Happy partnership

The secret of happy partnerships 👥 🫂

How to have a successful partnership?

Do you have the problem that your relationships fall apart again after a short time? That you are not happy in your relationships? Or maybe you don’t really know why your relationships are failing? In this article, we get to the bottom of the question of what the secret to long, fulfilling and happy relationships is

Happy partnerships require work

Many people have their dream partner in mind, who magically appears in their imagination at some point. They imagine that everything will be different with this one person. They tell themselves that their previous partnerships only didn’t work out because they hadn’t yet found the right partner. Do you feel the same way?

Then it’s all too easy to forget that a relationship won’t work out perfectly by itself. It takes a good deal of self-reflection to have a happy relationship that doesn’t end after a few months. What is important in a relationship? And what should you pay attention to if you want to have a happy relationship?

If your relationship is not happy at the moment, we have also put together some tips in the following link that can help you to save your relationship. Below you will find further specific tips that can help you and your partner to build a close relationship and be happy together.

John Gottman researches happy partnerships

The American psychologist, professor emeritus of psychology and author John Gottman has spent a considerable part of his life passionately pursuing the secret of fulfilling, happy relationships. His enthusiasm for this topic stemmed from the fact that he himself stumbled from one disastrous relationship to another.

He therefore joined forces with the then assistant professor Robert Levenson in the 1970s. The two of them began to analyze the relationships of different couples — in their relationship laboratory.

During the sessions, they had them talk about various topics. These included areas that were associated with conflict in their everyday lives and areas that they associated with positive emotions. The researchers filmed the couples and measured their heart rate, blood flow and sweat production.

By interviewing the participants again three years later, they found out which of the couples were still in a happy relationship. Over the years, Gottman and Levenson studied countless other couples and were eventually able to predict with a probability of up to 94% whether they would divorce.

Love Lab — The relationship laboratory

When John Gottman met his wife Julie, who was also a psychologist, he founded the so-called “Love Lab” with her — a relationship laboratory that was set up like an apartment. In other words, it was no ordinary apartment, but a room equipped with mirrored glass panes and cameras.

John Gottman and Julie invited couples to spend a few hours or days there and do the everyday things they did in their free time. This could be eating together, watching TV or reading. Their bodily functions were monitored via devices that they wore. Stress hormones from their urine were also examined and facial expressions and emotions analyzed.

Through this years-long research with data from thousands of couples, John Gottman finally discovered what makes a good relationship and the secret behind a happy partnership (1).

What is important for a happy relationship?

Through his analyses, relationship researcher John Gottman discovered that there are seven different areas that are essential for a fulfilling and happy relationship (1). We will introduce you to these areas and give you tips on how you can best implement them in your everyday life.

1️⃣ Take a genuine interest in your partner

At the beginning of a relationship, it is usually easy and natural to take an interest in your partner. Everything is new and exciting and you want to find out every last detail about your partner through rose-tinted spectacles.

But over time, everyday life returns. You think you now know your partner’s attitudes, values, wishes and fears because you’ve asked about them before. However, people often forget that everyone changes over time — including their partner.

Perhaps a healthy lifestyle has become more important to them over time, or perhaps honesty and trust have become less important to them because they have been betrayed so often.

For a happy partnership, it is therefore essential to keep sharing your thoughts, opinions and views. Some couples certainly have these conversations intuitively, but they often fall by the wayside due to a stressful everyday life with children or a demanding job.

Practice for everyday life

Try to build rituals into your everyday life — for example, by consciously taking time to talk to your partner in the morning about the day ahead or in the evening about the previous day.

Make sure you have conversations that go beyond everyday conversations. So there should be no discussion about who is doing the washing up, who is picking up the children from school or who is taking the dog for a walk. Talk to your partner about what is currently on their mind, what they are looking forward to or what they are worried about.

Incorporate conversations according to Lukas Moeller into everyday life

Michael Lukas Moeller, psychotherapist and author, developed the ‘dialogues’ method, which aims to consciously bring about communication in a relationship. It was developed primarily for couples and happy partnerships.

However, this method can also be used in other relationships, such as between parents and children, siblings, friends or work colleagues. We explain the procedure below: Make an appointment

Arrange a regular date with your partner during the week when you can sit down together for 60–90 minutes. Choose a comfortable place where you feel at ease and can look each other in the eye.

Make sure that you are not interrupted during this time. It is best to switch your cell phones to silent mode or have conversations when your children have already gone to bed.

Listen to your partner

The point of the two-way conversation is that everyone only talks about themselves. About what is important to them, what is on their mind, what they are afraid of or what they want. Everyone has the freedom to say what they want.

It is important that no questions are asked, no advice is given and no accusations are made against the person who is speaking. The other person’s statements should not be commented on in any way. Just listen to your partner.

Always take turns speaking

The first 10–15 minutes — depending on how much time you want to take for the conversation — one person speaks, then the other. Do this until everyone has spoken three times for 10–15 minutes. Use a timer/alarm clock

Set yourself an alarm clock/timer so that you keep to the alternating conversation times exactly.

If you would like to find out more about Michael Lukas Moeller’s method of dialog for a happy relationship, we recommend his book Die Wahrheit beginnt zu zweit: Das Paar im Gespräch.

2️⃣ See the good sides of your partner

At the beginning of a relationship, you mainly see the good sides of your partner. Of course, you may also notice the problematic aspects of your partner at the beginning, but they are often ignored or perceived as not so bad.

However, over time, after a few months or maybe even a year, you often notice more and more of your partner’s quirks or you suddenly find their idiosyncrasies more annoying.

Perhaps you realize that your partner is a terrible slob and only tidies up their home when there are already piles of dishes and laundry everywhere. Or you may be annoyed that your partner spends most of the day on their smartphone and is hardly available for proper communication. It may also bother you that your partner literally throws money out the window and complains at the end of the month that they can no longer afford anything.

If this disturbs your relationship, it is of course important for a happy partnership not to sweep such problems under the carpet and to talk about them. Problems are best addressed in first-person messages. You can find out exactly how to do this in our article How to resolve conflicts effectively.

Sometimes it is also unavoidable to pull the emergency brake and separate, for example if your partner is violent, narcissistic or unwilling to commit to a happy relationship — as described here. You can read more about the signs of a narcissistic partner in our article How to recognize narcissism in a relationship.

In many cases, however, it helps to become aware of the positive aspects of your partner again. Think about what strengths your partner has, what you admire them for, what they inspire you with and why you actually fell in love with them.

Don’t keep these insights to yourself, but give your partner recognition for the things you love about them. Gottman emphasizes how important it is to focus on appreciation and respect in a partnership. Destructive criticism and hostility, on the other hand, have no place in it.

Exercise: How to emphasize the good things about your partner

Express what you appreciate about your partner and emphasize the positive experiences. Is it the caring attitude he showed you the last time you were ill in bed? Is it his loving nature that you noticed when dealing with your children or animals? Is it his sense of humor that can make you laugh in any situation?

Let him know what you appreciate about him by saying a few kind words to him in person, giving him a treat with a little note that you leave on his desk or sending him a message.

You can also express your gratitude with small tokens of appreciation by bringing him little things that he particularly loves or taking on tasks that he doesn’t like to do or for which his time would be scarce at the moment. If you and your partner regularly incorporate this exercise into your everyday life, you are well on the way to a happy partnership.

3️⃣ Give your partner attention

In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it can happen that your thoughts are somewhere else entirely. Perhaps your attention is still on your job or already on your next appointment? Perhaps you are thinking about what you still need to buy?

In the long run, this absence can have a negative impact on a relationship. John Gottman emphasizes how important it is for a happy relationship to pay attention to your partner.

Try to actively listen to him when he tells you something, return eye contact and answer his questions. If you are not ready to actively listen at the moment, let your partner know that you would like to talk to them later.

If you generally find it difficult to live in the here and now and give your partner your full attention, you can work on yourself, e.g. with regular mindfulness training or meditation. In our article Mindfulness: the healing power of the moment, you will find some exercises that you can integrate into your everyday life.

4️⃣ Allowing yourself to be influenced by your partner

In his rese John Gottman found out how important it is for a happy relationship that you allow yourself to be influenced by your partner. This means sharing power and not making decisions for your own benefit, but taking your partner’s wishes and needs into consideration and finding compromises.

An example of this would be not buying a new television when your partner or family might need something else much more urgently.

In a long-term study of newly married couples, the relationship researcher found that the probability of a failing marriage increases by 81% if the man does not allow himself to be influenced by his wife. But why was only the influence of women on men examined? It seems that this issue mainly affects men. Women are generally more likely to be influenced by their partners.

However, a happy partnership is not just about big decisions, but generally about respectful cooperation, even in everyday conflict situations. It’s about listening to your partner’s opinions and points of view, taking them seriously, respecting them and incorporating them into your own considerations.

Let’s say your partner would like to travel in a camper van, but you would like to stay in a hotel during your vacation. Instead of immediately rejecting the suggestion, you could listen to why your partner prefers this type of travel. Perhaps they want to be closer to nature and get to know more new places and people.

Your partner may come to the conclusion that you don’t think it’s such a bad idea, as you also love to go on vacation away from the hustle and bustle, which would be compatible with a bus trip.

5️⃣ Solve solvable problems

Arguments are part of every relationship — but it’s how you resolve them that matters. Let’s say you are terribly annoyed because your partner is often late for appointments. You would like to shoot him to the moon and take your anger out on him. You accuse him of being upset that he never arrives on time, that you are always waiting because of him and that you have to apologize to friends or family for his behaviour. Of course, it is not always possible to avoid reacting in this way.

However, John Gottman found that couples who live in a happy partnership do not come home with criticism or accusations. They speak in a gentle tone instead of shouting at the other person. They try to de-escalate, i.e. calm down the discussion instead of insulting and hurting each other. They also accept the other person’s attempts to de-escalate the discussion.

For example, you could address the problem of unpunctuality in the form of an “I” message to let the other person know that this is not okay with you. You can find out how best to do this and how you can find solutions to your problem in our article How to resolve conflicts effectively. Couples who live in a happy partnership also make an effort to find compromises and tolerate each other’s faults instead of dwelling on them.

In the case of unpunctuality, for example, you could find ways of dealing with it:

If the movie or an event starts at 7pm and you know your partner is usually 15 minutes late, agree to meet at 6:30pm so that they show up on time. Or use the time you are waiting by answering emails or messages or making a phone call.

6️⃣ Devote yourself to unsolvable problems

In addition to the solvable problems in partnerships, there are always those that cannot be solved — where the parties involved cannot come to an agreement. This can be the case, for example, if one person wants to have children and the other does not. If one person dreams of having their own pet and the other suffers from an animal hair allergy. Or if one person is messy and the other values cleanliness.

But even in these cases, it is important not to let the issues fall by the wayside, but to talk about them. According to John Gottman, it is essential for a happy partnership to take a closer look at the problem and find out what is behind it — what dream or desire is associated with it.

Perhaps a conversation will make it clear that the desire to have children is intended to satisfy the need for a deep connection and the desire to leave something behind in the world. Your partner may have similar needs, but wants to live them out in a different way and without children.

If you both talk about your needs and dreams and respect the other person for who they are, this can ease the tension. After all, it makes a difference whether you see your partner as someone who wants something different that you can’t understand yourself or whether you realize that you are perhaps not so dissimilar.

A conversation can also open up possibilities for compromises or ideas on how you can live your dream yourself or support your partner in their big dream. After all, the better each partner can realize their dreams, the happier they will be and the happier the partnership will be.

7️⃣ Creating meaning together

Meaning means something different for everyone. As the word suggests, a shared sense of purpose should be something that a couple finds meaningful — something they are passionate about and that brings them joy.

This could be shared goals that you pursue, such as starting a family, working towards a house in the country or achieving professional success. Meaning can also mean pursuing joint projects, such as looking after animals that need a home or planting a garden so that you can live self-sufficiently at some point in the future.

Shared values can also be meaningful. For example, you could do sports together, cook healthy meals together or travel together. Meaning is something very individual — what one couple finds meaningful may be completely pointless for another couple.

For a happy partnership, it is therefore important to find out what both of you find meaningful and to integrate these goals or projects into your everyday life.

Happy partnership: Birds of a feather flock together

Above, we have already described what makes a happy, fulfilling partnership and how you can work on being happy with your partner for a long time. However, according to a German study from 2008, there are also other factors that influence how long a partnership or relationship lasts.

Researchers Beatrice Rammstedt and Jürgen Schupp found that certain characteristics go well together, while others can disrupt the harmony of a relationship. In a survey of almost 7,000 couples, it became clear that they were similar in three characteristics in particular:

In conscientiousness, openness to new things and agreeableness.

The longer the couples had been together, the more similar they were in these characteristics.

Conscientiousness

Conscientiousness means that someone is responsible and reliable and completes tasks accurately and thoroughly. An example of this would be that both partners clean or tidy up equally thoroughly. This means that one of them does not take household tasks very seriously, but the other prefers to go out with friends on the agreed cleaning day or only cleans those areas that are easy to reach.

Openness to new things

If someone is open to new things, this means that they enjoy getting to know new cultures and places, new people, new sports or other activities. If, for example, one person likes to spend their vacations in the same place and with the same people every year, while the other prefers to get to know new countries, the study found that this can lead to difficulties in the relationship in the long term.

Compatibility

Even someone who is compatible, i.e. warm-hearted, helpful, friendly or compassionate, will not be happy in the long term with someone who tends to think only of themselves, does not empathize with others or is constantly starting arguments.

However, similarities in other areas of life also seem to play a role in the duration of the relationship and consequently also in a happy partnership. For example, couples who are similarly attractive and intelligent, who earn a similar amount and belong to a similar social class and religion seem to stay together longer.

How you too can have a happy partnership?

Happy partnerships mean work. They don’t just fall from the sky, but require self-reflection. Are you genuinely interested in your partner? Do you appreciate his or her good sides? Do you give your partner attention? Do you take their needs and wishes into consideration? Are you able to resolve conflicts effectively?

Think about whether you are implementing all seven areas described above in your current relationship or have implemented them in past relationships and which ones you should still focus on. If your current or future partner is also willing to work on themselves, you are well on the way to a long-lasting, happy relationship.

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