is languishing.
When the things that made you feel special at the beginning of your relationship fade, it can start to feel stale, even when you still love each other.
Adding these micro-boosters, can freshen up your feelings and renew the spirit of your relationship to get love blooming again.
Thanks so much for reading!
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